Our guest this episode is J. Ekela Kaniaupio-Crozier, the E Ola! Learning Designer and Facilitator at Kamehameha Schools Maui, where she provides campus support for a world-class Hawaiian culture-based education to students. A fluent speaker of the Hawaiian language, Kumu Ekela serves on the Hawaiʻi Development team for the Duolingo language learning app. She has been a Hawaiian language, studies and history instructor for more than 40 years in various settings, including K-through-12 schools, community college and four-year universities, and she continues to teach classes on Molokaʻi and on Maui free of charge.

Kumu Ekela and her Kamehemeha Schools colleague Makana Garma joined our Emily Morris for an in-studio conversation on July 26, shortly after she delivered a lecture titled “Renormalizing the Hawaiian Language” in the Chautauqua Amphitheater as part of a week themed “The Life of the Spoken Word.”