Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 8, Number 4, 1 April 1991 — OHA: A Celebration Of Ten Years [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

OHA: A Celebration Of Ten Years

OHA: The Beginning-Part One

With this special supplement marking the first decaae of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Ka Wai Ola begins a series of monthly article designed to help you understand OHA better. "OHA: The Beginning" takes you back to the early 1970s and traces the growing awareness that the Hawaiian people were going to haue to organize to suruive. by Curt Sanburn Special to Ka Wai Ola O OHA The story of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) began just over ten years ago in 1980, when nine Hawaiian men and women chosen by the Hawaiian community were sworn in as trustees . . . of an idea. The idea was hope for the Hawaiian people, the ehanee to control their rightful resources and determine their own destiny. Looking back through two thousand years of Hawaiian culture and ahead to an unlimited Hawaiian future, the last two decades might seem unimportant, but they were pivotal years. These are the years when the idea of the Hawaiian nation was reborn and activated, when the nation itself gathered strength and the Hawaiian people were finally able to turn away from one hundred years of despair and dispossession. The story of OHA, still unfinished, is the story of hope. The 1970s — A Decade of Conflict and Awakening The decade of the 1970s was a hectic and unsettled period in Hawaii's history, as it was in American history. The social and cultural activism that blossomed on college campuses and in big mainland cities during the late 1960s was a national phenomenon by 1970. The values of thedominant culture were questioned and challenged by minorities of every kind in every community in the country. Racial minorities found new dignity in their native cultures and demanded equal treatment under the law. Idealistic young people questioned the morality of war and eventually brought the U.S. involvement in Vietnam to a halt. Women sought liberation from sexual stereotypes and oppression. "Ecology" became a new religion, at about the same time American astronauts brought back pictures from the moon of a bright little planet-blue, green and white-flecked — floating in the blackness of space. Jumbo jets arrived in Hawai'i in 1970, quickly followed by jumbo hotels. In the next six years, the number of visitors to Hawai'i doubled. The world shrank and Hawai'i boomed. New resorts, new highways and new subdivisions sprouted on virgin shores and sprawled into valleys and eane fields as Hawaii's populahon grew by 25 percent during the decade. The stress on the loeal community was felt most deeply by the rural Hawaiians. Their lives on the fringes of modernity, in close contact with the land and sea, were suddenly shaken by eviction notices and "No T respassing" signs as landowners and developers sprinkled luxurious hideaway resorts and exclusive golf communities in the most remote and untouched corners of Hawai'i Nei. In some cases, there was no plaee left for farmers and fishermen to go. At Kalama Valley mauka of Sandy Beach on O'ahu, a proposed luxury suburb threatened to dislodge the tenant farmers, including many Hawaiians, who had lived on the scrubby Bishop Estate land for years. It was a replay of Waialae-

Kahala in the 1950s, when pig farmers were forced to make way for expensive suburbs. The Kalama Valley farmers decided they weren't leaving quite easily. They organized Kokua Kalama and fought the eviction with noisy demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience. For the first time in almost one hundred years, the maka'ainana were standing up for their preferred way of life. The year was 1970, and Hawai'i would never be the same. The battles that followed are legendary: armed farmers prepared to die for their farmlands at Waiahole-Waikane on O'ahu in 1974; the defense of Niumalu on Kaua'i; the dramatic march for access and trail rights on the West End of Molokai; Kaho'olawe, where wave after wave of heroic Hawaiians defied the U.S. Department of Defense to malama the wounded sacred island; the hopeless last stand of the fishing settlement on Sand Island; the beach access fights at Makena and Nukolii; and the tragedy of Hale Mohalu. The fast paee of growth in Hawai'i meant that lands whieh had languished for years were suddenly targets for speculation and development. Kuleana lands were challenged and lost. An almost invisible avalanche of adverse possession proceedings, appropriately called "quiet title,"dispossessed hundreds if not thousands of Hawaiian families from their rightful inheritance, as lawyers for the big landowning corporations sought to eonsolidate and substantiate their holdings. Meanwhile, Hawaiian musicians, dancers and artists echoed the life-and-death land battles all around them with new-found pride in their cultural heritage. With the vigor of a war chant, Palani Vaughan sang "Kaulana Na Pua" ("Famous are the Flowers"), a turn-of-the-century protest song about the annexation of Hawai'i by the U.S. Gabby Pahinui and Peter Moon sang anthems of "aloha 'aina." Defiant, yearning or hopeful, the flood of Hawaiian music and dance in the 1970s

fused the love of the land with the very survival of Hawaiian culture. The voyages of Hokule'a dramatically demonstrated the ancient Hawaiians' mastery of their oeeanie universe and gave new cu!tural pride to an entire generation of Hawaiians. New awareness in the Hawaiian community created new resolve and questions: What about traditional Hawaiian gathering, water and access rights? And what about the 1.6 million acres of land held in trust by the State of Hawai'i whieh was supposed to benefit native Hawaiians? continued page 12

In a ceremony filled with emotion, Chief Justice William Richardson (center) administers the oath of office to the first OHA Board of Trustees (left to right): Peter Apo,

Roy Benham, Malama Solomon, Frenchy DeSoto, Rod Burgess (behind Richardson), Joe Kealoha, Moses Keale, Walter Ritte. Not shown: Thomas Kaulukukui, Sr.

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Aunty Emma DeFries prays with Frank Hewett during ceremony on Kaho'olawe in 1979.

