Are Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders Really Illiterate? Written: February 13, 2018 I grew up in a town that was known at the time for having the highest concentration of Native Hawaiians with the lowest literacy rates in the state. We were told we weren't smart, we needed to read more, we were a bunch of illiterate natives that could barely read, write, or speak well enough to be taken seriously. I've learned now, that those notions couldn't have been farther from the truth. If literacy is defined as the ability to read and write, and having competence or knowledge in a specified area, then who determines if we are literate? Who examines our levels of understanding, and how does this define who we are? In my Pacific Island Studies course I took in the Spring of 2017, I read a poem called “The Pacific Written Tradition,” by Craig Santos Perez. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/618437 He challenges notions of literacy and how it has affected Pacific Is...
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