Thriving in the Midst of a Culture of Shame: Part III

On December 23, 2017December 23, 2017 By jandillIn Hawaiian Values, Indigenous Issues, Social Justice, SustainabilityLeave a comment

By the last third of the 20^th century, there were significant strides taken politically and economically to begin a process of change in the culture of shame in Hawai‘i. There was growing recognition of the injustices of the system suffered by the Hawaiian community and a real movement to try to find a sustainable path of transformation in the face of the significant challenges that community continued to face.

The State of Hawai‘i assumed the management of the Hawaiian Homes Commission, a federal agency overseeing the 200,000 acres of lands set aside by the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1920 for Hawaiian agriculture and home ownership.

Designated Hawaiian Homelands across the state_Nelson Minar Data from HI office of planning — *Photo credit: Nelson Minar/Data from Hawaii Office of Planning, hawaiipublicradio.org*

The 1978 Hawai‘i State Constitutional Convention created the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA), a semi-autonomous agency to manage the ceded lands the federal government had received from the government of Hawai‘i for the benefit of the Hawaiian community. The trustees of the organization were to be elected by ethnically Hawaiian voters. In the area of education, health, and social services, the Hawaiian delegation in Washington led by Senator Daniel K. Inouye and Senator Daniel K. Akaka pressed for significant resources for the Hawaiian community. Leaders such as Myron Thompson also helped to funnel tens of millions of dollars into educational, health, and social projects aimed at improving the state of Hawaiians.

Senator Daniel K. Inouye

Senator Daniel K. Akaka

Myron Thompson, PC: The Honolulu Advertiser

Innovations such as Hawaiian language immersion schools emerged to revitalize interest and use of the Hawaiian language. Hula, Hawaiian music, and traditional crafts found growing interest in the community while a renaissance of traditional celestial navigation and long distant voyaging focused on the iconic vessel Hōkūle‘a.

hokulea_circa_1975_PVS — *Hōkūle‘a circa 1976. PC: Polynesian Voyaging Society, Kamehameha School Archives*

All these activities brought Hawaiian issues into day to day discussions and pride to the community. Significant federal funds were used by the Bishop Estate/Kamehameha Schools system (a creation of the last Princess of Hawai‘i, Bernice Pauahi Bishop, using the significant land resources she bequeathed) to develop innovative extension programs to address the significant educational deficit Hawaiian children had in their schooling. Myron Thompson also joined with other Hawaiian leaders to create the Hawaiian Health System, a series of clinics that focused on the needs of struggling Hawaiian families. All of this was brought to a crescendo by the amazing Congressional Apology Resolution U.S. Public Law 103-150 of the 103^rd Congress enacted on November 23, 1993 admitting to the injustice of the seizure of the Kingdom of Hawai‘i on January 17, 1893 and the collusion of the United States government in that illegal act.

apology — Click here to view the full Resolution

It seemed that the culture of shame was on life support. Unfortunately, life has a tendency to be much more complex than we are usually expecting.

Despite all of the above positive changes and investment in social issues, the plight of the poor Hawaiian family remained in place. The waves of alcohol and various drug addictions brought devastation to many. The traditional family structure of the Hawaiian people continued to fragment under the unrelenting pressure to conform to “western values and western perspectives” on life and community. For many families, the roles of kūpuna and the moral authority of the church were slowly abandoned and the commitment to ‘ohana (extended family) became strained. Hawaiian ethnicity was less and less tied to a clear set of Hawaiian cultural and values. Young Hawaiians were increasingly able to go away for higher education, but they were also less liable to return with their skills to build the lāhui, and their skills were often lost to benefit communities on the mainland. A friend and student of the Hawaiian language and people, Dwayne Steele, once noted that “as Hawaiians experienced prosperity, they became less Hawaiian.” They escaped the culture of shame by leaving their culture.

