A Native Hawaiian’s complaint about the recent celebration of Prince Kuhio

in captivity for many years.

BY VIVIAN HOANG / THE FLAT HAT

Last week, I was crammed in a conference room in Chancellor’s Hall for office hours, frantically completing an economics problem set before the deadline in an hour. I was nearing the finish line, collaborating with a friend on one of the last questions, when we realized we had incorrectly drawn a graph. Oh, the beauty of indifference curves. My friend labored to find his eraser and carefully erased it in his notebook. I erased mine in a matter of seconds. “Wow,” he said. “That’s really cool. I need to get that.”

I use an iPad and Apple Pencil. Like the vast majority of other students on campus, my friend uses a notebook and pencil. It’s time for that to change. As someone who has taken notes on an iPad for four years, I cannot fully describe the positive impact that it has had on my education. Until you get one, you don’t realize how much easier your life is.

Personally, I use a combination of OneNote, a free Microsoft notes app, and Goodnotes, a similar app that goes for about $9 on the Apple App Store. But regardless of the app, using an iPad to take notes benefits any student.

First of all, it is easier to make your notes visually appealing. If a traditional student chooses to color code their notes, they have to bring a pencil case and waste time fumbling with it to find a highlighter or colored pen. Not on an iPad. With just a click, you can switch between highlighters and pens and even change the thickness of the pen. Even if you’re not into aesthetic notes, having highlighters, different colors and different thicknesses at your disposal makes it easier to draw the diagrams and conceptual models that many classes require.

Second, it is easier to correct mistakes and stay neat. OneNote and Goodnotes both have a “stroke” eraser, which is a tool that erases whole strokes instead of just the point where the eraser touches. So, on that economics graph, I was able to erase the whole y-axis with just one click instead of having to erase across its whole length. By the way, you can switch to a traditional eraser on both apps if this doesn’t interest you.

Another amazing feature is the lasso tool. Suppose you are running out of space on a page of paper but want to include some more notes on it. You would be forced to either messily jam those notes on there or continue to another page, rendering your notes confusing. Enter the lasso. You could draw a circle around the chunk of text and minimize it to create more space. I also often use the lasso to scale down the size of helpful drawings and copy and paste graphs that will be reused throughout the notes. In fact, on that fateful day in Chancellors, I was required to write two proofs for the same concept. After doing the first proof, I copied and pasted it, dragged it down and simply replaced the numbers. Literally, the lasso cut my work in half.

And the benefits of an iPad do not stop at improving your own notes. Furthermore, it reduces reliance on paper. Gone are the days when I would have to carry multiple folders around for my classes and own multiple binders. Most of my academic materials are on the cloud, available in just a click. Last semester, I took a calculus class in which we completed multiple pages of guided notes every lecture. All of the notes were readily available for me on Goodnotes whereas many of my peers kept binders and folders full of them, often disorganized.

Furthermore, iPads reduce reliance on laptops, which diminish student focus. I do not think that we usually take out laptops with the intention to surf the web, play 2048 or, as I regretfully have a few times, browse Twitter. In fact, oftentimes students retrieve them to aid them in taking notes when the traditional method does not work. For instance, a student may take out a laptop to follow along with the guided notes from the calculus class or save a diagram to their computer that would be hard to draw with just a pencil. However, once the laptop has been taken out, the temptation for distraction may be too compelling for the student to resist.

Of course, iPads won’t entirely solve the problem of distraction in the classroom, and in some instances, they may exacerbate it. However, there is a good case to be made that the benefits here outweigh the costs.

Undoubtedly, some will cling to paper, pencil and pen. Yet consider that for just $40, Paperlike sells a screen protector that replicates the feel of friction as you write

March 26, 2023, Prince Kuhio Day was celebrated at the Sadler Center Dining Hall. Prince Kuhio was born on March 26, 1871, and died on January 7, 1922, according to a discussion on his legacy by the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement. He was famous for many things, one of which was the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act signed by President William G. Harding in 1920. This act secured and protected over 200,000 acres of land for Native Hawaiian people who, at that time, were considered a dying race.

