Gladys Kamakakuokalani Brandt

Gladys Kamakakūokalani Ainoa Brandt (August 20, 1906 – January 15, 2003) was an American Hawaiian educator and civic leader in Hawaii. She served as a principal at Kamehameha Schools and helped found the University of Hawaii's Hawaiian Studies Center, leading to a revival of interest in native Hawaiian culture. Later, she led protests against the trustees of Kamehameha Schools for financial mismanagement, leading to their replacement.

Biography

Early life Gladys Kamakakūokalani Ainoa Brandt was born in Honolulu on August 20, 1906. Her father, David Kanuha, was involved in the 1895 Wilcox rebellion, a Hawaiian counter-revolutionary movement of royalist Robert William Wilcox, by royalists who opposed the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom and working to restore the monarchy of Liliuokalani. Arrested and convicted of treason for his beliefs, Kanuha was elected to the new territorial legislature. She attended the funeral of the last reigning monarch of the Kingdom of Hawaii, Queen Liliuokalani's in 1917, one of many events marking the social changes to Hawaiian culture.

She denied her culture as a child, ignored her language, and rubbed her skin with lemon juice to try to whiten it. However, she took self-determined leaps towards embracing her Hawaiian roots in the 1960s and 1970s, and fought to rebuild them.

For a time as a young child, she attended Kamehameha School for Girls and was raised by its first principal, Ida May Pope.

When Brandt was 16, her father changed the family name to Ainoa (her mother was Esther Aionoa), meaning "to eat in freedom" in the Hawaiian language. It was a reference to the Ai Noa period of freedom after a king of ancient Hawaii had died, and the particular one in 1819 which marked the major changes to the Hawaiian social system.

In 1985, Brandt was named a Living Treasure of Hawaii, by the Honpa Hongwanji Mission of Hawaii.

In 1997, Brandt co-authored two essays known as "Broken Trust", which criticized Kamehameha Schools, the largest private landowner in Hawaii, resulting in their reorganization. In 1998, Governor Ben Cayetano appointed her a trustee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.

Legacy Brandt died on January 15, 2003, in Honolulu. Senator Daniel Akaka praised Brandt for championing education as most important to the future of the Native Hawaiian people, instead of anger or fear.