A Punahou moʻolelo: the creation of institutional memory and myth

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper investigates how Punahou School, a K-12 Hawaiʻi private school with tremendous local influence, has represented its history and particularly its ties to the U.S. colonization of Hawaiʻi. This account of how various actors tell, grapple with, or memorialize violent histories has implications locally for the Hawaiian sovereignty movement and broadly for questions surrounding memory and representation. I argue that Punahou has employed a two-pronged approach to representing its historical founding and articulating a school identity: first, Punahou has strategically sanitized the history of its founding to present a narrative that glorifies the missionary project and implies, or at least fails to question, the notion that the Christianization and colonization of Hawaiʻi were beneficial. Second, Punahou has incorporated – or, alternatively, appropriated – Hawaiian cultural symbolism, moʻolelo, and heritage to indigenize itself, thus deemphasizing the role the school itself has played in the erasure of those very same hallmarks of indigeneity. The impact of Punahou’s representational strategies is to erase the brutality of the missionary project and settler colonialism; normalize colonial ideas, behaviors, and histories; and grant implicit pardon to Punahou as an institution from reckoning with its violent history.