KC3 Mid-Quarter Exam Final Draft Essay

In the 2010 census of Hawaii statistics showed that 23.6% of Hawaii’s residents had a multi-cultural background. 10% of which is of Hawaiian ancestry while the rest are Asian, Hispanic, Caucasian, etc. The Hawaiian language, ethnicity and culture is at stake of becoming extinct while the culture has been disappearing over the years. Native Hawaiian culture isn’t as strong as it used to be and the new generation isn’t understanding or even knowing their own roots, thus the reason for the declining native Hawaiian culture.

            Hawaiian as a language is on the brink of being endangered and the people are to blame. When a survey was conducted it showed that native speakers of Hawaiian amounted to under 0.1% of the state’s population. That small number of people is probably shrinking day by day and it’s almost like they’re not even trying to bring it back. Many of the people that come to Hawaii are from other places and they mostly speak English and I think this discourages the use of Hawaiian. The amounts of schools that teach Hawaiian dwindle in small amounts and those schools either don’t teach it fully or don’t teach the language at all. The official language of Hawaii is Hawaiian yet why don’t a lot of people speak it? People probably won’t try to learn the language both since learning a language gets harder with aging and because so little people speak the language you don’t really know who to learn from. The language is isn’t doing well because of the fact that English is such a popular language and it’s leaving Hawaiian to fade away.

            The ethnicities of the Hawaiians are also dying out, not as rapidly as when the missionaries came to Hawaii but it’s almost at a standstill. When Captain Cook came to Hawaii the Hawaiians flourished in numbers between 300,000 and 400,000. They all died so fast it’s scary and it’s all because they didn’t have immunity towards diseases like how the foreigners did. Plus Hawaiians didn’t have enough money to go to hospitals until the Kapiolani hospital was made, but that was way later in the years. There are fewer than 8,000 pure Hawaiians living today and most of those Hawaiians have less than 50% of Hawaiian blood in them. Interracial marriages are the cause since they thin out the blood line and since there are so many mixed races here the Hawaiian people aren’t staying strong like they used to. It is against the law for family to marry each other as well so they can’t keep the blood as pure as they could before. The Hawaiian ethnicity is disappearing and will keep doing so as long as the more new people come to Hawaii and change the next generations to come.

            The Hawaiian culture is slowing coming to a standstill as Hawaii continues to modernize with the rest of the world and it’s starting to forget about its roots and culture. Hawaii has become more westernized since the arrival of the whole annexation and missionaries coming to Hawaii. If you look at the majority of the people living in Hawaii they aren’t eating poi and Kailua pork as much as the westernized foods like McDonalds and Taco Bell. With western ways, it makes the people lazier since they don’t have to do as much physical labor and that’s the downfall since the people won’t even think about the old traditional ways. Hawaii is also a much known tourist spot attracting almost 8 million tourists a year. When you come to Hawaii, if you haven’t noticed, there are tourists EVERYWHERE you go. We can’t really stop this over population since we need the money and being the “most beautiful paradise” we will attract many curious eyes will look at our islands. Tourism is the state’s primary industry and because of this and the modernization of Hawaii continuing the culture of our state will always be behind and hidden from the people that don’t see past the nice hotels and fruit cocktails on the beach.

            Altogether the language, ethnicity and culture will cease to exist at the rate the declination is going at. Native Hawaiian culture isn’t as strong as it used to be and the new generation isn’t understanding or even knowing their own roots, thus the reason for the declining native Hawaiian culture. This issue is important because once something turns extinct there is no hope in bringing it back and it will be gone forever. This means the Hawaiian language will be gone forever and no one will be able to revive it back to how it once was. It matters in society because we live in the islands of Hawaii therefore should be surrounded in the culture and not forget the roots of its people.