Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 20, Number 8, 1 ʻAukake 2003 — Native Hawaiians can survive as a unique people with federal recognition [ARTICLE]

Native Hawaiians can survive as a unique people with federal recognition

Ed.itors note: Boyd P. Mossman is the Maui trnsteefor the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. He is a retired. 2nd. Circuit jud.ge and. former Maui County prosecutor. The excerpted. article helow was printed. in The Maui News as a Viewpoint pieee May 25. By Boyd P. Mossman, Esq. As the Office of Hawaiian Affairs launches a campaign to educate the people of Hawaii about issues relating to the creation of a Hawaiian governing entity, I would like to explain some of the critical Hawaiian issues facing us today and why OHA has embarked upon an accelerated effort to gain federal recognition and establish a Hawaiian governing entity. As I do so, I am aware of those who rely on the United Nations and

want only complete independence from the United States as well as those arguing equal rights who want an end to Hawaiian benefits, and I do not address these groups. They will not be interested in these words, and so I address those who must wonder what recognition, nationhood, ceded-lands settlement and equal rights for all have to do with living here in Hawai'i. People of Hawaiian ancestry today in Hawai'i make up the largest percentage of those in prison, the homeless, the undereducated, the broken families, the drug addicted, etc. It's a pattern perhaps made familiar by the Native Americans and Alaskan Aleut and Inuit people who involuntarily gave up their homelands to a United States intent on expanding its borders. In eaeh case, including Native Hawaiians, eoneem and attention subsequently resulted in a trust relationship between the United States

and the native peoples, and, for better or for worse, these indigenous peoples have been accommodated in one way or another for more than a century. Though there is no consensus as to the historical justification for the overthrow of the Hawaiian nation and annexation of the Hawaiian Republic by the United States, suffice it to say that the United States knowingly or unknowingly through its military might caused an independent kingdom of Hawaiians to be denied its inherent rights as a nation. OHA is now attempting to accomplish in two to three years what has not been accomplished in the last 110 years by achieving federal recognition and creating a governing entity for Hawaiians that will assist Hawaiians in defending against the equal-rights lawsuits pending in the federal courts. In this way we believe we will be able to

prevail in court and preserve not only the benefits and entitlements received by Native Hawaiians today, but also preserve the Hawaiian people and the Hawaiian culture. If we succeed, then all the people of Hawaii will continue to enjoy the warmth and aloha of a culture and a people who themselves will, for the first time in more than 100 years, be able to conduct their affairs within the United States with recognition given them as has been given to American Indians and the aboriginal people of Alaska. If we fail, if we lose in the courts, if we cannot convince Congress of the potential elimination of an entire people who politically onee ruled themselves, if we cannot eonvince the Hawaiians themselves and bring them together in a united effort, then you will have seen the See RECOGNITION on page 18

RECOGNITION from page 13 last of the Hawaiians as we know them today. Hawaiians will be no different than Californians, Georgians, New Yorkers, ete. We will no longer be identified as the deseendants of a onee-proud nation with a unique history, language and identity. We will melt into history and heeome a memory only. The reeognition, trust, benefits and entitlements heretofore provided the Hawaiian people will disappear, and OHA's trust fund, Hawaiian homelands, the many state and federally funded programs addressing signifieant needs of Hawaiians will be no more and will likely not be replaeed by any state or eharitable funding. Sinee it is the mandate of OHA to provide for the betterment of Hawaiians, we are eompelled to press forward against the sling-stones of eontention and dispute from several sides to seek to edueate all the people of Hawaii as to the issues that they might have a better understanding, and then to faeilitate the birth of a Hawaiian governing entity that will perpetuate the eulture and people whose home, whose 'āina, whose spirit are these islands. There remain many questions to answer and time will tell the effeet of our edueation effort, but I suggest that it would behoove us all to eontinue to keep Hawai'i Hawaiian for as the Hawaiians go, so will Hawai'i. ■