As a child growing up at Parker Ranch on the Big Island, Larry Kimura learned Hawaiian from his grandmother, Elizabeth Lindsey Purdy, but spoke English everywhere else.
As it was for many Hawaiians who came of age in the 1950s and '60s, Kimura experienced the Hawaiian language as an echo, a fading light that grew dimmer with each passing generation. Since the 1920s, when Hawaiian schools fell victim to English-only laws, the number of native speakers had decreased significantly; the advent of English Standard schools at mid-century only hastened what seemed to be an inevitable death of the language.
Yet, Kimura wasn't willing to let Hawaiian fade so quickly into antiquity. At the University of Hawai'i, he kept the language alive for a new wave of young Hawaiians now eager to re-engage their fallen culture.
Kimura's Hawaiian language students included Kalena Silva and William Wilson, as well as Kauanoe Kamana, like Kimura a graduate of Kamehameha Schools. Together they would help to turn the study of Hawaiian from academic exercise to an affirmation of a culture revitalized.
It was Kamana and Wilson, married with young children, who would spearhead the state's first modern Hawaiian immersion program in 1983 as a means of educating a new generation of native speakers and, by extension, ensuring that Hawaiian remains a living language.
Their efforts, which included a protracted battle to overturn outdated English-only laws and secure support for an expansion of programs, helped pave the way for Hawaiian to be available to students from preschool through graduate school.
