No Place for Hate

Every year, students in 7th and 8th Grades spend weeks working on research papers for National History Day, and then turning those papers into poster projects, documentaries, and websites that they present to a panel of judges made up of fellow Island School students and teachers, as well as parents and community members. Led through this process by their teachers Pat Gegen and Jamie Nause, our students presented these projects to the Island School community just last week.

The theme for this year’s National History Day was Revolution, Reaction, and Reform in History. Ms. Nause and Mr. G encouraged students to pick turning-point moments in history that challenged them and sparked their curiosity. It is important for our students to put in the hours of research into these projects, to learn about challenging moments in history, and understand how these moments have ripple effects into our present day. One of the main goals of the National History Day process is for students to explore and analyze both the short-term and long-term impacts of major historical events, and what we can gain today from learning about those pivotal times from our collective past. This year specifically, students studied the reactions caused by different historical moments, and how they spurred changes in our societies through to today.

And so I reflect today on how projects like this are essential in building context for how we want to be…to understand our past, the complexities of it and hard truths of it…in order to shape our today and the future we want to build. And so as our students presented on E Ola Mau I Ka 'Ōlelo Hawai'i: how a preschool saved the Hawaiian language, including WHY Hawaiian language needed to be saved, the challenging history of the annexation of Hawaiʻi, the history of how fascist power rose up in 1930s Germany and the weapons of propaganda and scapgoating built on fear led to unimaginable death and destruction across the world as well as here in Hawaiʻi. And we must use these lessons from our past and in our daily work on the playground, on the athletic field, in our text strings, in our homes, in our communities to continue to foster the idea that there is No Place for Hate. 

So while this is a long missive today, I truly hope you can take the time to read to the end.

I was thrilled to receive a shirt designed and printed by students with values they wanted to promote. The first one I received and chose to wear today simply says, “Kind,” with the Island School “i” in the middle. I don’t mean to boil down heavy world issues to kindness, but we need to ask ourselves, what are we promoting and modeling in our daily lives for our children? 

I was deeply saddened to be asked to spend school resources on professional security because too many people feel unleashed to hurl words of hatred towards referees and players during and after high school athletic games. After the Moanalua High School Athletic Director was assaulted on Oʻahu, and we saw escalation on our own fields and courts, our coaches and athletic leadership felt we needed to do more to protect our players and referees and set a tone of fairness and respect at least at the games we host. There’s No Place for Hate in athletic competition.

I was deeply troubled to learn of the vandalism on the Nounou (Sleeping Giant) hiking trail right here on our home and the violence and hatred through the images of swastikas as well as the “n…” word that someone/people chose to inflict on the entire community, and particularly target our Jewish and Black/Brown/African-American brothers and sisters. How dare they choose hate to inflict harm in what should only be a place of beauty, peace, and sanctuary, as if these vandals have a right to try and say who is a part of our community. Anti-semitism and Racism has no place on our island. There is No Place for Hate on Kauaʻi.

My heart aches every time I do my due diligence as an Island School community leader to read the national news. While people have many different opinions about public policy, I am fearful of what the deaths of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti and other events that have emerged in Minnesota mean for our nation and for all of us in terms of how we define what it means to be a citizen. And in particular in the context of Hawaiʻi, as community members have already experienced the presence of ICE right here, we have to keep pushing on our shared values and how we want to raise our children. There is No Place for Hate in our nation.

     

And so, I continue to be reflective of what it means to strongly believe that there is No Place for Hate in our world, in our communities, in our schools, in our homes. Today is officially Fred Kormatzu Day in the State of Hawaiʻi along with many other states across the nation. Long before I moved to Hawaiʻi, I was moved by his story because he was from my hometown, San Leandro, and I was inspired by his refusal to accept that during World War II people of Japanese descent were “enemies of the state” simply because they were of Japanese heritage. The underlying hatred that made the incarceration of of American citizens of Japanese descent acceptable in prisons across the West (such as Manzanar) and here in Hawaiʻi at Honouliuli and Sand Island; that made the killing of Jewish people in Nazi Germany in death camps such as Auschwitz and many other Death Camps across Europe (as well as the Roma, the disabled, and gay people), continues to be a position we must still actively be vigilant against - There is No Place for Hate in our world.

At Island School, we believe that teaching children about history as well as current events is vitally important to our mission of “preparing Kauaʻi youth to lead lives of significance.” We understand that when we dehumanize another person or group, we are opening the door to what too quickly becomes hatred and violence against others. We want our students to be able to go into the world equipped with the knowledge of history and the core values of respect, a strong work ethic, and stewardship for community and the land so that they, and we, can do better into the future.

We will continue to double-down on how we live and care for each other in our School, our community, and beyond. We will continue to educate ourselves and our students to recognize when dehumanizing behavior emerges through hateful language or actions in our community and beyond, and we will build our skills to stand against it, to report it when we see it, to call it out in order to help each other grow and be better. As an educator, I truly believe everyone in our community has a duty to take action to fulfill our responsibility to live with the understanding that because we are all connected, that our futures are intertwined and that we rise and fall together…There is No Place for Hate.

With true gratitude to you for making it to the end of this message, as always we are so grateful to you for entrusting Island School with the education of your children.

Together,

Nancy Nagramada P’29

Head of School

n.nagramada@ischool.org