Hawaii school named for U.S. leader muddles alumni identity
In Hawaii, there’s a common question posed in the pidgin language of the islands: “Where you went grad?”
Knowing where someone went to high school has long been an important identity marker for Hawaii residents and helps connect people in the state’s close-knit communities. It’s an affiliation that goes far deeper than rooting for a certain team or cross-town rivalries.
“It’s how you understand your place in Hawaii and your belonging,” said Ty P. Kāwika Tengan, a professor in the Departments of Ethnic Studies and Anthropology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. “It tells all these stories about race, class and other things that are kind of implied by the school and the communities that you imagine go there.”
But for some, answering that question gets complicated when the school bears the name of President William McKinley, who many Native Hawaiians disdain for his role in the annexation of the Hawaiian Kingdom to the United States. And now a proposal to change the name of Honolulu’s McKinley High School has sharply divided graduates, often along generational lines.