The stats for the past several decades attest to the persistence of dysfunction in Hawaiian communities despite hundreds of millions of dollars of social investment. Not a pretty sight.

poverty — *Data source: US Census Bureau Decennial Census (1980, 1990, 2000, 2010 ACS) and 2011-2016 ACS 1-year estimates*

Data source: State of Hawai‘i Department of Human Services, “A Statistical Report on Child Abuse and Neglect in Hawaii” 2000-2015 reports

teen birth rate — *Data source: Hawai‘i State Department of Health, Hawai‘i Health Data Warehouse http://hhdw.org*

education — *Source: http://www.hawaiihealthmatters.org*

health rev — Data source: Hawai‘i State Department of Health, Hawai‘i Health Survey http://health.hawaii.gov/hhs/ (1998-2012); Hawai‘i State Department of Health, Hawai‘i Health Data Warehouse http://hhdw.org (2013-2015)

substance abuse — Data source: Hawai‘i State Department of Health and UH Center on the Family “Alcohol and Drug Treatment Services: Hawaii, 5-Year Trends (2010-2014)” http://uhfamily.hawaii.edu/publications/brochures/094f2_COF_ADAD_Treatment_5yr_Report_2015.pdf

Source: Prison Policy Initiative, http://www.prisonpolicy.org

These questions emerge, “What have we not recognized in this struggle to defeat the culture of shame? How do we move forward towards true transformation and the creation of a healthy and resilient lāhui as we seek to sever the tap root of this plague on the Hawaiian community?”

I don’t pretend to have anything other than some suggestions for areas we can focus on to bring transformation to the community and weaken the culture of shame in our midst:

…We can define what we believe is our “nation,” our lāhui. This means producing and refining documents that capture the heart of who we are. The ‘Aha convened by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs passed the Native Hawaiian Constitution on February 26, 2016, which provides a foundational document for the Hawaiian nation. It provides a legal step in the building of the community into a nation. The implementation of its provisions remains to be done.

…A corollary to the constitution is the clear articulation of the values that will drive our community and the development of the means to help people understand how these values impact their lives and perspectives on contemporary issues. How does “being a part of the Hawaiian nation” set us apart from our non-Hawaiian colleagues and friends? How do the values of our lāhui change our political, social, economic, and community behaviors?

…Let us inventory the resources Hawaiians have and then select foundational areas for cooperative, calculated, and measured investment in transformational change. Areas that rest on the top of my list are early education programs integrated with family education to prepare our young for success and our families for the successful stewardship of our keiki (children). I can think of no other areas of social investment that would result in such transformational building blocks for our community. Achieved measured outcomes in such an investment in our children and families really put in place a sustainable foundation for lāhui.

…Cultural investment is another area of initial importance to our community and to the eradication of the culture of shame. Language and the understanding of our heritage have provided us with windows to self-esteem and positive identification. Understanding the chemistry of the culture of shame will help us as a people to avoid the stereotypes and attitudes that have kept us crippled by this shame in the past, as we step into the future.

It is obvious that these steps are only part of the road to burying the culture of shame. Each of us individually needs to catalogue what bits and pieces remain in our lives and intentionally work on changing or eliminating them. Our children should be challenged to be servant leaders as they move into adulthood and become clear and positive Hawaiian responses to the challenges of contemporary life. We all need to ask ourselves how we are modeling the Hawaiian culture of success to our families, friends and work colleagues. A worthy thought as we enter a new year!

Blessings and aloha to all for this holiday season and for the New Year!

“Mai maka‘u ‘oukou, e ka ‘ohana ‘u‘uku: no ka mea, ‘o ka makemake o ko ‘oukou Makua e ha‘awi i ke aupuni iā ‘oukou!” Luke 12:32

Thriving in the Midst of a Culture of Shame: Part II

On November 10, 2017 By jandillIn Hawaiian Values, Indigenous Issues, Social JusticeLeave a comment

Despite the power of the culture of shame that started in the late 1800s, it is interesting to note that during the 1930s through the 1960s, Hawaiians were very present in several professional groups. Many Hawaiian teachers in public schools, like my mother, formed the backbone of K-12 public education. The courts and the public bureaucracy also had a very visible Hawaiian presence. Even the legislature and city council had strong Hawaiian individuals at the levers of power. How could that be? On a certain level, I think it was the classic “Stockholm syndrome” in which the hostages develop a psychological/ social/ economic alliance relationship with their captors as a strategy for survival. Our kūpuna wanted their Hawaiian children to prosper in the new and very different western Hawai‘i and they did! A bit dramatic, but the picture of the prisoners becoming the guards jumps to mind. Hawaiians had succeeded in becoming something the culture of shame demanded!

