Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 23, Number 10, 1 ʻOkakopa 2006 — JACKIE BURKE [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

JACKIE BURKE

£ "¥" apai oe. hapai au. e I I lunakākou!" -M. A"I lift you, you lift me. together we rise!" - Sol Naluai, 2003

May I take this opportunity to thank the 26,000 voters who supported my efforts in the last 2004 election. I further ask for your continued support as OHA candidate for O'ahu, with the above "'Ōlelo Hawai'i" as my guide. We must work together to gain successful outcomes against challenges that face our Hawaiian community. Nationhood is of primary importance for all of us. and understanding Hawaiian citizenship is extremely important. As a Kamehameha Schools (1970) graduate, I want to make a difference by using my background weaved in community service and nonprofit development, along with masters degrees in public heahh and urban and regional planning, and as a business-owner/entrepreneur, to serve as OHA trustee - O'ahu. In my desire to develop a communication venue via the "native press" and restore the vibrancy of newspapers, in 2003 I launched the Native Hawaiian News Journal - The 'Ōiwi Files, the only independent Native Hawaiian newspaper with a statewide circulation. In this difficult endeavor, I honor the "journalist warriors" before me and those who stand together with me by providing editorial content freely, and those who distribute the paper statewide donating their time as well. I have spent the last four years developing "Ka'a Ea - The Sovereignty Bus Campaign," a unifying and urgently needed venue to create a comprehensive and inclusive means of eommunity outreach to develop a massive, informed, participating citizen base for nationhood building and activities that give us a voice. While targeted at Hawaiians, it is open to everyone who wants to understand our nationhood movement. Four buses in Hawai'i and on the U.S. mainland outfitted with multimedia educational venues and sovereignty education kits will also be a mobile data collection base used for various purposes: the citizenship registry; a plebiscite for decolonization status with choices of independence or dependence; voter registration; a petition drive for Kū'ē - Aloha 'Āina and other needs. The "Sovereignty Bus Campaign" eomplements a "Hawai'i National Convention," and while the convention is in session, the mainland buses will visit Native American nations. Upon reaching consensus and closing the convention, the buses will converge into a caravan, inviting Native American nations to join us as we drive to Washington, D.C„ to symbolically deliver to the U.S. Congress and the president of the United States our ehoiee of nationhood. To get a pdf document on the campaign, email theoiwifoundation@yahoo.com. Other objectives are creating: • comprehensive heahh care and dental plans for all Hawaiians; • a bank where every Hawaiian owns one share, thereby creating a powerful financial

institution to deposit our weahh and protect our assets; and • practicing our Hawaiian protocol in reciprocating ho'okupu from our visitors in a cultural assessment fee deposited into a repository fund used to restore and protect our sacred sites, environment and cultural treasures. My linal offering as a solution to Kamehameha Schools admission policy and the OHA election process is to simply state that "all descendants from the Kingdom of Hawai'i" may apply for admission or vote for OHA trustees. This should quell the political discussion as to who is qualified, if we look back at the time the princess wrote her will and also satisfy Mr. Rice's argument of being included as a descendant of a family that were citizens of the Hawaiian Kingdom. In closing, we need to make OHA's administration operations more accountable and remove "nonproductive systemic policies," one of whieh is an election process of having candidates from eaeh island elected by the general populaee.

O'AHU ( 1 SEAT)