Panel: Collaboration: Intended, Unintended, by Whom, and for Whom? •
Sarimanok Room
Copanelists: Oliver Berghof and Sandra Lindemann
The translation of Hawaiian-language writings into English has long been a process detrimental to Hawaiians. Everything from deliberately mistranslated passages to unqualified translators has created a cohesive though misleading snapshot of Hawaiian culture and history that has influenced generations of scholars, academics, and even Hawaiians themselves. Because of this problematic history, a number of Hawaiian language speakers oppose the translation of Hawaiian writings, and especially those from the vast repository of nineteenth and twentieth century Hawaiian-language newspapers which contains a wealth of hitherto unconsidered cultural and historical materials. But with the vast majority of Hawaii’s population unable to speak Hawaiian, translation becomes necessary to disseminate these materials and reframe the picture created by the earlier translations.
In 2003, the publishing house Awaiaulu was founded to train new translators and give people access to these “legacy” materials through the creation of bi-lingual publications of materials drawn from the Hawaiian-language newspapers. In order to counteract some of the earlier problems that plagued Hawaiian translation, Awaiaulu developed a model of collective translation and apprenticeship for the translation of our first major text Ka Moolelo o Hiiakaikapoliopele. I apprenticed on this first translation, and am now the lead translator of a biography of Kamehameha published serially in the newspaper Ka Na’i Aupuni in 1905–1906. The scholarly and public reaction to the first text has led us to further update our model of translation, and has also demonstrated that the path to “responsible” translation is an unending one.
Kamaoli Kuwada is an incoming PhD student in the English Department at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. He works as a translator for Awaiaulu, where he apprenticed on Ka Oihana Lawaia and Ka Moolelo o Hiiakaikapoliopele, and he is now the head translator of the current project Ka Moolelo o Kamehameha I. He also translates legal documents, and has worked as a Hawaiian-language editor on a number of other publications.