We Are Hawaiian Use Your Library Jun 2026

Then came the 19th century. The Hawaiian Kingdom, under the leadership of King Kamehameha II and III, became one of the most literate nations on earth. Missionaries introduced the written Hawaiian alphabet, and our people devoured it. By 1834, we had our first newspaper, Ka Lama Hawaii . For the next century, our ancestors filled thousands of pages with letters, legal documents, songs, and recipes.

The overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893 was not just a theft of land; it was a theft of narrative. The provisional government burned books. They banned the Hawaiian language from schools. They wanted us to believe that our culture was dead, that our history began with Captain Cook, and that we were merely a footnote in an American story. we are hawaiian use your library