On another level, there was a growing awareness during these years that the host culture was in serious decline. The language was less and less evident in daily life, even in Hawaiian families, and cultural practices were more and more oriented towards creating a platform for the tourist industry in the state. It seemed that the more successful a Hawaiian became in the western culture, the less Hawaiian he/she became in his/her identity with the host culture. Hawaiian perspectives were not welcomed enthusiastically in the schools, corporations, and social gatherings of Hawai‘i. One could be Hawaiian by ethnicity, but not Hawaiian by traditional values and practices. The system worked hard to maintain the distinction.

Part of my memories of my youth in the 1940s and 50s are the headlines of the daily newspapers in Honolulu. One consistent theme that a young person saw was that crime, in general, was committed by “LPMs,” or “Large Polynesian Males.” It formed some of the white noise of life in the islands that reinforced the culture of shame and the need to distance oneself from the host culture. Some would say that you had to view it all in the context of the community at that time and not assign it importance, but for a young Hawaiian growing up and struggling to find his or her identity, it was subtle but powerful input. The socio-economic lines in the community during that time were also strong and enforced. Though Caucasians and Hawaiians could surf, paddle, play sports, and have a convivial time together, interracial dating created a completely different tone. The power of the culture of shame created an understood barrier between relationships beyond certain levels between haoles and Hawaiians. If one didn’t get the hint, the “barrier” often became loudly vocal and sometimes openly physical in nature. There were rules with the culture of shame, and not mixing beyond a certain level was one of them.

big 5 — *The “Big 5” that dominated* *Hawaii business from the late 1800s to the mid-1900s, PC: starbulletin.com*

Throughout the period before World War II, the partnership of the traditional agriculturally-based corporations (founded for the most part by missionary descendants and referred to as the “Big Five”) and the political military hierarchy of the U.S. Navy and Army, functioned to keep the divisions of the culture of shame in place. Perhaps the most dramatic example of this diligent enforcement of shame was the Thalia Massie case in 1932. It served to bring racism in the mainland’s south as a lens to view the status of Hawaiians during this period. Hawaiian Joseph Kahahawai was wrongly accused of the rape of Navy wife Mrs. Thalia Massie, was acquitted, and then murdered by moneyed white upper class east coast relatives of Mrs. Massie. The four individuals who committed the crime (including Mrs. Massie’s mother) were convicted and sentenced to ten years of hard labor, which was magically commuted to a sentence of one hour with Territorial Governor Lawrence M. Judd (a descendent of missionary grandparents). The culture of shame protected its own.

massie case_honolulu advertiser — *The four defendants and their supporters shortly after being sentenced (May 4, 1932)*. From left: Clarence Darrow, chief defense counsel; defendants E.J. Lord and A.O. Jones; Maj. Gordon Ross, high sheriff; Grace Fortescue, mother of Thalia Massie; Thalia and Lt. Thomas Massie; and George Leisure, defense counsel. PC: *Honoluluadvertiser.com*

New York weekly tabloid Brevities, Feb 1, 1932

19990729 CTY Politcal carton of the Massie case. PHOTO COPY BY DENNIS ODA ON JULY 29, 1999.

What one also doesn’t hear about during this period, is the practice the Navy and Army used to intimidate the local population. When fights between locals and service personnel/sailors were deemed too frequent, soldiers from Schofield Barracks were called out to march through the streets as a reminder of who was in charge and the reality of the force protecting the privileged. The Territorial political system dominated by the Republican party and the commercial and military interests of Hawai‘i were clear in their commitment to keeping locals, particularly Hawaiians, in their place. With the U.S. Armed Forces (and particularly the Navy) holding complete sway over everything that took place in Hawai‘i, this period has been characterized as the time that Hawai‘i was “golf course of the U.S. Navy.” If that were true, Hawaiians could only hope to be favored caddies.

Uncle sam cartoon_School_Begins_(Puck_Magazine_1-25-1899) — *Cartoon depiction of the US, its territories, and US controlled regions as a classroom with belligerent Philippines, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Cuba*

World War II brought significant changes to the islands and a significant influx of talented people with very western ideas. Local Japanese veterans of the 100^th Battalion and the 442^nd Regimental Combat Team returned and used the GI Bill to pay for college and law school, and soon began to consolidate their control of the Territory’s administration and the Democratic party emerged as a political power in the local scene. Plantation workers, through difficult strikes and constant organizing, became the voice for the thousands of Japanese and Filipino workers in the plantation camps. Caucasians who settled in the state after the war didn’t bring with them the decades old negative view of the Hawaiian community, and so they married Hawaiians and for the most part were flexible in their view of the culture (like my Dad who married my hapa pake Mom). The winds of change were swirling.

