Rule allows Native Hawaiians to form their own government

Library of Congress

Queen Liliuokalani of Hawaii, overthrown by sugar plantation owners and U.S. troops in 1893 

Compiled by Jason Daley

SMITHSONIAN.COM

LAST WEEK, the Interior Department issued a final ruling allowing the Native inhabitants of Hawaii to conduct a referendum on re-establishing a government for the indigenous community for the first time in 120 years. If ratified, that body, representing 527,000 indigenous Hawaiians, would be able to establish a government-to-government relationship with the U.S. and give native islanders more power over their culture, traditions and other self-government issues, similar to sovereign Native American nations.

It’s been a long road to this point. In the 1800s, the U.S. government recognized the Hawaiian Islands as an independent nation ruled over by a native monarchy. Over time, however, American businesses continued to make inroads via trade agreements. By 1891, U.S. sugar plantation owners and companies controlled about four-fifths of the islands and had pushed through a new constitution greatly reducing the power of the native government and restricting the rights of the native population to vote.

That year the Hawaiian ruler King Kalākaua's sister, Queen Liliuokalani, took the throne. In 1893, she prepared to issue a royal fiat restoring power to the monarchy and guaranteeing the right to vote for native Hawaiians. Instead, a coup orchestrated by the sugar plantation owners and backed by U.S. warships and troops deposed the queen and established a provisional government. In 1900, the U.S. officially annexed the islands as a territory and voted it in as a state in 1959.

In 1993, Congress passed a resolution apologizing to native Hawaiians for the government's role in overthrowing their leadership and began a two-decade process of reconciliation culminating in this announcement. “Native Hawaiians have been the only major indigenous group in the 50 states without a process for establishing a government-to-government relationship with the federal government.” Robert Lindsey, chairman of the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs says in a press release. “This rule finally remedies this injustice.”

Annelle Amaral, the president of the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs tells Merrit Kennedy at NPR that the ruling is a big plus for the indigenous community. “What it allows us to do is to finally have control over our sacred sites, over health care for our people, over the education of our children,” she says. “Instead of waiting for someone else to do something about our problems, with our own government we can begin to initiate change.”

Not everyone is satisfied with native Hawaiians being treated simply as another indigenous body. Soon after the announcement protests by indigenous activist groups sprung up on the islands of Oahu, Hawaii, Maui, and Kauai, reports Frances Kai-Hwa Wang at NBC News.

Wang reports: “The United States took a stable government, destabilized it, and then has the nerve today to say, ‘We will make a deal with you, and the deal is you agree to become our native people and we will negotiate some kind of settlement that will make life a little bit better for you,’” Professor Jonathan Kay Kamakawiwoʻole Osorio of the University of Hawaii Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies said during a press conference. 

“The very very worst part of all of this is that what the U.S. has done…have really actually acted to divide a people who were moving, who have been moving, towards a legal, rational, and reasonable solution to the hewa (wrong) that the United States committed more than a hundred years ago.”

Juliet Eilperin at The Washington Post reports that the move is part of a special interest that President Obama has taken in his home state in the last year of his presidency. Last month, he created the world's largest marine reserve by expanding Hawaii’s Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, a move applauded by many native leaders.

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Vote for Hawaiian self-governance abruptly halted but convention proceeds

Upside down Hawaiian flag, a state in distress.

A FEW YEARS BACK, while driving the long-winding but beautiful road to Hana on the island of Maui, flags began to appear in residents' yards. Some of the Hawaiian state flags were right side up, but an almost equal number were upside down, an indication that the state was in distress.

The recent attempt to select delegates to determine the self-governance of Native Hawaiian people has met a surprisingly abrupt conclusion.

The almost two-month election process to select delegates for a gathering in Hawaii to help determine the fate of Native Hawaiians' ability to determine their own future has been cancelled and instead, all 196 Native Hawaiians who ran as candidates will be allowed to participate in the discussion next year.

"Our goal has always been to create a path so that Hawaiians can gather and have a serious and much-needed discussion about self-governance," said Kuhio Asam, president of Na'i Aupuni, a nonprofit that had organized the election.

The debate over Hawaiian statehood began as soon as it became a state. Did anyone bother to ask the Native Hawaiians what they preferred? They were basically ignored. The question on the ballot gave voters a choice of statehood or to remain a U.S. territory. There was no discussion about returning to the monarchy that was in place before a group of U.S. businessmen backed by the U.S. Marines took over the  royal palace n Honolul

The election, which began in November was supposed to last a month but Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy put a halt to the counting of the ballots early December to allow time to assess the legality of the vote.

Another group of Hawaiians had protested the process because they claimed that it excluded non-Hawaiians, which would make it against the U.S. Constitution.“Clearly our lawsuit (Akina v. State of Hawaii) has brought an end to a discriminatory election,” Keli’i Akina, president/CEO of Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, said in a statement. “Now, in a desperate move to bypass their failed election and ignore their voter base, Na‘i Aupuni is undercutting its own efforts to even look like a democratic process.”

“We anticipated that the path would have twists and turns and even some significant obstacles, but we are committed to getting to the ‘Aha where this long-overdue discussion can take place,” said Asam at a press conference last Dec. 15.

He said due to the delays caused by the ongoing litigation – that could continue for years – it was decided that the most effective route at this point would be to offer to convene all of the remaining delegate candidates and allow them to an opportunity to organize Hawaiians and achieve self-governance.

Asam said Na‘i Aupuni will manage the process of the ‘Aha but not the substance of the discussions. “We have retained Peter Adler and Linda Colburn of The Mediation Center of the Pacific to serve as facilitators to lead the instruction week and to thereafter assist in organizing the delegates,” he said. “They will contact the candidates who decide to participate in the ‘Aha.”

