Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 26, Number 8, 1 ʻAukake 2009 — Eyewitness to history [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Eyewitness to history

With statehood, eame sweeping change. Six OHA Trustees chose to share their memories ofan era of transition. k By Uza Simon | Public Affairs Specialist Ē . It is sometimes said that history is the essence of biog- Ē ^ raphy. What better way to get close to the currents of time that shaped Hawai'i statehood than to ask OHA Trustees who eame of age in that era? Here is a eompilation of reminiscences of Walter Heen, a major . force in Hawai'i's Democratic Party and in the state

Judiciary, Oswald Stender, a leader in real estate and business, Donald Cataluna, a prominent leader in Hawai'i agriculture, Boyd Mossman, a judge and practitioner of mediation, Robert Lindsey, a distinguished Hawaiian community advocate and social worker, and Rowena Akana, a noted eommnnitv nrcra n i 7or Frnm Hivf»rsf

backgrounds, they shed light on the very personal meanings of public events from a halfcentury ago that still resonate through the lives of the Native Hawaiian community today.

RECOLLECTIONS OF AUG. 21, 1959 Heen: I was a member of the Territorial House of Representatives and we were in session. Speaker of the House Elmer Cravalho announced the (Hawai'i) statehood bill had passed and we all erupted in elation. Cataluna: I was taking a test in anatomy. Outside, the (University of Hawai'i at Mānoa) campus went berserk. The girls were screaming and perhaps the guys were enjoying hugging the girls. Inside Dean Hall, professor Shoji, the father of volleyball eoaeh Dave Shoji, said we had to finish the exam. Lindsey: I was in fifth grade in Waimea (Hawai'i Island), and we were wondering what was going on, because we heard a siren - something we never heard. And that was my unele - one of two Waimea polieemen, driving around letting people know word of statehood had just eome from Washington, D.C. Akana: I was in the ninth grade and my friends and I went down to 'Iolani Palaee. That was the Capitol building then where the governor was going to speak. In all the flurry, my friends and I went roaming all the way down to the basement. A guard saw us kids and chased us from room to room. ... I hid in these long maroon drapes trying to see the ceremony. At that age, it was an adventure. BEST MEMORIES OF DAILY LIFE IN EARLY STATEHOOD Mossman: I was heavy into eanoe paddling. As members of the Waikīkī Surf Club, I was on a team that never lost a race. ... I really am happy I could experience Waikīkī at the time of the beachboys with their colorful names like Rabbit, Nappy, Dukie. It was through the Kukea fami-

iy uiai i uuin uiy nisi suiiuoaiu oi uaisa wood at 8 years old. . . . For entertainment, my family never did get a TV, because we enjoyed radio so mueh. Though I recall when TV eame to Hawai'i. It started with the KGMB logo on the screen for weeks and weeks. The reason I remember is I would catch the bus in front of a television applianee store, where we would stare and stare at the screen in the window. Lindsey: We had baseball, church singing, the 4-H club and animals to raise. It was work, but it was fun. We were blessed also to

have the aloha spirit. Here is an example of how people really cared: I broke my wrist riding my bike. My mom called Dr. Eklund. He and his wife were having dinner at the Parker Ranch Restaurant. It was their anniversary. My mother apologized. I was crying my eyeballs out, the pain was so bad. The doctor called back. We had that old phone system, one long ring, two short rings. He told my mom to bring me to the Parker Ranch infirmary right away. Cataluna: I used to go with friends and walk down to Mahalepu to eamp and fish overnight. We'd bring only fresh water and rice. Get a big ean, put inside some fish, put it in the sand and soon the ean is overflowing with crabs and we put on the charcoals. The next morning, we go spearfishing.

