Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 21, Number 3, 1 March 2004 — Untitled [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

prisoners from Hawai'i are mixed in with mainland inmates. Medeiros describes a small but growing effort among community organizations and individuals, inside and out of prison, "to clarify and protect the cultural and spiritual practices of Kānaka Maoli incarcerated throughout the world." "I am one of several hundred Kānaka Maoli exiled here by the State of Hawai'i ... where we are subject to racism and alienation from our cultural beliefs, practices and opportunities to learn and speak our own language," Medeiros laments in a letter. "Auē! Why we cannot keep our own people home? 'A'ole maopopo (I don't understand)" It is widely known that Native Hawaiians are imprisoned more frequently than any other ethnic group in the islands. And it may be even worse than most people think: according to penal-system reform advocates like Protect Our Native 'Ohana (PONO), a coalition of organizations concerned with Native Hawaiian inmate rights, the alarming statistics that commonly peg Hawaiians as making up about half of imprisoned felons may, in fact, be too low. They believe current research will show that Native Hawaiians actually comprise 70 percent or more of Hawai'i's adult inmate population. PONO's analysis of the problem, A Nalion Incarcerated: Criminalizing the Native Hawaiian, notes that criminalizing drug use rather than treating it as a medical problem — and as a response to the hopelessness of colonialism — has contributed to Hawai'i's overcrowded correctional facilities. By the same token, say many who are close to the issue, programs that help Hawaiian inmates get back in touch with the values of their eulture ean help break the vicious cycle of crime and punishment. "If we know who we are and where we

eome from," says entertainer and educator Nālani 01ds, who has been teaching culture in Hawai'i prisons for the last 12 years, "then we ean start formulating where we are going in the right way." Prison authorities, however, often seem doubtful of the genuineness of inmates' cultural awakenings. "None of these guys were interested in their culture when they were running the streets," Hālawa Correctional Facility Deputy Warden Randy Asher says bluntly. "Couldn't be bothered, too busy getting into trouble. Suddenly they're locked up and they want to learn about their culture. For the ones who are sincere to learn, though, I think it's great." Under conditions like these, the cultural gap remains hard to close, says Howard Medeiros, who bemoans the laek of educational opportunities and materials on Hawaiian culture. Medeiros recounts how prison officials stonewalled kanaka maoli inmates' request to hold Makahiki ceremonies in Oklahoma, finally capitulating only after being threatened with a lawsuit charging that the inmates' right to religious freedom was being breached. Inmate Howard Kealohapau'ole Kekahuna, who is currently imprisoned in Colorado, says that restricting prisoners' access to their traditional spiritual and cultural practices hurts the Hawaiian community as a whole. "Pa'ahao are the "kāki'o (painful sore) of our eommunity that must be healed," says Kekahuna. "The only way ean correct us is to correct the past, give us back our culture. If we can't heal our people, how ean we build a nation?" For more information, please contact Kanaka Maoli Religious Rights, e/o Community Allianee on Prisons, 76 North King St. #203, Honolulu, HI 96817, or eall or email CAP Community Coordinator Kat Brad.y at 533-3454,

At the core of the issue is whether a hānai relationship is equivalent to blood — a question that is not agreed upon even within the Hawaiian community. Workshop attendee Leona Kalima, who was legally adopted as a child and now is raising her grandson as a hānai, says that a hānai relationship does not equal koko, or blood. "Koko is koko; it doesn't matter how they try," she says. But kumu hula Frank Kawaikapuokalani Hewett, one of the workshop's speakers and the father of three hānai children, said that people shouldn't be stuck on the flesh-and-blood aspect of being Hawaiian. "I ka 'ōlelo nō ke ola, i ka 'ōlelo nō ka make — who we are is in the language, it is in the breath, it is spiritually driven," Hewett said. "It is not only in the blood." Whichever view of the issue one holds, Smith said, Hawaiians must respect what other Hawaiians think. "Just because some folks fish different from other folks," she said by way of analogy, "doesn't mean it isn't Hawaiian fishing." One of the policy statements drafted at the workshop asserts that only a broad traditional definition ean be applied to the term hānai. The Hawaiian community must respect that not every Hawaiian family uses hānai the same way, it points out, and eaeh family must respect that their use of hānai eannot be applied to the entire Hawaiian community.

The workshop had three main goals: to establish a basic understanding of traditional applications of hānai, to draft policy statements on its contemporary use, and to identify the ramifications of misuse and misappropriation of the term. The meeting included discussion of both traditional hānai and Western adoption law in order to draw a clear distinction between the two. According to the research presented, the main differences are the manner in whieh the adoption process is created and the subsequent relationship between the adopted child and the biological parents. Native Hawaiian attorney Hōkūlei Lindsey said that in Western adoption the process is created by legislation, and the relationship between the child and the biological parents is often terminated. Smith, citing the book Nānā I Ke Kumu by Mary Kawena Pūku'i, said that traditional hānai functioned within the 'ohana, and that hānai children were raised to know who their biological parents were, and what their genealogy was. 'īlio'ulaokalani encourages individuals to conduct hānai workshops throughout the islands in order to increase the dialogue about this issue within the Hawaiian eommunity. For more information on eonducting a workshop, eall 'īlio'ulaokalani at 845-4652, or visit ilio.org. ■

"lf we know who we are and where we eome from, then we ean start formulating where we are going in the right way."

— Entertainer/educator Nālani Olds, who has been teaching culture in Hawai'i prisons for the last 12 years

Nū Hon

MU HOh

1 "D ® 1' (Q O O e =h ® -< Q < ® ■ =n I ° I ? V =• I q i D ■' ® I (Q ■ — I o I o ■ p I

Hawaiian inmates at an Arizona prison pule and chant to commemorate Kūhiō Day,

Brayden Mohica-Cummings and his mother, Kalena Santos, arrive at a hearing in the court case that won the boy admission to Kamehameha Schools, Santos' belief that she is Hawaiian by hōnai has sparked debate over the meaning ot the traditional adOption practice, Photo: cour+esy Honolulu Star-Bulletin