442nd regiment — *442^nd Regimental Combat Team, PC: Hawaii Reporter*

The impact of all of this was a significant relaxing of the traditional barriers to Hawaiians and an easing of social practices that allowed the beginnings of the Hawaiian “Renaissance” in the late 40s, 50s, and its blossoming forth in the 1960s. Traditional hula, both ancient and modern, began to flourish and be taught throughout the state. This interest sparked a renewed interest in the Hawaiian language and in traditional cultural practices that were natural pieces of the revival of dance. Hawaiians today owe the flourishing of the culture to the many kumu hula who patiently taught generations to love the dance and the culture and seek to understand the language that had been taken away from them for decades. Anthropologist and linguists like Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel Elbert collected the words and the “mo‘olelo” (stories) that began the rediscovery of the Hawaiian language and the preservation of the cultural underpinnings of our people. It was the beginning of the return of the host culture to the host people and the beginning of a process of recognizing and addressing the culture of shame.

hulapreservation — *Hula Päipu by Beamer keiki hula students, 1950’s, PC: Hula Preservation Society*

Increased activism in Hawai‘i raised the plight of the Hawaiian to a higher level than ever before. The 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s saw the emergence of Hawaiian leaders in a wide spectrum of cultural and political areas, who all worked to erode the harshest elements of the culture of shame and begin a process of healing and recovery of self-worth for the community. Some of these leaders include:

Rev. Abraham Akaka: a strong Hawaiian voice for “pono” in our community. He served as one of the important “Kahu” (guardian) for Hawaiians during this turbulent period.

Myron “Pinky” Thompson: a leader in politics and funding for Hawaiian social issues, founder of Alu Like and a driving force of Hokule‘a and the recovery of Hawaiian celestial navigation

George Helm: the spiritual presence for the Kaho‘olawe ‘Ohana particularly after his disappearance at sea

Harry Kūnihi Mitchell: Co-founder of Protect Kaho’olawe ‘Ohana

Edith Kanaka’ole: a leader in the Hula renaissance

‘Iokepa Maka’ai: Co-founder of Pūnana Leo o Honolulu

Sunday Mānoa: a leader in the Hawaiian music renaissance

Gladys Brandt: a leader in the resurgence of Hawaiians at UH Mānoa

Msgr. Charles A. Kekumano: founder of Kūlana ‘Oiwi in Kalama’ula, Moloka’i (a one-stop-shop for organizations serving Hawaiians), trustee of the Queen Liliuokalani Trust, and active in many community organizations such as the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs, University of Hawai‘i Board of Regents, the Honolulu Police Commission, Hawai‘i Commission on Children and Youth.

Voices of leaders like these and many more became conscience keepers for the Hawaiian revival and began the process of understanding what was involved in the resurrection of Ka Lāhui (nation).

Slowly, Hawaiian children found paths to success in the new and more flexible society of Hawai‘i during the last decades of the 20^th century. Many went away to college on the mainland and some returned with ideas that tested the traditional lines of the culture of shame. Many, however, decided to stay away from the islands and seek their future in other cultures they found they could navigate and be successful in. They never returned to engage in a transformation of the host community.

In the 70s and 80s a wide range of issues relating to the Hawaiian reality were addressed. The naval bombardment of Kaho‘olawe became a symbolic image of the exploitation of the host culture. The injustices of the land tenure theft of Hawaiian family lands received attention after decades of denial and judicial opposition. The political power of Senators Daniel K. Inouye and Senator Daniel K. Akaka worked to provide significant federal resources for social issues in Hawaiian communities. And the land condemnation process of Bishop Estate lands led to significant resources flowing into the Estate and the educational programs of the Kamehameha Schools. It seemed that things were finally moving to dismantle the culture of shame and replace it with a culture of success for the Hawaiian people. Unfortunately, the declaration of victory was premature.

