Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 20, Number 6, 1 June 2003 — Blood quantum [ARTICLE]

Blood quantum

The preoccupation ofEmmett Lee Loy (KWOApril) with the importance of blood quantum in the quest for self-determination by the Hawaiian people is a frivolous waste of time and energy. Self-determination will eome about when Hawaiians with any degree of Hawaiian blood eome together in collaboration with others who seek justice. Subjective discussions of what happened during the Māhele of 1848 have no relevance to the politieal reality that Hawaiians are faced with today. The constitutional threat to the Hawaiian Homes Act of 1920 being mounted by proponents of a "color blind America" will laugh at any effort by Hawaiians to base their drive for justice on "a criteria designed to reach the closest relatives by degree of kinship that are heirs to the native tenants that never received their share of lands since the time of the Māhele of 1848," as Lee Loy argues. Blood quantum is not of real importance today. Hawaiian unity is! Lee Loy's attempt to stratify Hawaiians into different classes would be fatal to the small number of Hawaiians that populate the world today; 400,000 at the most. We need to eome together and stop any attempt to foment a caste system of Hawaiian "haves and have nots," as Lee Loy obviously covets. Lee Loy's premise is a sad attempt to marginalize a huge segment of Hawaiians from his elitist interpretation of who a native Hawaiian is. I am infinitely proud of my Hawaiian heritage. Though my blood quantum is not equal to Lee Loy's, I ean assure him that like

him, I am a native Hawaiian. Rod Ferreira Waimea