Dr. Larry Kimura, MA, PhD is recognized as the grandfather of the
movement to perpetuate the use of Hawaiian
language in modern Hawai'i. His PhD is
in Indigenous Language Revitalization. As
the Assistant Professor of Hawaiian Language
and Culture, Kimura has spent twenty years
creating audio documentation of the last native Hawaiian language speakers. He is co-founder of Hawai'i's Punana Leo Hawaiian Language Immersion Schools and Chairman of the Hawaiian Lexicon Committee to create new Hawaiian words. Kimura also
serves as Hawaiian Cultural Planner and Interpreter for the University of Hawai'i at Hilo's 'Imiloa Center
It was great to reconnect with him last month in Hilo at the International Indigenous Language Symposium. He told us a little more about himself.
June Tanoue: I read a beautiful article about your father Hisa Kimura. I can see that many pono values were instilled in you when you grew up. What was life like for you growing up?
Larry Kimura: My siblings (two older sisters and two younger brothers) grew up with parents who loved their home in Waimea and who were loyal to their employment. My father worked for the Parker Ranch all of his life mostly in the field of agronomy, caring for the pasture feed for the cattle and horses of the ranch and my mother was employed as a telephone operator, a secretary to the ranch's doctor at our dispensary and the manager of a rose farm.
We were raised to be mindful of others and things around us, work for what we attain, and be grateful for what we have. We were taught to respect our place, the land around us and the life on it.
My father, a pure Japanese nisei was born and raised in Waimea like most of his siblings and my mother's family goes back for many generations in Waimea.
They knew the land "like the back of their hand" as the expression goes. Now that the term "aloha ʻāina" is becoming more used, I always compare the meaning of this Hawaiian term to how my parents lived their lives in their home place, community and extended connections to a larger world.
The lessons start from birth, belonging to a place, being aware and sensitive not only to the physical and practical but also to our spiritual relationship to a place and its life forces.
June: I didn't realize that you were one of the founders of Punana Leo back in the early 80's. I was so impressed with Nawahi! What were you thinking when you started Punana Leo and how does it feel now when you think about Nawahi?
Larry: When a small group of us started Punana Leo, I knew that we needed to do more than teach it as a typical second language at high school or college, because I wanted Hawaiian to live and teaching it that way would not bring life back to the language.
We needed to return the language to the home so we wanted to get to the babies. This way the babies at Punana Leo hear it and speak it like they would at home then they take Hawaiian back into their real homes.
Using our language with the children as the medium of their education like at Nāwahīokalaniʻōpʻu, moving from preschool to kindergarten and all the way until graduating from high school and into college, proves that Hawaiian speaking children can be healthy, successful, contributing citizens of the world while at the same time bringing life to the Hawaiian language and the Hawaiian way of life.
June: 'Imiloa is also very impressive. Any comments about your work with 'Imiloa?
Larry: ʻImiloa was born out of a need to incorporate cutting edge astronomy with people, especially with the Hawaiian people whose place, Maunakea, was becoming the prime location in the world for modern astronomy. In this regard, ʻImiloa is a unique astronomy education center.
June: Your PhD thesis also sounds fascinating - "An Analysis of the Terminal Language of the Native Hawaiian Speaker: A Comparison of the Native Language of Two Generations, the Standard Language of the Parent and the Persistent Language of the Offspring." It's focused on sensitizing Hawaiian language instruction to the informal register of language use, in order to accommodate a more holistic approach for Hawaiian proficiency. What were your findings?
Larry: My thesis acknowledges the last of the native Hawaiian speakers as the language that was passed down from parents to children all the way back from the time of Hāloa. Today, that family language line has essentially been severed and the current mode of revitalizing Hawaiian through second language learners must commit to the standards left by our native Hawaiian speakers.
June: And finally - language and the hula. What are your thoughts about the importance of the language when you dance hula?
Larry: The way the words are composed carries the spirit and meaning of a hula therefore knowing the intended meaning of the words makes a hula what it should be.