In the midst of all the changes and all the “progress” in our community, the needle was not moving positively for the bulk of the host culture and the socio-economic challenges of the Hawaiian communities of the state persisted and then deepened with the challenge of drugs, unemployment, and the subsequent social dysfunctions of the Hawaiian families in crisis. All of it reinforced the culture of shame assumptions that Hawaiians were lazy, they were not that bright, they couldn’t be trusted, and they were a drag on society as a whole. Little did we realize how hard change would be.

To be continued…

Thriving in the Midst of a Culture of Shame: Part I

On October 23, 2017 By jandillIn Hawaiian Values, Indigenous Issues, Social Justice, SustainabilityLeave a comment

I have reflected repeatedly about elements impacting the Hawaiian community throughout my lifetime and during the times of our elders. It is clear that we have struggled to find traction as an ethnic/cultural group in the midst of the tremendous changes beginning in the early 19^th century. Other ethnicities have prospered in the inclusive embrace of the host culture, but Hawaiians to this day continue to suffer from generational poverty and all of the social and physical consequences associated with it. It seems that the Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, even other Pacific Islanders such as the Samoan, Tongan, and other immigrant groups, have moved forward while Hawaiians continue to dominate the lower realms of the socio-economic-educational statistics. What drives this reality? How does true transformation take place if we can’t identify the factors that litter its path for the Hawaiian community?

It is very hard, if not impossible, to simply state the factors that lead to socio-economic structures that endure over time. Cultural/ language/ economic/ social/ religious/ military and global power alignments all play roles in the rolling definition of social structures in a cultural clash of this proportion. Despite this complexity, I will venture into a path of trying to block out what the consequences of this clash were during the past two hundred years of interaction between western and Hawaiian societies.

The introduction of western culture to the traditional Hawaiian nation in the latter eighteenth century resulted in huge economic and political changes that transformed the traditional Hawaiian reality. Western imperial interests in the Pacific drew Hawai‘i into the global political and commercial world. The traditional Hawaiian leadership was quickly overwhelmed by ideas and perspectives antithetical to the values and mores of life under the chiefs, kings, and kāhuna. Economic factors overwhelmed cultural values and Hawaiian families were faced with a perplexing decision: how do we ensure the success of our children in a world on wheels going to places we don’t understand? The use of the spoken Hawaiian language was being eroded even as it became a widely used written language. The traditional family, political, and leadership roles were being put into written documents the common people did not understand. Hawaiian agriculture was being replaced by a commercial plantation model and the traditional bond of the Hawaiian people between the land and their rulers was substituted with western land tenure codes and “representational government.”

From this toxic clash of cultures a number of important responses emerged, changing traditional Hawaiian social, economic, political relationships. The dominant economic interest of the Caucasian businessmen pressed them to mold the political system into one that would protect their investments in Hawai‘i and foster their growing interest in entering the global market through the plantation agricultural model. These goals hinged on changing both the traditional structure of ruler/subject relationships (which was basically a social compact between the chiefs and the governed with clear responsibilities to care for each other), as well as the traditional land tenure model that was predicated on the assumption of a strong personal relationship between the land and its user. In this latter relationship, the farmer assumed a “relationship of kinship” with the land and personal land tenure was superseded by the needs of the larger community, led by the chiefs. In the later part of the 19^th century, both of these traditional models were replaced with a western model that gave economic interests and monetary wealth a large say in public policy and as a result, the Hawaiian community was faced with a foreign constitutional form of government and an increasingly intrusive private land tenure system. Traditionally, the land was essentially a relative to Hawaiians; you cared for it, made it prosper, and did not exploit it. However with the change to a western perspective, the land became just another component and input to the economic health of the community. The Hawaiian community did not function well in a plantation setting, so the importation of workers from China, Japan, and later the Philippines, fueled Hawai‘i’s commercial agriculture boom. With plantations taking over, Hawaiians could no longer produce enough food to sustain themselves and the traditional small farming reality faded but managed barely to survive, just like the language, thanks to isolation and poverty.

pineapple fields lanai 1979_Iraphne R. Childes — Pineapple plantation in Lāna‘i, https://digitalcollections.qut.edu.au/216/

The traditional Hawaiian language was a threat to this startling shift in the Hawaiian reality, so it was essentially banned and removed as the teaching language in the public schools in 1896. This trickled down to Hawaiian families concerned about the future success of their children and soon the language began to disappear in the home setting. A major foundation of identity and strength for the Hawaiian community was replaced and given a negative connotation in the lives of the people of Hawai‘i. Relationships and responsibilities that the language presupposed were radically “westernized” into a system that the bulk of the native population did not understand.