SIGNS OF CHANGE WITH STATEHOOD Stender: For me, just starting my real-estate career (as an executive with Campbell Estate), it was exciting because demand for land increased. James Campbell married a Hawaiian woman so they also had a passion for protecting the land. When we had the idea of building a new city at Kapolei, we hired cultural advisers. This was long before the burial councils, so before we built the (Campbell Industrial Park) harbor, Nana Veary, a kahuna, gave consultation and said any reinterment of iwi could only be within same ahupua'a and with protocol (conducted by Veary herself). There was nothing here but a plain (submerged) underwater until the plantation built

dikes to capture the silt and mix in the bagasse or crushed eane that got the area green, a massive change in the landscape. Mossman: As a student at Kamehameha, I saw the changes through typical teenaged eyes. I enjoyed surfing every summer day in Waikīkī, so I used to wait for my parents to piek me up where Biltmore (hotel) was under construction. I was intrigued to see this - our first 10-story building, taller than Aloha Tower! But then I eame back from college (from the U.S. continent) in 1965, and I was stunned to see Waikīkī had become a concrete jungle. Cataluna: Prior to statehood, all the transPacific planes were propeller-driven. I ean recall the first time seeing a 747, I knew we were primed for tourism. Heen: We wanted to break the interlocking directorates that existed between the sugar and pineapple industries. I worked on antitrust legislation, but the old oligarchy (the Big Five) was hanging on. People like Ben Dillingham would

take us out for luneh and try to persuade us to see the rectitude of their positions. To a large degree, though, we saw a weakening in the strength of sugar and pineapple. These industries eame to (the government) to ask for a reduction in excise tax to make more profit. ILWU wanted the reduction, concerned that workers would have no jobs if sugar and pine failed - a legitimate eoncern. Workers compensation was a big debate then, because there was no support for a worker injured on the job. Population and traffic grew, and demand for housing mainly because military defense workers had stayed on here after the war. (As a result),when I was (Honolulu) City Council Chair, a zero-population growth initiative was introduced.

Akana: We had lived in Pālolo Valley and from our porch we could see if it would be

a great day in Waikīkī. Later, all these buildings filled the skyline. Being in college in New York City, I saw the way people lived there. ... I used t a tno eiiniimi: onn

iw wauv lvz tiiw ōuu w <xy auu ow \a how old folks sat on concrete benches in the middle of Seventh Avenue traffic just to get a touch of sun in the middle of tall buildings, and I thought. "How sad." I saw we had it good in Hawai'i and should be concerned about the influx of people.

NEW OPPORTUNITY IN EARLY STATEHOOD Stender: Going back before World War II, I was raised in Hau'ula. We had only kerosene and no indoor plumbing. We had no money and depended on subsistence living. Money was used only to buy the things you could not grow. There was no (professional) employment for my Auntie who worked for the wealthy and raised us after my tūtū died. What the war did is give her a better job. . . . She became a truck driver, brought home the truck every night. We had money to buy better things, so the reasoning went that statehood would bring more of the same. I had been a Marine on the mainland and to have seen the big cities, the thought was Hawai'i would be on the map and people would want to invest here. I saw what federal money could bring in for projects like highways. Not being part of the continent, the justification was that here federal highways would connect military bases. I was just out of business eollege and went into real estate anticipating I would be in this path of change. Mossman: I was a student at Kamehameha Schools and the opportunity that opened for me was that I got an appointment to the (Air Force) military academy through (then)Rep. (Daniel) Inouye. So did four of my classmates. If we were still a Territory, this would have been harder. Heen: We felt more in control of our destiny. We elected our own governors and appointed our own judges. ... The AJAs (Americans of Japanese Ancestry) had eome back from the war. Those of us in

the Democratic Party with liberal leanings joined forces to discuss with them what could hold forth with programs beneficial to the cross-section of the community, not just the elite. There were tremendous philosophical upheavals. One subject of debate was land reform, how to get more land into the hands of people in fee simple rather than by leasehold and that affected the Ali'i trusts that rented land at a pittance below market value. ... We wanted them to be more self-sustaining. We foresaw that land would become such a valuable commodity. Akana: Before statehood, all the kids worked in the pineapple canneries as a trimmer or packer or in the fields. I did it for three summers. There was no ehoiee. With statehood, I could see eommerce increasing. But as a teenager, I didn't know if that was good or bad.

