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RESOLUTION NO. __________  
URGING THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAI‘I TO ADOPT ANOFFICIAL LANGUAGES ACT SIMILAR TO THOSE ADOPTED BY CANADA ANDIRELAND TO ENSURE THE CONTINUED RESTORATION OF THE HAWAIIANLANGUAGE
WHEREAS, along with Hawai‘i, the list of officially multilingual countries and U.S. jurisdictions now numbers no fewer than 44, including Abkhazia, American Samoa, Aotearoa(New Zealand), Belgium, Bolivia, Burundi, Cameroon, Canada, Chad, China (Hong Kong &Macau), Czech Republic, Djibouti, Ecuador, Finland, Guam, both cities of Hialeah & Miami(Florida) and San Francisco (California), India, Israel, Iraq, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan,Kenya, Kyrgyszstan, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Northern Mariana Islands, Norway,Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Seychelles, Singapore, Slovenia, Somalia,Spain, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom; andWHEREAS, several other governments provide bilingual services by right for indigenous minorities, including Australia, England (Wales) and Mexico; andWHEREAS, Native Hawaiian entities, be they cultural groups, civic groups, politicalgroups, or religious groups have traditionally included use of the Hawaiian language in someform as a defining aspect of their collective identity and indigenous sovereignty; andWHEREAS, in 1978, the general population of the State of Hawai‘i through popular vote for a new state constitution to include Article XII, Section 7, confirmed their support of the right of native Hawaiian people to maintaining traditional and customary rights, amongwhich is to right use of the Hawaiian language within one’s daily life, as well as to includeArticle X, Section 4, confirming their support of special promotion of the teaching of theHawaiian language in publicly supported education in Hawai‘i; andWHEREAS, the Native American Languages Act of 1990 reversed a centuries longhistory of the United States finally recognizing the right of Native Hawaiians, Alaska Nativesand American Indians, to give official status to their languages and use them in their owngovernment, and in activities supported by the federal government, including publiceducation; andWHEREAS, the U.S. census reported a 90% growth in reported use of the Hawaiianlanguage in the home between 1990 and 2000 from 14,315 to 27,160, resulting in expansionto 6.7% of the 401,162 Native Hawaiians within the United States reporting use of theHawaiian language in their homes; andWHEREAS, it is predicted that the numbers of Native Hawaiians reporting use of theHawaiian language in the home will again double to more than 12% of all Native Hawaiians by the census in 2010; and 1
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WHEREAS, Hawaiian language education is generally perceived as if it wereenrichment and foreign language education, and because of this perception, Hawaiianspeaking children are yet seen as having no right to education in Hawaiian since there is presently no guarantee that Hawaiian speaking children may choose Hawaiian mediumeducation and receive transportation to their schools; andWHEREAS, some Hawaiian children are leaving Hawaiian immersion programs for fear of being inadequately prepared for acceptance into the colleges and universities of their choice; andWHEREAS, fluency in Hawaiian is not a minimum qualification for employment inKula Kaiapuni Hawai‘i (a Hawaiian language immersion school) and standardized testing of students in these schools in Hawaiian is not available (despite proof that nationalstandardized tests as used in Hawai‘i are biased against minority children, even when suchchildren are educated in English); andWHEREAS, the Hawaiian Civic Clubs were originally organized through theHawaiian language, and included in their organizational structure a Hawaiian languagesecretary; andWHEREAS, the Hawaiian Civic Clubs have advocated for many of the legal provisions and organizational structures that have allowed individual kūpuna, mākua, ‘ōpio,and kamali‘i to move forward in grassroots, individually-motivated revitalization of theHawaiian language; andWHEREAS, Native Hawaiians away from the Hawaiian Islands have actively workedto maintain and strengthen knowledge of the Hawaiian language among their own familiesand communities by joining together as exemplified by the spread of Hawaiian Civic Clubsto nine states outside of Hawai‘i; andWHEREAS, 40 years after the adoption of their Official Languages Act, Canada hasgrown from a country where English predominates to a country proud of its two officiallanguages, and support for bilingualism among Canadians is at an all time high; andWHEREAS, Article XV of the Hawai‘i State Constitution declares Hawaiian to be anofficial language “except that Hawaiian shall be required for public acts and transactions onlyas provided by law”; andWHEREAS, an Official Language Act, upon adoption by the Hawai‘i StateLegislature, will establish the equality of status and equal rights and privileges as to the useof official languages in all institutions of the legislature and government of the state;
 
andWHEREAS, nearly 2,000 residents of Hawai‘i, including ‘Aha Pūnana Leo and three public officials and candidates for State, Municipal and Office of Hawaiian Affairs offices,are members of Hawai‘i Bilingual which supports a Hawai‘i resident’s right to receive publicservices in either official language of Hawai‘i.2
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