The confirmation deadline to participate in the ‘Aha is Dec. 22, 2015. An email will request that the candidates confirm whether they intend to accept the terms and attend the ‘Aha that runs the month of February 2016 and will be held at a meeting facility in Kailua, Oahu. On Dec. 23, 2015, Na’i Aupuni will post the list of delegates on its website.

Asam said a key component of the ‘Aha is the education and information the delegates will receive during the first week regarding constitution building, federal Indian law, international law regarding de-occupation, decolonization, the rights of indigenous people, U.S. Constitution issues that relate to Native Hawaiian self-governance, the ceded lands claim, background on Hawaiian Home Lands, Kingdom Law and constitutions drafted by sovereignty groups.

Na‘i Aupuni is an independent organization made up of a volunteer board of directors from the Hawaiian community. It exists solely to help establish a path to an ‘Aha, or constitutional convention, where Hawaiians can discuss and explore various options of self-determination. Na‘i Aupuni was formed in December 2014 and is separate and independent from the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the State of Hawaii. For further information about Na‘i Aupuni and a list of the 196 candidates who will be seated as delegates can be found here.

For more news of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, go to AsAm News.

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Trouble in paradise: Justice Kennedy puts vote of Indigenous Hawaiians in limbo

At issue: self-determination for Native Hawaiians.

U.S. SUPREME COURT JUSTICE Anthony Kennedy put a crimp on an effort to give native Hawaiians more of a say in their future. Last Friday (Nov. 27) , Kennedy ordered officials in Hawaii not to count ballots or announce the winners of an election in which only people of native Hawaiian ancestry could vote.

“The real harm of this election is it fosters a kind of racial discrimination that damages our greatest product in Hawaii, the aloha spirit,” said Keli’i Akina, president of Grassroot Institute, which sought to stop the voting process. 

UPDATE: Na‘i Aupuni, the Native Hawaiian organization with a mission to establish a path to Native Hawaiian self-determination, announced Monday (Dec. 1) it is extending the deadline to vote to midnight Monday, Dec. 21.

“The net effect of a race-based election to establish a race-based government will only serve to divide people from one another. Racial tensions are already on the rise in the nation and it's a terrible thing to also see this becoming the case in the Aloha state.”

The growing movement to somehow compensate the original inhabitants of Hawaii for the questionable way they lost their lands when Hawaii became a U.S. territory, could result in giving them the same status of native Americans in the very least, or, in the other extreme, the 50th state could secede from the United States.

“People come to Hawaii and think it's just a tourist destination,” Rowena Akana told a reporter. “They know nothing about how the natives here have suffered and still suffer today.

"This election is very important because it’s an opportunity to seek some reparation, said Akana, a trustee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and a candidate in the upcoming election. "This is our chance to make a comeback.”

Native Hawaiians are at the bottom of the economic ladder, have the poorest health outcomes and perform poorly in school on comparison to the Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Euro/Americans and other ethnic groups who have made Hawaii their home. Their traditional customs are constantly being eroded, they say.

For the past month native Hawaiians in Hawaii and on the mainland have been voting in what many see as the first step for self-determination. Under a definition in a 2011 law, only descendants of “the aboriginal peoples who, before 1778, occupied and exercised sovereignty in the Hawaiian islands” are eligible to vote.

The elected delegates would take part in a constitutional convention to come up with a form of self-government and to determine what relationship - if any - the islands would have with the United States.

In his temporary stay, Kennedy goes counter to the Department of the Interior and the State of Hawaii, which initiated the wheels moving towards the creation of a new sovereign nation, giving native Hawaiians the same status that Native American tribes have over their land.

Opponents, including some who would qualify to vote in this special election, say that the election is race-based thus runs counter to the U.S. Constitution and the Voting Rights Act. 

The election is being run by the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, a nonprofit also called  Na’i Aupuni. In the Hawaiian language, na’i means “the one who conquered,” and aupuni means “created the kingdom.”

Queen Liliuokalani,
the last Hawaiian monarch

Election results were supposed to have been announced Dec. 1.

The movement for more self-determination for Hawaiians stems from the very start of its territorial status and has been gaining steam over the last few decades.

In 1893, Queen Liliuokalani, the last monarch of Hawaii, yielded power to a group of businessmen backed by U.S. Marines in order to avoid the bloodshed of her people. She did so believing that the U.S. government, when presented with the facts, would eventually restore the Hawaiian kingdom. Instead, the coup led to the dissolution of Hawaiian sovereignty and the islands' eventual statehood.

During the territorial stage of Hawaii's history when American businessmen held the power, much like the way Native Americans were treated on the mainland, the native-born Hawaiians had their traditional lands stolen, the hula was outlawed and their language banned in schools.

Unlike Native Americans on the mainland, Native Hawaiians didn't have a government structure to represent them in the halls of U.S. government. For over a century, native Hawaiians still don't have political representation or a say on their future.

“For the first time in over a hundred years, there will be a definitive voice on Native Hawaiian issues,” said Robin Danner, who was appointed to the NHRC by former Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie.  “A definitive and recognized government to speak for our culture, our people, our issues, instead of county or state government attempting to have a subcommittee within their agencies or structures to mouthpiece the value of native viewpoints, which has not worked well at all.”

The commission, led by former Hawaii Gov. John Waihee, was formed in 2011 with a mission to bring together a group of qualified and interested Native Hawaiian voters. The controversial vote, which began on Nov. 1 and ends today (Nov. 30), was to help determine who would be taking part in that vigorous discussion.

“Being native in the United States is like living a cycle of grief,” Danner said. “Because being native in the United States is to have lost something powerful. First, you're depressed. Then you're angry. Then there is some acceptance and then you get to a point where you say, 'What am I going to do about it?' As a people I think we are at the stage where we are ready to do something about it.”

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