ETHNIC DIVERSITY IN EARLY STATEHOOD Lindsey: We were a Hawaiian family in the middle of a Japanese community. This meant growing up next to Buddhists. It gave me sensitivity to diversity. We celebrated eaeh other's holidays. In intermediate school, we had teachers from O'ahu, who brought their old prejudices. But in Waimea, our Japanese neighbors were very kind, thoughtful and generous. Cataluna: After I graduated from college with a degree in tropical agriculture, one Caucasian supervisor told me if he had a job, he would give it to his son-in-law, not me. But I got a eall from Grove Farm and a ehanee to work in agricultural research in 1960, and then with C. Brewer. I was just the second guy from Hawai'i to become a plantation manager. I worked hard because I figured if I failed no other locals would have a ehanee to be a manager. But overall, attitudes were changing big time. People just wanted to get the best guys for the job. Shareholders wanted whoever could get the most profit. I did this by treating the workers and their families equally, the workers were the real stakeholders. Together, we increased production. In Kīlauea, (Kaua'i), we had 100 acres of successful prawn production. Stender: In business, Hawaiians were definitely a minority. Many hid their Hawaiian ethnicity, fearing it was a drawback. But when (part-Hawaiian) John Bellinger became president of First Hawaiian Bank, it opened the door for others. We formed a loeal ehamber of commerce to let people know about successful Hawaiian businessmen.

HARD LESSONS OF STATEHOOD FOR HAWAIIANS Stender: The state made the ehoiee to condemn the (shoreline areas) managed by the konohiki, so they would be open to public use. I knew (a friend) who was bro-ken-hearted by this, because he correctly predicted people would not practice eonservation, because they wouldn't know the konohiki rules: things that my tūtū kāne taught me, like when you fish for lobster.

you grab, don't spear, because you never want to kill the lobster with eggs. ... There were difficult choices, especially with water. Plantations on the 'Ewa side needed it, but this meant the taro grower in Waiāhole-Waikāne had less. The argument was that the large plan-

tations served the greater good | with jobs and business activity. But the downside was

farmer - and this meant

Hawaiians, could not get water and could not grow taro. Heen: I remember opening up a book on Hawaiian history and reading the same old thing. It's what we were supposed to know and nothing more. Our history was suppressed. Akana: I know my parents had not voted for statehood because they liked life the way it was. My father, whose (Native Hawaiian) mother lived through the overthrow, knew what had gone on. After

annexation, his mother had to leave school and stop speaking Hawaiian. She would tear up and not talk about it. I got the sense that although she was sad, she wanted to spare us the pain of looking back. . . . After statehood, the decision by politicians to make tourism the No. 1 industry drove out other enterprises and (development) outpriced loeal folks. We still have aloha spirit, but it's harder to hang on to it. Lindsey: There was the war, the Democratic revolution of '54, and then statehood. So mueh happened so fast, it's like we've been tumbling in a wash maehine. I am still trying to make sense of it. One thing for sure, the aloha spirit will help us survive, if we ean just get back to the spiritual kind of aloha from the inside. Cataluna: You never achieve what you want, if you only think about kālā. Of course, if you want change, you need to be part of the polhieal process.

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C0MMEM0RATIVE SECTI0N I 'AUKAKE 2009

REMEMBERING /P^0yEARs m \ \ m Bl1 I ' ■ Ia»1

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Oz Stender

Rowena Akana

Boyd P. Mossman

Robert K. Lindsey, Jr.

Donald B. Cataluna

Walter M. Heen

During the statehood ero, Trustee Boyd Mossmon paddled his way to victory as a member of the undefeated Waikīkī Surf Club eunoe, pictured bere: Kulu Kukeu, Kimo Hugo, Boyd Mossmun, Leroy Kuumoo, Miehuel Cbun, and llima Kuluma. All except Kuluma were uttending Kamebumebū Schools, wbere Miehael Chun is now KS-Kapālama President and Headmaster. - Courtesy photo

Chester Kahapea - Star-Bulletin photo. - Comtesy ofthe Hawai'i 50th Anniversary of Statehooh Commission

Hawai'i Gov. Jack Burns greets tben - Representative Walter Heen and wife Norma Heen at a Washington Plaee function, circa 1960. Trustee Heen had a poliheal career tbat continued a family tradition of elected public service in Hawai'i. - Courtesy photo

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