Commitment
to Diversity
The school I attend enrolls students of only one race, but no one is full Hawaiian in our school, so we are encouraged to explore diversity within ourselves and our other ethnicities. We come from diverse socio--economic backgrounds as well, so as reporters, we can diversify our coverage in other ways. Due to our low racial diversity, I try to focus more on different personalities in my reporting: art students, athletes, musicians, science academy students, business academy students, technology students, high achievers, etc. I also have the opportunity to diversify coverage by featuring students of all types in our islandwide magazine Nā Koa.
Use the menu to the right or scroll to navigate through my commitment to diversity tab. Click on the gallery or image to enlarge.
Here are examples of diversity from our magazine's Maui Made section. This segment features talented teenagers from all around Maui. I made sure to interview people of varying genders, ages, and cultural backgrounds. Also, these students are all from different schools, and they participate in different environmental activities. For example, Alexis deals with animals, Hokua participates in environmental summits, Camry is focused on being inventive, and Kona is focused on plants.
During our brainstorming session for our second issue on Maui's music scene, I reminded the staff that we need a diverse group of students, so instead of writing about four singers, we ended up featuring a producer, a band geek, a slack key artist, and a heavy metal band in the Maui Made section.
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ʻĀhaʻilono means reporter in Hawaiian. In this newspaper issue, I wrote a sidebar in Hawaiian. It accompanied my reporting of the outcomes of a Hawaiian Language Competition that was part of Hawaiian Language Month activities. As part of the cultural renaissance in the Native community, stories like this appeal to our bilingual readers and demonstrate our efforts in inclusivity.