Language educator Bernice Kanahele
By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer
Bernice Elama Kanahele, one of the founders of the Hawaiian language immersion movement through its first schools on Kaua'i, died Sunday at Wilcox Memorial Hospital. She was 49.
Kanahele, born on Ni'ihau, had been working as an outreach counselor at Kaua'i Community College helping to mentor Ni'ihau students beginning their college careers, said Pua Lee, one of her friends and colleagues in the Punana Leo Hawaiian-immersion preschool network.
"She was irreplaceable," Lee said. "She touched many lives: students from preschool, for them to come to her at the age of 3 ... she welcomed them as preschoolers, and she welcomed them to the college. She followed them through and helped them finish their education."
Kanahele was involved at the start of the immersion movement and worked as a teacher during its sometimes tumultuous early years, helping to establish the first preschool in 1983, Punana Leo O Kekaha.
She also assisted in establishing Punana Leo O Kaua'i and Kula Aupuni Niihau a Kahelelani Aloha, a charter school.
In 2002, she earned her bachelor's of education degree at the University of Hawai'i and was nearing completion of her teacher certification requirements for returning to classroom teaching.
More recently, she worked with colleagues Kimo Armitage and Keao Nesmith on a book "Niihau Aloha," due to be published this spring by Island Heritage. The book will contain some of Kanahele's own childhood experiences on the island as well as oral histories of other residents, to be printed in the dialect of Ni'ihau as well as in English.
"She was so instrumental in giving back the Hawaiian language to our people," Armitage said.
Nesmith said he was "devastated" by the loss of a personal friend as well as someone who was to help the further development of Kula Aupuni. "She was my hope for our charter school," he said. "I believe that even though she's gone, she's going to help us find those right paths."
Kanahele is survived by her mother, Virginia Nizo; brother, William A.K. Nizo; sister, Virginia Keamoai; hanai sons, Keolamau and Thomas Nizo; and hanai daughters, Liana, Kimberly and Kelly Nizo.
Visitation is from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday at Garden Island Mortuary Chapel; service starts at 7 p.m., followed by cremation. Visitation resumes from 9 to 10 a.m. Saturday at the chapel, with a service at 10 a.m. Interment to follow at Kekaha Hawaiian Cemetery. Casual attire.
Reach Vicki Viotti at vviotti@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8053.
