Bruce Kaʻimi Watson

Name Bruce Kaʻimi Watson

Social Media -

Age 47

Town/Moku Palolo

Island Oʻahu

Leadership Category Education

Nominated by Kaiwipuni Lipe

Share with us a little about yourself and what you do.I am from Ahuimanu, Oahu, Bruce Kaʻimi Watson, a Kanakademic Native nerd currently living in Palolo. I truly am Kaʻimi, an ʻŌiwi educator/researcher in an occupied nation. My research swims in the areas of ʻŌiwi philosophy in moʻolelo and the history of Hawaiʻi, especially the history of education.

In Spring of 2021, motivated by passion and rage, as an unpaid UH Mānoa community member with the help of friends, I created, escorted/advocated through the approval process, and eventually taught the first ever Hawaiian philosophy course offered by a University of Hawaiʻi philosophy department.

BA Chinese Language (Mandarin)

MS Speech Language Pathology and Audiology (CCC-SLP)

PhD Educational Foundations

Currently pursuing a second PhD in Philosophy

Why is the work that you do important to you? The community? Genocide works and it is real. The genocide project in Hawaiʻi continues. Collective knowledge defines a nation. Hawaiʻi is defined by and within our moʻolelo. I think that too many people learn our cultural values from color books, cartoons, and social media and not from moʻolelo. When you engage with the history of Hawaiʻi using resources both in English and ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi you are better able to see how national patterns were adjusted to hoʻohaole.

Framing dys-placement as “opportunity,” I have often been told that I should move away. Academia tends to normalize exile as it is primarily populated by those who only know exile themselves; some have chosen exile, some the descendants of those who have chosen to self exile, and others have been or are the descendants of those that have been forcibly removed from their homelands. While I understand the benefits of travel and the learning that comes from being in different places, I also know that there is benefit from developing and maintaining a relationship that is grounded on knowing a place and space deeply. Appreciation for this deep knowledge of place is often challenged when “Indigenous serving” educational institutions are structured, populated, and lead by people who do not know much about where they are. While it is important to know THERE, it is vital to know HERE; HERE is not THERE and aloha ʻāina is more than a phrase on a bumper sticker

If to hoʻohaole is to cause dissonance not just within one's self but also dissonance with one's biosphere, I hope that my work and all that I do is an effort to hoʻohawaiʻi - to encourage resonance with Hawaiʻi in myself in others and in the biosphere we occupy.

Share with us the qualities of leadership you admire and how you express those in your life. "He hookuli ka make. He hoolohe ke ola." This advice given to Umi is Hawaiʻi leadership. These words for me guide what it is to be Hawaiʻi. My name is Kaʻimi and so I am always curious. I try to make curiosity contagious and aspire to cultivate curiosity in others. Curiosity results in new (at least to you) knowledge. Curiosity is pointless if you are not open to learning and receiving. At the same time just because something is new it does not necessarily mean it is better or pono. To hoʻolohe does not require you to hoʻohana but it does require you to consider options. Hoʻokuli on the other hand is to purposefully close oneself off to information, to isolate oneself from the world around them. That is surely the road to death.

Who has inspired you to do the work that you are doing? David Kanuha, John Henry Wise, Joseph Kanepuu, Haunani-Kay Trask, my wife and children

What is one word that describes something you are excited about for the lāhui? Hoʻolohe/Openness

What is one word that describes a pressing issue that is facing our lāhui? Hoʻokuli/Ignorance