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from page 11

Why was the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands so slow to plaee Hawaiians on the land and the waiting list of homestead applicants so long? And lastly, if the overthrow of the sovereign Hawaiian government in 1893 was caused in part by the United States acting illegally, as modern historians now were claiming, should we demand reparations from the U.S. Congress? To strengthen themselves and begin to answer the questions, various 'ohana pulled together and new organizations were born. A.L.O.H.A. (Aboriginal Lands of Hawaiian Ancestry), 'Ohana O Hawai'i, the Protect Kaho'olawe 'Ohana, Hui Ala Loa, the Waiahole-Waikane Community Association and others joined the ranks of older, more established organizations including the Association of Hawaiian Civic Clubs, the Hawaiian land trusts and service agencies such as Alu Like ine., privately formed in 1975 to assist Hawaiians socially and economically. Scholars, lawyers and researchers pored through old law books, title records and legal histories to understand better their rights and native entitlements. Ordinary citizens became fluent in the legalese of such documents as the Constitution of 1840, the Great Mahele, the Kuleana Act, the Land Act of 1895, the Annexation Act, the Organic Act, the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act and the Admissions Act. Attention shifted northward to Alaska where, in 1971, the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act was passed by the U.S. Congress. The act returned 40 million acres of land to Alaska natives and paid into a trust fund $1 billion for title to land whieh was not returned by the U.S. government. The Puwalu Sessions — Hawaiians Organize Winona Rubin was the director of Alu Like at this crucial time. "There was a tremendous frustration in the Hawaiian community," says the respected community leader and Kaua'i native. "Part of the community was paralyzed. They had given up even thinking that change could occur. Hopelessness was part of the landscape. "And yet there was the beginning of hope in the regeneration of cultural activities — the language and dance and perpetuation of things Hawaiian. It was a way of offsetting the hopelessness, but still, there was frustration that things were not happening fast enough and fear that certain of the native rights and landholdings would disappear by the time something happened." In 1977, the Council of Hawaiian Organizations and Alu Like sponsored what become known as the Puwalu Sessions. Like the Kalama Valley resistance seven years earlier, the sessions were unprecedented in recent history. They were the

first organized forums devoted to the discussion of Hawaiian issues by the Hawaiian community since Lili'uokalani's loyalists had been forced to disband at the beginning of the century. Three hundred and fifty invitations were sent out to interested groups and individuals, and representatives from 28 different organizations attended the sessions at Kamehameha Schools. A third of the attendees did not belong to any organization; they were just Hawaiians concerned about their future, anxious to listen and share their mana'o. The first session reached consensus regarding five top-priority goals for Hawaiians: to establish political credibility and equitable political influence in order to begin the journey toward selfdetermination; to establish a land base for use by Native Hawaiians; to ensure an education system that has relevance for the Hawaiian people; to achieve eeonomie self-sufficiency; and to strengthen the spirit of 'ohana and puwalu — unity and cooperation — within the great Hawaiian family. In opening remarks whieh proved to be very influential at the Puwalu 'Ekolu (third) session, then State Supreme Court Chief Justice — and Hawaiian — William Richardson urged all Hawaiians to leam to use the courts to their

advantage to redress grievances, to challenge adverse possession laws and assert gathering, access and water rights. "Our courts," he said, "have recognized that Hawaii's land laws are unique in that they are based, in part, upon ancient Hawaiian tradition, custom and usage. This means that in some cases . . . we ean look to the practices of our ancestors as guidance to establish present day law." In later Puwalu sessions on eaeh of the islands, representatives were elected to serve as members of the Aha Kaukanawai, a mini-legislature whieh prepared a set of actual legislative proposals to be presented to the State Legislature on behalf of the community, called the Native Hawaiian Legislative Package. One individual who was deeply impressed by Chief Justice Richardson's message was Adelaide "Frenchy" DeSoto, a community leader from Wai'anae who attended the Puwalu sessions as a member of the Protect Kaho'olawe 'Ohana. "Justice Richardson and I had a sad conversation," DeSoto remembers. "It hurt him so mueh to see the Hawaiian people coming to court with no resources. We weren't able to sustain the onslaught by those with money who were quiet-titleing the land. They were stealing. We had to do something." DeSoto was at Makena Beach on Maui when her resolve strengthened. She was there with the Kaho'olawe 'Ohana, preparing to cross Alalakeiki Channel to Kaho'olawe under the cover of night. "In the light of the bonfire," she says, "I watched our people preparing themselves as if going to war, and it hit me that there must be a better way to do this. I remember going to the island and listening to the kupuna plead through tears for some righteousness to be done to the Hawaiian people, so that we are not on our knees begging to eternity." Back in Honolulu, DeSoto looked into a legislative bill proposed by State Rep. Henry Peters to creat a private, non-profit agency for Hawaiians funded by a pro-rata share of the ceded lands trust. Called Ho'ala Kanawai, the proposal went nowhere in the state legislature after constitutional scholars determined that the state cannot create a private (that is, independent, agency using public funds. However, Ho'ala Kanawai was just one of several concrete proposals to eome out of the Puwalu Sessions and the 'Aha Kaukanawai executive session, proposals that were designed to improve the status and condition of the Hawaiian people. In early 1978, Frenchy DeSoto decided to seek eleehon as a delegate to the 1978 Hawaii State Constitutional Convention, representing Wai'anae. Her timing was perfect.

"Frenchy" DeSoto, chair of the Con-Con Hawaiian Affairs Committee, speaks before the assembled delegates. To her left,

delegate Mike Crozier, to far right of photo, delegate John Waihee.

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