Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 14, Number 10, 1 October 1997 — Senator Akaka sends letter to OMB's chief statistician [ARTICLE]

Senator Akaka sends letter to OMB's chief statistician

Senator Daniel Akaka, other Hawaii representatives oppose OMB s classification of Native Hawaiians with Asians, Pacific Islanders.

Excerpted by Paula Durbin Senator Daniel Akaka recently joined Representatives Patsy Mink and Neil Abercrombie in a letter to Katherine Wallman, the Office of Management and Budgets chief statistician, expressing deep concerns on OMB's plan to continue classification of Native Hawaiians with Asians and Pacific Islanders. All three congressional delegates are recommending that Native Hawaiians be classified with Native Americans and Alaskan Natives. The federal government's justifications. whieh include geography, are based on certain findings of an interagency task force formed to study the issue. Among other conclusions, the task force decided that reclassification would affect federal programs for Hawaiians and American Indians. It found no clear preference on the part of Hawaiians to be grouped with Indians and Alaskans. It also decided Hawaiians and Asians were similar in terms of eeonomie status. The eongressional delegates clearly disagree, as reflected in the following highlights from their message excerpted for Ka Wai Ola by the senator's staff: "The plight of Native Hawaiians is quite unique and has yet to be fully recognized by most Americans. The failure of the federal government to resolve the politieal status of Native Hawaiians should not hinder statisticians and policymakers in reclassifying them under the American Indian or Alaskan Native category. "...While Hawai'i is geographically a Pacific island, the circumstances of

Native Hawaiians being indigenous to the Hawaiian Islands, whieh is part of the United States, must be differentiated from other Pacific lslanders. Native Hawaiians are a dispossessed people (see a U.S. Apology to Native Hawaiians for American complicity in the 1 893 overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii). This acCords them a special status compared to other PaeiHe Island groups in their relationship with the United States. "In his 1994 review of 236 federal Indian programs, (Robert Walke) found that shifting Native Hawaiians from the Asian or Pacific Islander category 'would — again, barring any other statutory changes — have little effect of federal spending to assist either Indians or Native Hawaiians.' "... Native Hawaiians overwhelmingly want to be moved out of he Asian or Pacific Islander category and into the American Indian or Alaskan Native category. This is evidenced by the 1993 Congressional hearings, the 1 994 OMB hearings and the more than

20,000 postcards whieh have been sent to OMB Director Franklin D. Raines on this issue. While it may be true that some Native Hawaiians have favored a separate category of their own, this still means that they want to be removed from the Asian or Pacific Islander category. "According to OMB, the 'driving force for the development of the data standard was the requirement that agencies fulfill new responsibilities to enforce civil rights laws.' (Data was needed to monitor equal access to housing, education, employment opportunities, etc., for the population groups that historically had experienced discrimination and differential treatment because of their race and ethnicity.) "... The burden on Native Hawaiians shou!d not have to be 'proving' whieh category they are more comparable to in statistics, although there is ample data to show comparable data with American Indians or Alaskan Natives. The need for civil rights eomplianee goes beyond statistics. "Civil rights eomplianee provides for remedying disenfranchised groups who have suffered discrimination or who have been wronged. Native Hawaiians certainly fall into this category. "We respectfully urge that federal officials take the higher moial ground on this issue and do what is right for the Native Hawaiian people and our country. Such a gesture would be positively viewed and supportive of 'reconciliation efforts between the United States and the Native Hawaiian people ..." ■

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