Arrest Warrant to Hawaiian Man for Speaking His Native Language in Court.

The USA often overlooks that it annexes Hawaii, but it recently made some headlines when a US Judge Issued a Arrest Warrant to Hawaiian Man for Speaking His Native Language in Court

 We in Cymru with our long history of fighting for our language will see a resonance in this this report.

A judge in Hawaii has issued a warrant (since dropped) for the arrest of Maui resident and activist Kaleikoa Kaʻeo because he tried to communicate in his native Hawaiian language during court proceedings. Both English and Hawaiian are official languages in Hawaii.
When Judge Blaine Kobayashi asked if he was present in court, Ka’eo responded by saying, “eia no wau ke ku nei,” which means, “here I am standing here,” according to Hawaii Public Radio.

Video recorded during the hearing shows the judge responding by saying, “I don’t know what that means.”
Since Judge Kobayashi didn’t understand what Kaʻeo was saying, he declared the defendant was “Not Present,” according to Maui Now, and issued a warrant for his arrest, saying he had failed to appear in court.

Kaʻeo was in court facing three petty misdemeanors related to his arrest at a 2017 protest against the construction of a telescope atop Haleakalā, a mountain which Native Hawaiians consider a sacred space.
Ka‘eo is currently an associate professor of Hawaiian Studies at The University of Hawai‘i in Maui. Before teaching in Maui, he was a lecturer in the Hawaiian language at The University of Hawai‘i in Manoa.

 a request had been made for an interpreter in the courtroom, but prosecutors objected, arguing it was an unnecessary expense because Ka‘eo could speak English and that there is no legal requirement to provide an interpreter, according to The Associated Press.

“I do not want to be held in contempt of court. I don’t wanna be fined. I don’t want to go to jail for this,” Ka’eo told Hawaii Public Radio. “But if there’s any reason for me, Kaleikoa Ka’eo, to go to jail, it would be to defend our right as a people to speak our language in our own homeland.”

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs, a statewide agency led by elected officials who are charged with improving the well-being of Native Hawaiians, said it was disturbed by the judge’s decision. 

“It is disappointing that the state government continues to place barriers on ‘Ōlelo Hawaiʻi, 40 years after Hawaii’s constitution was amended to recognize the Hawaiian language as an official language of the state,” OHA executive director Kamanaʻopono Crabbe said in a statement.

The chief executive officer of the state's Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Kamanaopono Crabbe, called the event an example of "punishing Native Hawaiians for speaking our native language."

He said it was reminiscent of Hawaii's past when Hawaiian

"was prohibited in schools, a form of cultural suppression that substantially contributed to the near extinction of the Hawaiian language."

 Sounds familiar doesn't it.

According to the most recent Census data available for 2009-2013, 5.7 percent of the state's residents spoke Hawaiian at home.

In 2016, a defendant representing himself against an obstruction charge after being arrested while protesting a giant telescope planned for another mountain, was found not guilty after being allowed to go to trial with a Hawaiian language interpreter. Kahookahi Kanuha cross-examined witnesses in Hawaiian. The interpreter translated the questions and the witnesses answered in English.

As I began this holds a  resonance for us in Cymru and recent attacks on Gaelic very much shows that on these Islands the campaign for language equality carries on.


It is perhaps indicative of the USA when we have a President who panders to a Right Wing and Racist minority and who claim to put America First that we have a case that White Anglo Saxon attacks on immigrants who do not share their "heritage"  that we need to be reminded that there were people in that country before them and that they still cling to their  culture  and native language.