Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 1, Number 10, 1 Kekemapa 1984 — Expressing a Concern [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Expressing a Concern

By Moanikeala Akaka Trustee, Hawaii

E ala na moku O ke kai liloloa E moe loa nei Maka'e o ka po.

Wake up! Our is!ands are ebbing away while you sleep We are on ihe Edge of Darkness.

Aloha mai, As your new OHA trustee, I hope to add a eoneem for the grassroots survival problems of our people and these islands whieh seems to have been missing these past four vears from OHA.

OH A is supposed to help better the conditions of the

Hawaiian people and this we desperately need more than ever as the high cost of living, food, housing, utilities, etc., forces many of us to struggle to get by. It's tough! OHA should begin to implement job training programs and be helping Hawaiians get off welfare. It is no fun to be treated as second-class citizens where we have become "strangers in our own land!" Our culture. language and lifestyle have been stifled for generations. OH A should, likea breath of fresh air, support, sustain and help preserve and perpetuate these areas and our islands. The trustees should also kokua those Hawaiians seeking higher education in the western sense. Many Hawaiian young people have been turned off by the present public school system. Others have been discouraged fromseeking highereducation by teachers and counselors who treated them as inferiors — the "you can't make it in school 'cause you're Hawaiian" attitude! No wonder some of our best brain power end

up in jail or the syndicate. Judge Shunichi Kimura was right when he mentioned at the Crime Conference in Sept. 1983 that OHA should be helping with programs so Hawaiians would not end up in his court and injail. OH A must be helping to eliminate the symptoms that cause the social and eeonomie problems of Waianae-Nanakuli, Mayor Wright, L.anakila Housing, Keaukaha, Waimanalo and elsewhere these pilikia exist in our islands. lt is especially important that there be more open communication and accountability between the trustees and the Hawaiian people. As trustees, we eannot expect to isolate ourselves from our constituents and community while claiming to serve them, whieh is what has been happening in the past. That is undemocratic. These are just a few of the ways in whieh I hope to help better the conditions of the Hawaiian people. Mahalo nui loa, me ke aloha pumehana. Ua mau ke ea o ka 'aina i ka pono.