Haunani-Kay Trask’s voice and vision aim to be carried forward with new generations of readers and listeners through a new memoir and podcast.
During her lifetime, Trask was known for her dedication to advocacy, education, and the preservation of Hawaiians. She is regarded as an exemplary scholar, teacher, poet, and mentor who inspired Kānaka with a commitment to Hawaiʻi’s sovereignty and champion of aloha ʻāina.
She began her academic career at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in 1981 as an assistant professor of American studies. Her life partner, David Stannard, was a professor in the same department.
Memoir from life partner
Stannard is in the midst of writing a memoir on the life he and Haunani shared.
He told HPR that he met Trask at a dinner party in March 1980. Their partnership began four months later and lasted until she died in 2021 at age 71.
“More than forty years that we spent together almost constantly, unless one of us was out of town,” Stannard said in an email. “One thing you are unlikely to know is that Haunani never learned how to drive, so I drove us to work and home every day.”
Stannard shared that intellectually and temperamentally, they blended from the night they met.
“We rarely argued about almost anything. Other than truly minor trivialities, such as which wine would go better with dinner,” he wrote. “We never fully resolved the question of whether the massive collapse of the Native Hawaiian population following contact with the outside world constituted genocide. I said no, because of a lack of intent on behalf of the European intruders, while she argued that what happened was ‘cultural genocide.’”
Over time, Stannard saw Trask fight and win struggles, small and large, including when a McDonald’s was opening where they first lived in Waimānalo and at the university where they both worked.
“There was no way to stop them from selling burgers there, but the big issue was whether or not they would be allowed to violate an established code and add a parking lot,” he said. “This sounds so trivial, but not for Haunani. She organized meetings at our house with community people, then crossed the road to Hawaiian Homes and went door to door asking them to join the effort. They did. And we won — McDonald's lost.”
"Big Mac: The Unauthorized Story of McDonald's" was published in 1976 and reported that people in communities all over the U.S., from Los Angeles and San Francisco to New York City, were trying to stop the massive growth of McDonald's, and almost none of them succeeded. But thanks to "HKT," Waimānalo did.
Overcoming adversity at UH
In the fall of 1986, Trask was transferred out of the American Studies Department at UH Mānoa as part of a racism and sexism grievance. In her book, “From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaiʻi,” she discussed a five-year battle experiencing racism, harassment, and violation of academic freedom to teach certain subjects and ideas.
Stannard explained that this led to her being moved to a then-forming committee that was working on the possibility of creating a Department of Hawaiian Studies.
“She essentially took over the leadership of the project and, with initial help from a dean named Tony Marsella, turned that small project into what became the Center for Hawaiian Studies. … And then to a standalone building. She became director,” Stannard said.
Trask is credited today as a cofounder of the contemporary field of Hawaiian Studies and the founding director of UH Mānoa’s Center for Hawaiian Studies, later renamed the Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies.
Former students highlight Trask's voice in upcoming podcast
A podcast series hopes to bring together the voice, power, and political analysis of Trask.
“We are not American!” “Say it in your heart, say it when you sleep! We are not American, we will die as Hawaiians, we will never be Americans!”
The words were delivered in a powerful speech by Haunani-Kay Trask on Jan. 17, 1993, at ʻIolani Palace in Honolulu. The event marked the centennial observance of the Illegal Overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, where thousands gathered for the ʻOnipaʻa Peace March.
Noelani Goodyear-Kaʻōpua is a professor of political science at UH Mānoa who once studied under Trask and is a current trustee at Kamehameha Schools.
She said that hearing Trask's speech in 1993 was one of the reasons she returned to Hawaiʻi to study.
“There was so much going on. The Hawaiian people and nation were rising up and reclaiming a history that had been suppressed. Kumu Haunani was a major force in bringing that history back to light,” Goodyear-Kaʻōpua said.
“Most local folks were not taught in school that there was an illegal overthrow, and that there was widespread resistance among Kānaka and other subjects of the kingdom at the time. Kumu Haunani and her colleagues at the Center for Hawaiian Studies were critical in bringing that history back to life. She connected the dots for us to be able to see how that history mattered in the present.”
She shared that she remembers vividly that Trask would play Nā Maka o Ka ʻĀina documentary videos. The independent video production team made more than 100 documentaries focused on the land and people of Hawaiʻi and the Pacific, including one on the Waimānalo Evictions.
“Before Kumu Haunani’s classes, I had never encountered a class that asked us to think not only about historical facts, but also current social conditions and what we felt about those conditions,” she said.
“Dr. Trask was so powerful in the way that she could combine her brilliant and sharp analysis with genuine emotion too, because she was angry and sad about the conditions that Native Hawaiians face. Her emotion gave us permission to feel. You see this video, you see people being evicted, and it's okay to be angry about it. It's okay to be sad about it. Now, what are you going to do with these powerful emotions?”
Goodyear-Kaʻōpua said that Trask consciously mentored students in whom she saw potential.
“Many of us have similar stories of her passing back an exam, and in big red letters at the top, it says, ‘Please see me.’ When you went to see her, you’d be shaking in your boots thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, what does she wanna tell me?’ And what Kumu Haunani would say was, ‘Your exam was so well-written. You have real potential to go to graduate school, and I want you to start thinking about graduate school.”
She said that feeling was indescribable and opened up new possibilities for her in what she might be able to do in the world.
Goodyear-Kaʻōpua added that she felt that mainstream media in the 1980s and ‘90s often represented Trask in ways that played on racist and sexist stereotypes. Trask’s intellectual contributions were downplayed.
Over the last few years, Goodyear-Kaʻōpua has been working on a biography about Trask’s life and works. She is also collaborating with colleagues Kahunawai Wright, Noʻu Revilla, Kainoa Kaulukukui-Narikawa, and Kenji Cataldo on an upcoming podcast called “Without Apologies.”
The podcast is supported through some private funding and personal contributions from the team behind it. Each episode will take up a specific period of Trask's life, centered around a particular speech she gave.
“She was such a powerful orator. When we were considering how to represent her voice on the page for the book, we kept reflecting on how her spoken voice was so powerful and moving. We wanted to find a way to bring her voice to new audiences. And that's what we hope to do with the podcast series,” Goodyear-Kaʻōpua said.
They aim to release “Without Apologies” in early 2026. Listen to the trailer here.
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