On Oct. 31, when most schools in Hawaii were celebrating Halloween, Nawahiokalani‘opu‘u School in Keaau celebrated Hawaii’s Japanese heritage. Japanese language teaching is the strongest component of the school’s Heritage Language Program that honors immigrant ancestors. ADVERTISING On Oct. 31,
On Oct. 31, when most schools in Hawaii were celebrating Halloween, Nawahiokalani‘opu‘u School in Keaau celebrated Hawaii’s Japanese heritage. Japanese language teaching is the strongest component of the school’s Heritage Language Program that honors immigrant ancestors.
The connection to Halloween was that the European custom of Halloween remembers the dead by impersonating them and feeding them candy. Feeding the dead is not a feature of Hawaiian culture, but carrying on cultural practices from ancestors is. This perspective resulted in the school’s extensive Japanese language program, said a school spokesman.
Although there are no pure Japanese students at Nawahi, part Japanese ancestry is a strong component of the school population.
Nawahi school is the Hawaiian language medium laboratory school of Ka Haka ‘Ula O Ke‘elikolani Hawaiian language college of the University of Hawaii at Hilo. Its student body studies all subject areas through Hawaiian and from a Hawaiian perspective. All elementary school students study oral and written Japanese.
Learning kanji, or Chinese characters, is an especially strong component of Nawahi’s Heritage Language Program. Because of structural similarities between Hawaiian and several Asian languages, all Nawahi students also learn to write Hawaiian with kanji.
The La Kepani (Japanese Day) celebration on Halloween at Nawahi brought students and community members together for a day of shared cultural activities and student demonstrations.
