Source: Hawaiian Airlines
Hawaiian Airlines employees who are parents to immersion school students often find helping their keiki with their studies also sharpens their own skills.
Mahina ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian Language Month), celebrated throughout February, is the hallmark of linguistic and cultural celebrations across the islands. For many, including our employees, it’s a time to celebrate the strides made in their language-learning journeys — a path some have walked as parents of students attending Hawaiian language immersion schools.
Rise Tapati, a Hawaiian Airlines flight attendant and mother of two keiki (children), was born and raised on Oʻahu, and did not grow up speaking ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi. She began her studies in high school and worked her way up to the highest college course offered by the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa at the time. However, for many years afterward, she stopped speaking the language.
“Unfortunately, I had no one to speak with, and for many years I went without conversation. You know what they say: if you don’t use it, you lose it,” Tapati explained.
Fast-forward to today and Tapati, who considers herself a “conversational speaker,” has sharpened her language skills by speaking ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi at work and at home with her keiki — including her son, the first in her immediate family to attend a Hawaiian language immersion school.
While her son was at school, Tapati turned her everyday life into a classroom, sticking Post-It notes with the Hawaiian names of items throughout the house and pushing the family to use a new word whenever possible.
“If it could be labeled, it was! Simple substitutions of English words with Hawaiian words were encouraged, and slowly but surely, Hawaiian became common in our daily conversations,” she said. “Now, as my son gets older, he comes home from school and teaches us new words. Without him attending a Hawaiian language immersion school, we would never be able to do this.”
In keeping ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi alive and thriving, Tapati shared the importance of being vulnerable and using it whenever possible – including with youth and her Hawaiian Airlines colleagues.
“Sharing the language with our guests and my coworkers feels just as important as holding conversations with other Hawaiian speakers. I’m often asked how to properly say place names or how to say certain phrases in Hawaiian, and it feels good to be able to confidently answer and teach someone something new! It’s an honor for me to share the native tongue of our land with others,” Tapati said.
Jerome Koehler, an IT platform engineer at Hawaiian Airlines, has also deepened his use of Hawaiʻi’s native tongue by speaking with his young daughter — another immersion school student — and reading her Hawaiian storybooks before bed.
Since Koehler moved to Hawaiʻi from Texas in 2002, he hasn’t stopped carrying the wisdom of a friend. “Before I moved here, one of my good friends, originally from American Samoa, gave me some great advice: ‘Wherever you go, learn and respect the language and the culture of the people.’” Koehler shared. “This was my initial guiding beacon when I first came to Hawaiʻi and it continues to drive me whenever I visit new places.”
He has gone above and beyond to integrate ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi into his experience in Hawaiʻi. Through his daughter’s school, he and his wife have regularly connected with other speakers throughout the islands and forged lifelong bonds. He also attends events and language workshops hosted by Hawaiian Airlines’ Community and Cultural Relations Team, volunteers in the community, tries to use the language at work whenever possible and supports his daughter and wife’s hālau hula (hula school).
“As I become more proficient, I try to include more Hawaiian words in my emails. It helps others learn too when they have to go to a resource like wehewehe.org to look up the meaning of certain words I used,” he explained. “All in all, I hope that others see me — someone who is non-native and attempting to learn the language — and get excited and more involved.”
Hawaiian Airlines is proud to perpetuate ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi through its support of Hawaiian language immersion schools throughout the state. Earlier this month, West Maui’s Pūnana Leo o Lahaina, a Hawaiian language immersion preschool impacted by the Lahaina wildfires, received a $50,000 donation from the Hawaiian Airlines Foundation to support rebuilding efforts, ensuring the continuation of its mission to perpetuate Hawaiian culture and language among the island’s youngest learners.
In 2023, the carrier also contributed over $12,000 to nonprofit Awaiaulu to fund a significant book donation to 34 Hawaiian language immersion schools throughout Hawaiʻi.