Former Gov. Ben Cayetano apologized this week after receiving harsh blowback and lessons in Hawaiian history and language when he questioned why he never knew any Native Hawaiian classmates who were beaten in school for speaking Hawaiian.
Cayetano, 83, made the comment on Facebook in response to a Honolulu Star- Advertiser article published Monday on a state House resolution apologizing for what essentially resulted in a 90-year ban on speaking Hawaiian in public and private schools until 1986, along with other non-English languages.
After a follow-up apology on Facebook, Cayetano also was called out for improperly using the term “kupunas.”
“My comments elicited an angry response from Hawaiians who felt offended by my words, some accusing me of not feeling empathy for our kupunas who as children were beaten for violating the 1896 ban on speaking the Hawaiian language in school,” Cayetano wrote after firing up social media all day Tuesday, including a denunciation on the floor of the state House.
“Those who know me know I am blunt in expressing myself. But When I make a mistake I own it. On this issue I have been educated and embarrassed. To our kupunas and all who were offended by my choice of words I offer my heartfelt apology.”
Cayetano later told the Star-Advertiser, “It’s ‘kupuna.’ I got corrected for using ‘kupunas.’ I got a lesson in Hawaiian.”
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The episode particularly raised eyebrows because Cayetano served as lieutenant governor under John Waihee, Hawaii’s first Native Hawaiian governor. And as governor himself from 1994 to 2002, Cayetano infamously used the pidgin term for dark-skinned people — “popolo” — during Black History Month in 1998. (He told the Star-Advertiser on Wednesday that his comment was taken out of context.)
Now his wife, Vicky Cayetano, is running for governor, and Cayetano’s Facebook post elicited a comment from Hawaiian activist Walter Ritte that Cayetano may have cost his wife votes, the former governor said.
Vicky Cayetano, a business entrepreneur and former first lady, told the Star- Advertiser in an email: “My husband and I do not always agree on everything. The recent statement on his Facebook page is an example of this.
“He should have checked the facts further before commenting on an issue so hurtful to the Native Hawaiian community — past and present. His apology is, I hope, at least a step in communicating the error of his ways and his acknowledgement of the pain he has caused.
“From my perspective, I am in strong support of the perpetuation and celebration of the Hawaiian language.
“I realize that there is more work to be done to heal from the past and to perpetuate the Hawaiian language. As governor, I will work with the Department of Education and the University system to advance Hawaii’s indigenous language in our educational system.”
In a since-deleted post Tuesday morning, Cayetano angered Hawaiians and supporters of House Concurrent Resolution 130, which apologizes for what was a ban on speaking Hawaiian and other non-English languages in public and private school classrooms between 1896 and 1986.
In his Facebook post, Cayetano included a snapshot of Monday’s front-page story and photograph in the Star-Advertiser about HCR 130, which was adopted earlier this month by the Legislature. The resolution was driven by state Rep. Patrick Pihana Branco (D, Kailua- Kaneohe), who said his great-grandfather Edward Pihana was beaten for speaking Hawaiian in schools and then beaten at home for speaking English.
Cayetano, a lawyer, questioned whether the ban was “set forth in law or regulation? Or did it start when Queen Ka‘ahumanu rejected the kapu religion, embraced Christianity, banned hula dancing and used her power to enforce assimilation of her subjects to Christianity?”
Trisha Kehaulani Watson, a legal expert and consultant on Hawaiian culture, posted a 2017 law review article out of California on Cayetano’s Facebook page titled “Language Suppression, Revitalization, and Native Hawaiian Identity.”
She told the Star- Advertiser, “It was a law passed by the Provisional Government that required English-only instruction in an intentional effort to strip language and culture from Native Hawaiians and other groups that came here. But it was more harmful to Hawaiians because Hawaiian had been the primary language for centuries.”
Cayetano estimated the number of responses to his post at about 100, but state Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole (D, Kailua-Kaneohe), chairman of the Native Hawaiian legislative caucus, said the number was well over 200 and included a videotaped oral history interview with a kupuna who recalled being beaten, and references to a desire by the provisional government and subsequent territorial government to “exterminate the Hawaiian language.”
Cayetano said he apologized after being told by a friend Tuesday night that the ban on Hawaiian language likely applied to the generation before Cayetano and his classmates were in school, even though it remained on the books until 1986.
“It made sense,” he said. “That’s what happened in New Zealand with the Maori. So I got the answer to the first question. The second question about the law, yeah, there was a law. Both questions were answered.
“All I did was share my experiences when I was going to school in the ’40s,” Cayetano said. “So the ban had served its objective. I didn’t say it didn’t happen. But people were using words like ‘colonization.’ … So I apologized.”
Jon Osorio, dean of the Hawai‘inuiakea School of Hawaiian Knowledge at the University of Hawaii, said the English-only policy was put in place at a time when Hawaii was getting reorganized after the 1893 illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom.
The goal was to “assimilate this polyglot civilization into American society, and they all agreed it basically began with English,” Osorio said. “So principals and teachers would beat Hawaiian students for speaking Hawaiian, beat Chinese students for speaking Mandarin, beat Japanese students for speaking Japanese.”
Branco said he appreciated Cayetano’s apology but felt the former governor also had questioned his ancestors’ integrity and truthfulness.
Cayetano’s Facebook posts, Branco said, show “that the work doesn’t end here (with the apology resolution). The need continues to even educate a former governor about Hawaiian history.”
Keohokalole dates his lineage in Kaneohe to the 1500s, including his grandmother Emma Keohokalole, a Hawaiian speaker who died in 2005 at the age of 94.
At the age of 85, UH Hawaiian-language professors videotaped an interview in Hawaiian with Keohokalole so she could share her stories, her grandson said.
“I shared Ben’s post, and I said, ‘My grandmother told us stories about being beaten in elementary school with her girlfriends,’” Keohokalole said. “I think it is good and healthy to have these conversations about our history, and it shouldn’t be limited to Native Hawaiians. It continues to this day with the Micronesian community. I was not happy with what Ben said. But I think it is admirable that in the end he changed his mind and took accountability. That does not happen on social media.”
As for that 1998 comment then-Gov. Cayetano made during Black History Month, Cayetano said it was taken out of context and he had to answer for it.
He said he was giving a speech at one of Honolulu’s elite clubs when he recalled a trip to Tokyo where he saw a club called Club Popolo.
“I mentioned that, and a reporter wrote it down and I said, ‘You’re writing that in context?’ and all she said was, ‘You said it.’ Then it came out and I had to explain it.”
