Exhibition + symposium explore Japanese language education in Hawaiʻi

Mitsutaka Nakamura introduces Yoshiyuki Asahi before his keynote address on March 24.

Yoshiyuki Asahi gives his keynote address, “‘Paradise’ in Translation – Japanese Hawaiʻi and the Making of ‘Local’”

Keynote presentation on March 24 at Hamilton Library.

Rashaad Eshack makes his presentation, “Crafting Nikkei: Civic Education in Interwar Hawaiʻi Japanese Language Schools,” at the brown bag workshop on March 25.

Kōsuke Harayama and Yuma Totani moderate the roundtable discussion on March 25. The topic was “Language Education in Hawai‘i in History: Second Languages, Assimilation, and Ethno-Nationalism.”

Panel participants and UH Mānoa professors Andre Haag (Japanese literature), Christina Higgins (second language studies), and Matthew Burdelski (East Asian languages and literatures)

Panel participants and UH Mānoa professors Christine Yano (anthropology), John Rosa (history), and Derek Taira (education)

Panel participants and UH Mānoa College of Education PhD students Shelby Oshiro and Tiare Sabellano-Tsutsui

Mitsutaka Nakamura introduces Toshinobu Ogiso for his brown bag talk on March 27.

Toshinobu Ogiso

Toshinobu Ogiso gives a tutorial on the Japanese Language Corpus System

Yūta Takahashi

Toshinobu Ogiso makes remarks at a reception for symposium guests in Hamilton Library near the Bridge Gallery, where the “Rise and Fall of Languages in ‘Paradise’” exhibit was held. Also pictured are Mitsutaka Nakamura and Yuma Totani.

College of Arts, Languages, and Letters Dean Peter Arnade

University Librarian Clem Guthro

(L-R) Sachiyo Kawaiʻaeʻa, Mitsutaka Nakamura, Consul General of Japan Hideaki Chotoku, Professor Mark Levin, Vice Consul General Shu Tabira, and Lynette Teruya in the Bridge Gallery exhibit area at Hamilton Library.

Hamilton Library co-hosted a multi-day symposium, Japanese Language Education in Hawaiʻi in the Interwar Period (1920s–1930s), on March 24-27 in conjunction with the Rise and Fall of Languages in “Paradise” exhibit in the Bridge Gallery that ran from January–March 2026. The National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics (NINJAL) and the UH Mānoa College of Arts, Languages and Letters (CALL) collaborated with Hamilton Library to produce the event.

The symposium brought scholars together to explore how Japanese communities in Hawaiʻi experienced second-language learning, assimilation, and ethnonationalism. It encouraged interdisciplinary dialog and offered scholars a closer look at historical sources to better understand these issues.

Dr. Yoshiyuki Asahi (NINJAL, sociolinguistics) opened the symposium with a keynote address on March 24. He discussed the themes that motivated the exhibit, including the contested idea of Hawaiʻi as “paradise;” how settler colonialism and pressure to assimilate have impacted what and how languages are spoken in Hawaiʻi; and how community voices and “local” identity in the islands have emerged over time.

Dr. Kōsuke Harayama (Kyoto University, natural resource economics) and Dr. Yuma Totani (UH Mānoa, history) moderated an interdisciplinary roundtable discussion on March 25 about language education in Hawaiʻi historically. There were eight UH Mānoa panelists representing anthropology, education, East Asian languages and literatures, history, second language studies, and sociolinguistics. More than 30 additional participants contributed comments and reflections grounded in their first-hand experiences with language education in Hawaiʻi.

In addition, the symposium welcomed emerging international scholars who shared fresh perspectives in the field during two brown bag workshops. On March 25, Dr. Rashaad Eshack (University of Cambridge) and Maho Yajima (Kokugakuin University) presented their recent research on language education in Hawaiʻi during the interwar period. NINJAL researchers Dr. Toshinobu Ogiso and Dr. Yūta Takahashi led a hands-on instructional workshop on March 27 about the Japanese language corpus system and provided individual tutorials with UH students.

Hamilton Library used the occasion to highlight the breadth of its collections and expertise. At a library showcase session on March 27, librarians and archivists introduced collection items connected to the exhibition and symposium themes, including materials from Government Documents & Maps (Gwen Sinclair), University Archives and Manuscript Collections (Leilani Dawson), the Archive of Hawaiʻi Artists and Architects (Malia Van Heukelem), and the Okinawa Collections (Lynette Teruya). Japan Studies Librarian Mitsutaka Nakamura presented Japanese-language school textbooks and related items from the Hawaiian Collection.

History Professor Yuma Totani introduces the showcase and Japan Studies Librarian Mitsutaka Nakamura’s presentation on the Japanese language school textbooks collection at Hamilton Library.

Mitsutaka Nakamura

1949 map showing Japanese language schools in Honolulu.

Japanese language school textbooks

Mitsutaka Nakamura and Yūta Takahashi

Art Archivist Librarian Malia Van Heukelem shows the original 1931 architectural drawings of Makiki Christian Church in Honolulu.

Manuscript Collections Archivist Leilani Dawson presents items from the Hawaiʻi War Records Depository and the Romanzo Adams Social Research Laboratory archive of student papers from the 1920s-1970s.

Hand-drawn map from a 1930s UH Mānoa student project titled, “Sociological Study of Kahului, Maui,” from the Romanzo Adams Social Research Laboratory archive at Hamilton Library.

Detail of a UH Mānoa sociology student’s hand-drawn map from the 1930s, which depicts the Kahului Railroad Camp next to the Kahului School.

A page from a student’s 1930s sociology project reads: “Kahului is neither a Town nor Village nor Plantation nor City nor …. A Peasant Community …. But rather a combination of the first three plus a Feudal System.”

Two posters in the Hawaiʻi War Records Depository painted by Hawaiʻi schoolchildren during WWII to promote the cause.

WWII government propaganda materials from the Hawaiʻi War Records Depository.

These materials document the concerted effort – both nationally and locally – to encourage assimilation.

Documents and ephemera from the Hawaiʻi War Records Depository.

Government Documents & Maps Librarian Gwen Sinclair talks through materials displayed from the collection.

Language-related government documents from around the time of WWII.

Sinclair holds up a copy of the 1939 government publication, “Labor in the Territory of Hawaii.”

A wartime booklet given to Navy personnel encourages them to learn other languages so they can get “swell jobs” around the world after the war ends.

Okinawan Studies Librarian Lynette Teruya talks about materials from that collection.

The symposium concluded with a reception in the library, where Ogiso, who is the NINJAL Deputy Director-General, and UH Mānoa’s CALL Dean Dr. Peter Arnade and University Librarian Dr. Clem Guthro, gave remarks reaffirming that this gathering is only the beginning of deeper collaboration between NINJAL and UH Mānoa in interdisciplinary research.

Nakamura and Totani co-organized the symposium. The exhibit was prepared by Asahi, Harayama, and Nakamura, who gave several guided tours, including one to a special visitor on March 30 following the symposium: the Consul General of Japan, Mr. Hideaki Chotoku.