After the United States’ coup of the Hawaiian Kingdom on January 17, 1893, Native children were ritually beaten and or even forced to write, “I WILL NOT SPEAK HAWAIIAN. I WILL ONLY SPEAK ENGLISH” a hundred or more times on the chalkboard if they were caught speaking Hawaiian. They could also be forced to clean horse stables and perform other harsh chores. This abuse, along with gentrification, the lynching of Joseph Kahahawai in January 1932 and near forced Americanization of Hawaiian Natives led to the creation of the idea of the Dying Hawaiian Indian.

The cleansing of Hawaiians terrified Kuhio and his aunt, the great Queen Lili’uokalani, a women’s liberation activist, Native civil rights advocate and last reigning monarch of the Kingdom of Hawai’i before the overthrow led by Sanford B. Dole. Sanford was the cousin of James Dole, the founder of the Dole plantation. Sanford was also the first president of the Republic of Hawai’i. Despite the illegalization of Native-Hawaiian public meetings, Prince Kuhio broke the law to found the Hawaiian Civic Club, which first met in commemoration of his aunt’s death, according to a second video by the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement. The criminalization of the public gathering of Native Hawaiians was out of fear of another Hawaiian revolt against the Republic, the first of which nearly killed over three-hundred revolutionaries. In return for their freedom, the queen surrendered herself over to the U.S. insurrectionists, after which she was held on paper. To those who worry about the harmful blue light of the screen, remember that Apple’s “True Tone” and “Night Shift” display features bring a warmer hue to the screen, easing the strain on your eyes. In all, I literally could not imagine not using an iPad for my classes. It has saved me so much time and stress. And, no, I’m not on Apple’s payroll.

In 1903, Kuhio founded the Royal Order of Kamehameha I, who celebrated King Kamehameha Day. This day, along with all other Hawaiian holidays and celebrations, was banned under the Republic of Hawai’i. The reason we celebrate Kuhio is because he, along with many other Native Hawaiians, helped to secure and defend Native traditions and cultures. Though he was a Republican, a different party at the time, he is still endeared in the hearts of Hawaiians everywhere. With that small history, we move back to the Sadler Center and their so-called celebration of Kuhio Day. In short, it was a disrespectful and horrendous mockery of both Hawaiian peoples and Kuhio. Not only was the food falsely accused of being accurate Hawaiian cuisine, but the decorations were stereotypical and ill-advised. For instance, there were symbols of pineapples nearly everywhere, which are not native to Hawai’i. Pineapples were brought over to create pineapple plantations in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Native Hawaiians were treated awfully on the plantations, onto which we were originally forced in the early nineteenth century. Because of the heinous treatment of Hawaiians on sugar and pineapple plantations, both symbols have become an oppressive one for use. Along with the martini umbrellas also given out that day, they represent to the mainland a taste of both the Orient and the Pacific, both of which were captured by the West, namely the U.S.

The dish that Sadler served as “Loco Moco” was not accurate either as it is not Hawaiian food but Local People food. While Local People food does technically refer to Hawaiians, it generally refers to all people living on the Hawaiian Islands, at least for multiple generations, especially those who speak Native-Hawaiian Creole or Hawaiian-State pidgin. There was not even any Hawaiian music nor any slides showing on the television to tell people who Kuhio was, both of which would have been the least they could have done, costing nearly no money whatsoever. All in all, the celebration by Sadler was unprofessional, racist and disrespectful to both Kanaka Maoli, or Native Hawaiians, and Kuhio. I do not wish to see this disrespectful display from the College of William and Mary ever again.

Andre Adams ’25 is a Native-Hawaiian and Black transferstudentattheCollegeofWilliamandMary, majoringinarthistory,butlookingtospecializein GermanExpressionism.Adamsisalsoanartistwhose twoworks,“Self-PortraitinBed”and“AutopsyofJesus ChristAfterCrucifixion,”wererecentlyshownatthe POCCollectiveArtgallery.EmailAndreatajadams@ wm.edu.

Sure, I may sound dramatic, but maybe you’ll understand if you buy one — don’t be afraid to let out your inner iPad kid.

JohnPowers’26isaprospectivepublicpolicymajor whohailsfromBrooklyn,NewYork.HeisaproudmemberoftheWilliamandMaryDebateSociety.Contacthim atjdpowers@wm.edu.