ABSTRACT
Conducting a cultural study in a place that has been heavily dominated by colonial, missionary, and tourist influences is a questionable endeavor in the opinion of many people, both lay and academic. In recent years, with the efforts to revitalize a Hawaiian cultural and national identity and increase the availability and ease by which specialized knowledge is attained, access to knowledge has become more formal. Hawaii's incorporation into the global arena, not just as an economically assimilated site but a politically absorbed one as well, has obviously raised some questions about the existence of Hawaiian culture and even about the dimensions of the culture that has supposedly been lost. With the constant struggle to regain Hawaiian knowledge, revitalize a Hawaiian cultural identity, and the increased opportunities to access Hawaiian knowledge one may wonder why so few Hawaiians chose to attend these courses.
