Haunani-Kay Trask, Champion of Native Rights in Hawaii, Dies at 71
She helped found the field of Hawaiian studies and pressed for Indigenous sovereignty. “We will die as Hawaiians,” she said. “We will never be Americans.”
Haunani-Kay Trask in an undated photo. As a professor, poet and activist, she pushed for the recognition of Hawaii’s Indigenous people. “I am not soft, I am not sweet, and I do not want any more tourists in Hawaii,” she said.Credit.Kapulani Landgraf
By Annabelle Williams
July 9, 2021Updated 9:05 p.m. ET
Haunani-Kay Trask, a scholar, poet and champion of sovereignty for the Hawaiian people who decried what she called the colonization and despoliation of her native land, died on July 3 in Honolulu. She was 71.