The pages below are the contents of a 2001 video interview with Dr. Haunani-Kay Trask and a few of her students. Unlike most articles and interviews that portray Dr. Trask as a political leader or activist, this interview focuses on her important work as an educator.

The interview and accompanying notes, originally distributed via CD-ROM and titled Haunani-Kay Trask: We are not happy Natives: education and Decolonization in Hawaiʻi, had effectively become inaccessible due to technological obsolescence of the format. The Pinky Show would like to thank in-D Press for allowing us to re-present this material to new audiences now via the internet. Please note, however, that the material is re-presented in it’s original 2001-era form; the content has not been updated to reflect current information.

The interview is divided into 23 short sections, with transcripts, notes, and supplemental materials included alongside the videos. This is the summary from the original archive:

Haunani-Kay Trask is a Professor of Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. A Native Hawaiian nationalist, she is a co-founder of Ka Lāhui Hawaiʻi, the major organization advocating Hawaiian sovereignty. Her ongoing struggle for decolonization, human rights, and self-determination for her people as well as indigenous peoples all over the world has spanned over thirty years. Dr. Trask has helped to bring international attention to the historical facts of the oppression and genocide of Native Hawaiians in Hawaiʻi through her teaching, activism, writing, and poetry. Her most well-known book, From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawaiʻi, is widely considered a masterpiece of contemporary resistance writing.

Haunani-Kay Trask : CONTEXT

Question 1: How do you define the educational context in which your teaching takes place?

Question 2: How does the economy contribute to social unrest?

Question 3: What are the dominant social and political realities that most concern you right now?

Question 4: How did you become socially conscious?

Question 5: What is the place of revolutionary struggle in the American context?

Haunani-Kay Trask : THEORY

Question 1: What are the contributions of theory and formal education to the ongoing struggle for social and political change?

Question 2: How important is it to develop in your students an understanding of "voice"?

Question 3: How is your role as a political leader related to your role as a teacher?

Question 4: What is the basis of the conflict between so-called "political" educators like yourself and "cultural" educators?

Question 5: Who are your allies-in-struggle? And what of allies who ask, "What about me?"