KS 1893 — Kamehameha Schools (KS) was established to help Hawaiian children to succeed. Unfortunately, as an essentially English immersion school that was at the time run by annexationists, KS was one of the first schools to abolish the use of the Hawaiian language. The first class of students selected for KS staged a total walk out when told they were not to use Hawaiian on campus. Photo Credit: Kamehameha Schools, https://apps.ksbe.edu/kaiwakiloumoku/makalii/feature-stories/suppression_of_hawaiian_culture

On top of everything, the population of the Hawaiian community continued its downward spiral from a high of 500,000 or 600,000 at contact to less than 50,000 at the turn of the 20^th century. Diseases introduced from the west ravaged the host population while radical political, economic, land tenure, and cultural changes caused a similar destruction in the culture, stability, and more importantly self-sustainability of the Hawaiian people. All of these combined left a community in search of an identity. The ruling elite of missionary offspring and imported westerners were happy to strengthen the negative portrait of the Hawaiian. Writers like racist Rev. Sereno Bishop (1827-1909), son of a missionary with ties to Lorrin Thurston (a leader in the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893), wrote “definitive” histories of Hawai‘i depicting the Hawaiian as lazy, slow, and incapable of caring for themselves. As editor of the influential Christian newspaper “The Friend” from 1887-1902, he held an effective platform in pushing for the annexation of Hawai‘i to the US and furthering racial issues against Hawaiians. As they say, to the victor belong the spoils, and this was astoundingly true when it came to the public perception regarding Hawaiians and their place in their own land. The culture of shame was planted and it quickly became reality.

“He ma‘i nui ka hilahila”

Shame is a great disease. Shame and Humiliation can make one sick to the heart.

– ‘Ōlelo No‘eau #783

clara bow hula 1927 — Hollywood film Hula, 1927

Throughout the 20^th century the culture of shame strengthened. The Hawaiian language slowly disappeared from everyday use on the streets and in most homes, Hawaiian cultural practices like healing and Hawaiian martial arts faded into practice outside of the public view, while hula became westernized and a part of the Hollywood picture of Hawai‘i and its tradition. At the school for Hawaiians, the Kamehameha Schools, standing hula was prohibited as being too provocative. Hawaiians had lost a sense of their unique roots and cultural traditions except in those areas where contact with the western economy was limited: rural, isolated communities that had limited contact with the economic/political reality of Hawai‘i between 1890 and 1960 (places like Na‘alehu, Kalapana, Miloli‘i, Moloka‘i in general and particularly the east end, Halawa valley, etc.). These areas were subsistence economies and generally ignored by the ruling elite and therefore were able to preserve the language and some of the traditional cultural practices. In other words, the Hawaiian culture and language were being saved by those deemed in poverty and isolation. When the Hawaiian language revival began in the late fifties, the sixties, and the seventies of the last century, these rural communities were major resources for the movement.

(To be continued…)

Ka Lā Ho‘iho‘i Ea: Is Talk of Lāhui For Real?

On July 31, 2017July 31, 2017 By jandillIn Hawaiian Values, Indigenous Issues, Social JusticeLeave a comment

Today, July 31^st is Lā Ho‘iho‘i Ea (Restoration Day), the 174^th anniversary of the return of sovereignty to King Kamehameha III in 1843 by the British government represented by Admiral Richard Thomas. It was on this day that King Kamehameha III proclaimed to the Hawaiian people on the steps of Kawaiaha’o church what is now Hawai‘i’s motto: “Ua mau ke ea o ka ‘āina i ka pono” or “The sovereignty of the land is preserved through justice.” It is a time Hawaiians should use to reflect on just what is the Hawaiian “nation”? The monarchy is long gone, the trappings of sovereignty no longer have sway, and we are citizens of a powerful nation state, no matter how uncomfortable it might be for some. So what about this talk of Lāhui, nationhood, sovereignty?

