"Eia na waa; kau mai a-i,
E hoi, a noho ia Hawaii-kua-uli."
"Here are the canoes; get on board,
Come along, and dwell in Hawaii-with-the-green-back."
— Abraham Fornander’s "Ancient History of the Hawaiian People."
By Jan TenBruggencate
Advertiser Staff Writer
Since the time of the earliest inhabitants, Hawai‘i has been a place where people came seeking paradise. Each new group has changed the Islands and, inevitably, the lives of the people they found here.
In the quotation above, the priest Pa‘ao urges a Society Islands chief to join him in Hawai‘i and to become its ruler. Pa‘ao is credited with transforming Hawaiian society between 700 and 900 years ago, and the chief he ultimately installed, Pili, became the progenitor of all subsequent Hawaiian rulers into the 1800s, including the Kamehamehas.
"E holo, e ai ia Hawai‘i he moku," Pa‘ao says in the ancient chant. "Go and possess Hawai‘i, the island."
In the year 2000, some Hawaiians sought to turn back the clock and regain some of what they had lost - mainly to those without Hawaiian blood, to the United States of America and its political offspring, the state of Hawai‘i.
But it would be a mistake to see the year’s events as significant only to Hawaiians. The growing politicization, restlessness and impatience with the status quo, anger and cynicism of some non-Hawaiians combined with more persistent court challenges to Hawaiian entitlements to create an atmosphere of both anticipation and uneasiness.
What became clear is that 2000 built a foundation for change that will affect all who call Hawai‘i home.
"It seems to me that each year the pace of activity has increased, and (2000 was) the fastest, (with) a lot of activity on a lot of different fronts," said part-Hawaiian federal District Judge Samuel King. "I think a lot of things have settled out, become clearer."
Lihu‘e attorney Warren C.R. Perry, longtime chairman of the board of the Hawaiian job training program Alu Like, likens Hawaiians today to homeowners who have been evicted by people they invited in.
"The original owners of the house are now in the back storage shed, and the guests of the house are now running the house," Perry said. "More members of the Hawaiian community now recognize that they should have a voice. We deserve more of a say in our house," Perry said.
In large part, the year’s frenzied pace in Hawaiian affairs was the result of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Rice vs. Cayetano. The court ruled that non-Hawaiian residents of the Islands could not be barred from voting for candidates for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. The Hawai‘i Supreme Court ruled that this meant candidates also could be non-Hawaiian. Many feel the rulings threaten dozens of other programs aimed at helping those with Hawaiian blood.
The year also saw growth in the numbers and groups of people challenging assumptions about what special treatment Hawaiians deserve. Among them are decendants of non-Hawaiians who were citizens of the Hawaiian kingdom before the overthrow, as well as staunch constitutionalists who argue, as in the Rice case, that to treat anyone differently based on race is illegal. Non-Hawaiians ran for the first time for seats on the OHA board, and made their case more vocally than before that Hawai‘i belongs to everyone, with no special provisions for the kanaka maoli.
"There has been an unending, unyielding assault on Hawaiian entitlements," said Clayton Hee, who served as OHA chairman through much of the year.
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| A crowd gathered at the Neal Blaisdell Center last August for testimony regarding a U.S. Senate bill that would give federal recognition to Native Hawaiians. The bill raised emotionally charged issues and generated sometimes contentious sessions.
Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser |
Other Hawaiian issues were in the news as well, some derived directly from Rice, some peripherally and some not at all.
One group is challenging U.S. rights to the Islands in the World Court in The Hague, Netherlands. The Clinton administration held reconciliation hearings across the state. The embattled Bishop Estate has a new, permanent set of trustees. The OHA board resigned, and the governor appointed interim OHA trustees, including the first non-Hawaiian. A new OHA board was elected in the General Election that included the same non-Hawaiian.
"It (was) a rather bad year," said attorney H.K. Bruss Keppeler, past president of the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs. Rice "knocks the pegs out from under OHA and hangs as a huge shadow over a number of programs that are beneficial to the Hawaiian people, starting with 1921" (when the Hawaiian Homes program was being passed in Congress).
This affects not only Hawaiians but potentially the entire community, Keppeler said, because the roughly $30 million in federal money earmarked to benefit Hawaiians through jobs, training, health, education and other programs trickles through the economy, improving conditions for everyone.
In the face of potential threats to Hawaiian programs, some Hawaiian groups began to shed fragmented identities and talked unity. Many supported, and others vigorously protested, Sen. Daniel Akaka’s proposed legislation giving recognition to Hawaiians as a group much like American Indian and Alaskan tribes have.
"Federal recognition is the basis of nationhood for Hawaiians," Hee said. "Akaka takes us several steps forward - a quantum leap forward - to a point where we may join 557 federally recognized nations" within the United States.
The Akaka bill has not yet passed, and some fear for its survival in the next session of Congress.
"I don’t think federal recognition is coming down the road. I hope I’m wrong," said Haunani-Kay Trask, professor of Hawaiian studies at the University of Hawai‘i.
Hawaiians are fighting for programs many took for granted, and are no closer to achieving the ultimate goal - to have a large land base. "If you see the problem as diaspora, as landlessness, as waterlessness, the answer is land," Trask said.
Others suggest that the very sense of having been victimized is part of the problem that will not easily be solved, even with programs, land and money.
"I think everyone wants the Hawaiians to get a fair shake as the aboriginal people," said Rubellite Kinney Johnson, retired professor of Asian and Pacific languages at the University of Hawai‘i. "The Hawaiians at this point of their history are in the midst of feeling that they’ve been done to. I’m not sure that it’s a good way to be," Johnson said.
The Kahu Kaleo Patterson, of Kaumakapili Church, said it will take considerable time to heal the wounds many Hawaiians feel.
He argues that any solution to the political issues must also help the other victims in the Hawai‘i community.
"There is still a vision of Hawai‘i, that has yet to emerge, of a just society. A society that really embraces all people," he said.
Judge King noted that the Hawaiian sovereignty movement has not been embraced by Native Hawaiians of wealth and property.
"All this independence movement is a movement by the maka‘inana, not the ali‘i," he said. "It’s a legitimate movement - a movement by the downtrodden. The ones who got theirs kind of forget the ones left behind."
That makes it a movement that is difficult to manage, Patterson said, and it will take extraordinary efforts to bring the people together. "There are no chiefs in the community, no system of elders, no way of legitimizing authority," he noted.
Trask expressed dismay that people expect the Hawaiian community to express a unified view.
"We come from different classes. We come from different places. We come from different educations. We come from different economic backgrounds. It seems to me that we are the only people in the state of Hawai‘i that people demand all think with one mind," she said. But there is a key unifier: "All Hawaiians have been disenfranchised in terms of their government."
In Trask’s view, it is time for Hawaiians to launch a "serious civil disobedience campaign" to help re-establish momentum toward resolving Hawaiian issues.
Hee feels that movement is already under way.
"2000 is the year that as a Hawaiian tells me we are at the crossroads of our future. 2001 will be a watershed year for Hawaiians. The rudiments of nationhood are becoming part of the planning process," Hee said.
A Hawaiian chant that compares the process of canoe-building with the making of the first humans by the gods suggests that ferment is natural to the creation process.
"Halulu, nei, neha, ‘ow’,
Nakeke, nehe, ‘ow’ ‘ow’," it says.
"Roaring, rumbling, rustling, murmuring,
Rattling, rustling, soughing ..."
— Samuel Kamakau’s "Na Mo‘olelo o ka Po‘e Kahiko: Tales and Traditions of the People of Old."
