 Establishment of the Pūnana Leo schools involved a long political struggle, including boycotts of the public schools (Wilson 1998a: 335 – 336; McCarty 2003: 155). Using the Hawaiian language as a medium of education was outlawed in 1896, and legal constraints against its use were maintained by territorial and U.S. state governments until 1986 (Wilson 1998b: 128 – 129). A renaissance of Hawaiian culture and politics in the 1970s brought a new focus to the topic of the revitalization of the Hawaiian language. Among its many consequences was the reestablishment of Hawaiian as an official language by a state constitutional convention in 1978, as part of a recognition of the cultural and linguistic rights of the people of Hawaii.