As I reflect on the concept I am immediately struck by the loud voices and shaking fists surrounding the issue of sovereignty for Hawaiians. On the whole I have tended to stand to the side of the debate over the years, as I have seen how the core issues have a hard time emerging through emotions, strong language, and personal attacks from advocates on the many sides. There is much to be upset by as you delve into the complicated relationship of the United States and the Kingdom of Hawai‘i. Legal and conceptual arguments about the nature and path to a renewed Hawaiian government can get very vocal and very personal, very quickly. I have watched arguments slide very soon into ad hominem assaults on the characters of the people engaged in the discussions, dividing families, ending friendships, galvanizing our youth, and dismaying many others in the Hawaiian community. After all is said and done, however, there seems to be no clear definition of the Hawaiian nation and no universally accepted path to its final construction. The ‘Aha movement created a first step in the process, but most would agree the future is at best unfocused.

A number of years ago I discovered my great grandmother’s, my grandmother’s, and my grand aunt’s signatures on the anti-annexation petition signed in 1897. Twenty or thirty thousand Hawaiians signed the petition, but to no avail, as the following year the U.S. annexed Hawai‘i in what many consider to be an unconstitutional congressional resolution. I mention the petition because it is an important framework I have used to challenge my five children and my thirteen grandchildren on what to remember as they are called to make important decisions in their lives. Our kūpuna (elders) were not afraid of the consequences of signing the petition, for they believed it to be “pono” (right, correct) for them and their community. Unfortunately, the large economic-military and political powers at that time decided on a reality that absorbed the Hawaiian nation into the United States.

One hundred and twenty years later with the ongoing sovereignty debate, the tradition of the petition in our family continues to represent a commitment to do what is correct and right in the face of opposition and the threat of negative consequences. In the midst of all of the “paths” to sovereignty before us, what is one that is “pono”? My personal preference is for an entity that can control significant resources for the benefit of the Hawaiian community. Whether that be a “nation within a nation” or some other political structure is not a burning issue for me. What is important, is the challenge before the Hawaiian people to build a community/nation. It strikes me that pursuing international groups to declare the Hawaiian people a nation is sort of like putting the cart before the horse. These efforts have raised the issue and kept it public, but they were not combined with efforts that actually addressed the fundamental needs of the Hawaiian nation. You may have something that looks good on the outside, but something that lacks a viable foundation. What we really need to do is define the umbrella that covers our intended Lāhui so we can truly begin the process of creating a nation. What are our fundamental values? What shape does our communal commitment to children, kūpuna, the poor, and the sick look like? How does our culture guide us in the relationships between the rich and powerful and the poor and cast aside? Where is our discipline in speaking the “language” of our Lāhui and refusing to use the language and values of other groups? When you start to look at nationhood from this perspective we begin to realize that we’ve been building a house from the roof down… lots of views and pizzazz, a lot of sparks and noise, but little or no foundation.

We must first be a community and agree on the values that define our community and set it apart. The resources that are available to us should be wisely managed and focused on the following. We need to educate and care for our young and cherish and protect our elders. We need to provide education and opportunities for our people as they enter the economic system. We must reaffirm and enrich our cultural and linguistic heritage that makes the Hawaiian people unique. As a community, we must insist on servant leaders to move us forward. As we work to achieve these goals, our Hawaiian nation or community will become a reality and not be dependent on the opinions and labels of others.

The issue of sovereignty has been a divisive one for our community. We need to step back from the rhetoric and the passion that has marked this discussion and refocus on the hard challenges of caring for our children and families. The community that we seek to build and its values need to be something much, much larger than our individual focal planes. As we develop one mind about these values that will define us, we can then use them as a filter to avoid the distractions of conflicts unrelated to the true task of nation building.

Kaulana Nā Pua (Famous Are The Flowers), is a mele of opposition to the annexation of Hawaiʻi to the United States, written by Ellen Kehoʻohiwaokalani Wright Prendergast in 1893. In 2013 Project KULEANA and Kamehameha Publishing produced a collaboration of the mele you can view here. Lyrics and translation below are from huapala.org.

