In this episode, Farina King and Eva Bighorse co-host a conversation with Derek Taira who is an associate professor of history and educational policy at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. He earned his Ph.D. in history and educational policy studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Coming from a long line of public-school teachers, Derek teaches and writes about the histories and politics of education in Hawaiʻi and the U.S. as well as multicultural education. His first book is forthcoming (scheduled to be published by June 2024), which is titled “Forward without Fear: Native Hawaiians and American Education in Territorial Hawaiʻi, 1900-1941,” stemming from the Native Hawaiian phrase of "Imua, Me Ka Hopo Ole." We talk with Derek about the significance of his research, which traces the social and cultural experiences of Kānaka Maoli, or Native Hawaiians, in American schools during the first half of the twentieth century. Derek illuminates how historical awareness helps people to understand the complex ways schools have been both contested sites of conflict and spaces of opportunity for marginalized communities such as Kānaka Maoli. He also considers differences and similarities of diverse Indigenous educational experiences in U.S. schooling systems of settler colonialism.
Some additional resources:
Indigenous Education Speakers' Series: Derek Taira with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Department of Educational Policy Studies, "Littoral Hawai'i- Situating the American West in Oceania through Hawai'i's History of Education," YouTube video posted November 2, 2022.
Derek Taira, "Colonizing the Mind: Hawaiian History, Americanization, and Manual Training in Hawaiʻi’s Public Schools, 1913–1940," Teachers College Record 123, issue 8 (2021): 59-85. https://doi.org/10.1177/01614681211048625
Derek Taira short biography and description of research in "2019 NAEd/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellows," National Academy of Education, https://naeducation.org/2019-naed-spencer-postdoctoral-fellows/.
"COE Faculty Member is Awarded $45K Grant by Spencer Foundation," April 13, 2018, https://coe.hawaii.edu/edef/news/coe-faculty-member-is-awarded-45k-grant-by-spencer-foundation/.
Pre-order Derek Taira's book Forward without Fear: Native Hawaiians and American Education in Territorial Hawai'i, 1900-1941 from the Studies in Pacific Worlds Series of the University of Nebraska Press (June 2024).