School Profiles

1) The Honolulu Advertiser recently had an article about Farrington High School.

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2005/Oct/09/ln/FP510090344.html

Here's what I wrote to the editors

I thought the article on Farrington High School was interesting, but the Tiger in me (I'm a McKinley grad) is a little envious.

I think it would be a good idea to do a profile on McKinley High School and put in on the front page of a Sunday edition.Here's my reasons

1) it's the oldest public high school

2) it's in the center of Honolulu, and therefore it's good to inform rural and suburban Oahu residents about the thoughts of urban Honolulu kids. It's a very different culture.

3) it has a really large immigrant population from various nations, including Vietnam, Korea, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, China, Phillipines, Samoa, etc. How do they adjust to new surroundings, do they get along with each other, do they fight each other? How does the administration deal with their struggles?

4) the school district covers various communities like McCully, downtown, Chinatown, Liliha, Mayor Wright's, Palama and Lanakila. How do the students from those communities differ and how do they get along?

5) as you can tell from #4, students from various income levels go to McKinley.

6) going back to #3, NOT MANY students at McKinley have any ancestors who were working in sugar plantations of old Hawaii. So those students may not be able to relate to students in (for example : Pearl City, Campbell, Castle, etc.) It's a very different culture from the rest of Hawaii.

Conclusion : It would be great for the whole state to read about life in a school that is the most urban school in Hawaii, a school with the most immigrants, a school with students from various income levels, school with diverse groups, a school in which students may not relate to the plantation culture.

2) Kamehameha Schools.You want to know why I don't take the "Native Hawaiians only" admission policy very seriously?

Go to http://starbulletin.com/2005/10/10/features/story03.html

then scroll down until you see the photo.

Do the 2 sudents sitting down even look Native Hawaiians? Do they even look part Polynesian?

The boy looks totally European, the girl looks totally Asian.

Meanwhile, many Polynesians who live in Kalihi Valley Housing or Kuhio Park Terrace (both less than 1 mile from Kamehameha Schools) dont get admitted to Kamehameha Schools because their ancestors landed on the wrong island. ( Many residents of both housing projects are Samoan or Tongan)

Meanwhile, Europeans and Asians can lie about their supposed Native Hawaiian ancestry (even when they don't look Hawaiian, nor practice the culture) just to go to Kamehameha. ( One of my relatives who grad from Kamehameha probably fit that description)

Why cant everyone just live in the 21 st century and learn to be intergrated already?

3) So ironic that people say Kamehameha is needed due to all the negative statitstics on Native Hawaiians.

Yet, a lot of Kamehameha students don't look Hawaiian and probably live in middle class areas.Even some of the ones who do look Native Hawaiian live in middle class areas (ie Kaneohe, Mililani, Pearl City , etc.)

In any public housing complex in Honolulu, you'd find more Samoans and Micronesians than Native Hawaiians. Yet we don't see anyone demanding segregated schools for Samoans and Micronesians.

Cant we all just along and integrate already?