Welcome to the Age of the Dismissal of the Host Culture

On April 28, 2016May 2, 2016 By jandillIn Indigenous IssuesLeave a comment

During the past several years and particularly during the last several weeks as the legislative season moves towards its closing, it has become more and more apparent that public and private policy makers have increasingly ignored the Hawaiian culture and concerns when reaching their decisions impacting present and future components of our community. The mandated historical preservation processes, traditional water resource management, and cultural protocol relating to land use have generally been ignored by many agencies and departments of the federal, state/counties, and a cultural sensitivity to the impact of decisions on historical and contemporary Hawaiian places and practices has been clearly absent. Two or three specific issues might illustrate this principle.

According to credible sources, the U.S. Navy has indicated that they will turn over five hundred acres of their Kalaeloa lands to a commercial private sector developer for the building of private residences. No mention of community input, no mention of the historical or cultural importance of this land to the Hawaiian people, no recognition and provision for the critical water resources beneath this land, no consultation with the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, and a seeming lack of interest in the opinions of Hawaiians and non-Hawaiian community members have characterized this egregious and insensitive decision. I know that “to the victor belong the spoils” is the catch phrase in the exercise of military and political power, but in the past it has been a bit more subtle. It seems the velvet glove has come off.

It is interesting that most tourists come to Hawai‘i in great part because of the presence and power of the Hawaiian culture.

Just recently we also learned of the dismissal of the Hawaiian Cultural Director of the Hawai‘i Tourism Authority, after ten years of being a voice for the host culture in the organization that represents and promotes the largest industry in the state after military spending. It is interesting that most tourists come to Hawai‘i in great part because of the presence and power of the Hawaiian culture. It seems that authentic Hawaiian culture, traditions, and values are being abandoned by industry promoters in favor of slick generic beach promotion and Disney plastic tikis and cartoon caricatures. Pohō.

Another point of irritation in this vein is the fact that the Hawaiian culture is the only major ethnic group lacking a cultural center to celebrate its rich history and presence in our community. The Filipinos, the Okinawans, the Japanese, the Chinese, the Koreans, and others have their stand-alone centers. In a curious proposal, the HTA is offering to put a Hawaiian Cultural Center on the roof of the Convention Center. I suspect this is done to pay for the repair of major issues they have had with the roof and in hopes of financially saving that debt-ridden facility. Shame on them. How about OHA stepping forward and putting a real testimony to the Hawaiian culture, music and dance on their Kaka‘ako property? In a pono world, Hawaiian culture should be a priority for Hawaiian cultural organizations.

There are many more examples of this blatant disregard by our policy makers for issues of importance to the Hawaiian community, but I will close with another example of this widening disregard. The current legislature and state administration have been lukewarm, at best, in working to provide the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL) with the resources needed to process applications for housing and land leases. This is despite the ruling of the Hawai‘i Supreme court that highlights this failure of the state to uphold its commitment to fund these administrative activities, a major part of the constitutional agreements included in Hawai‘i’s admission as a state in 1959 (see Nelson case). For eight decades, the continuing failure to fund the process of leasing by the department has, in part, led to the decades-long waitlist for DHHL leases. Today there are over twenty-thousand on the waitlist, and DHHL has struggled to get the resources to manage an efficient processing program. Many Hawaiians die while on the waitlist and thousands are kept from having a piece of their ‘aina. Let’s see what emerges. I tend to believe that this administration and legislature will again affirm its lack of serious interest in fulfilling the state’s obligations to the Hawaiian community, which would allow more Hawaiians home ownership.

How can we claim to be the land of aloha when aloha is absent from the heart of those who are shaping the present and future of our community??

I trust that the Hawaiian leadership and friends of the Hawaiian culture will begin to stand up in the face of this dismissal of the Hawaiian people by the political and economic power brokers in our community. This dismissal is mean spirited, exploitive, and lacks the amazing values and perspectives that our kūpuna call us to model. How can we claim to be the land of aloha when aloha is absent from the heart of those who are shaping the present and future of our community?? It is important that Hawaiians resist the “culture of shame” that drives a consistent dismissal of our culture and our place in our homeland. To put a positive face on a negative reality, perhaps it is time for our Hawaiian leaders to model clearly the power and healing nature of servant leadership. The contrast to the present behavior of our political leaders may lead to a true return to our cultural values in our public policy debate. Perhaps the time of ahonui (patience) is pau and kū pono (stand for righteousness) should be the lens we use to view those who govern us.

At Low Tide

Category: Indigenous Issues

Welcome to the Age of the Dismissal of the Host Culture