Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 27, Number 4, 1 ʻApelila 2010 — Passing the Akaka Bill will keep Hawaiʻi Hawaiʻi [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Passing the Akaka Bill will keep Hawaiʻi Hawaiʻi

Editor's note: This Letter to the Editor from OHA Trustee Boyd Mossman ran m the Maui News on Meweh 14. On Sunday March 7, an op ed by two members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, whieh had been submitted to Congress, the Wall Street Journal and other media was published by the Maui News. I write in response to correct misinformation contained in that pieee attacking Native Hawaiians claiming the Akaka Bill is race

based and also note that on the next page was a letter denouncing the bill from the other side, claiming that Hawaiians should have complete independence from the United States and not accept the crumbs whieh the Akaka Bill would bring to them. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights consists of more than just two members. Below you will find a portion of a letter submitted to Congress by two other commission members contradicting their colleagues' position. It should be known that Hawaiians do not elaim to be Indians but are the native indigenous people of Hawai'i and also the United States. There are two other groups that are also indigenous to the United States: the Native Americans and the Alaskan Natives. The U.S. Constitution has been used to justify recognizing their inherent sovereignty, but for Native Hawaiians that is yet to be achieved. There simply are no other people in the 50 states of the union who are not one of these three groups that qualify as indigenous. Thus, this is a political and not a racial determination. The United States via the Hawaiian Homes Act, the Statehood Admissions Act and over 100 other acts has acknowledged the special relationship between the U.S. and Native Hawaiians. Receipt of federal funding forprograms to help uplift a people who onee numbered more than 600,000 and in 1893 were down to 40,000 because of disease, despair and defeat cannot be so bad as to have others accuse Hawaiians of being racists; or coming from the other direction, as traitors and idiots for not demanding the whole pie. The current bill has changed dramatically in the last few months and still needs to be tweaked in order to regain support fromthe state administration, whieh we have had for 10 years.

The governor has some very legitimate concerns, whieh I am hopeful will be addressed by Sen. Akaka and resolved. But whatever happens, it is important that the puhlie have a better understanding so that op eds like the one on March 7 ean be read with eauhon and accountability in mind. If Hawaiians do not receive federal recognition - whieh ean eome from the process laid out in the Akaka Bill - their legal existence will not be mueh longer as their identity, their language, their traditions and their culture will all be at risk fromequal-rights lawsuits and court rulings, whieh already have demonstrated the vital need for recognition for the Hawaiian people. Below are excerpts from a letter written by Miehael Yaki and Arlen D. Melendez, the only American Indian and Asian Paeihe members of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, to the Congress of the United States; and so now we hear the rest of the story: "We deeply regret that other members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights have taken an extreme position against S. 1011 and have done so in a manner that is disrespectful and offers no alternative path to reconciliation. Our colleagues elaim that S. 1011 will 'discriminate on the basis of race or national origin and further subdivide the American People into discrete subgroups accorded varying degrees of privilege.' But, in objecting to S . 10 1 1 on grounds that it is about 'race or nahonal origin,' without acknowledging the indigenous status and unique history of the Native Hawaiian people, our colleagues show that their opposition is one of ideology rather than study. In their zeal to condemn racial divisions among Americans, they have not first stopped to listen to the concerns of the Native Hawaiian community, distinguished racial issues from the question of political status, and have acted in a way that leads to further divisions. . . . "A staff analysis or copy of the current bill was not even presented to Commissioners before its recent vote. . . . The laek of careful research or independent fact-finding by the Commission majority in reaching its conclusions stands in sharp contrast to the past work of the agency and its mission as a fact-finding body. . . . "Denial of the distinct history and identity of Native Hawaiians does not heal existing divisions. More should be expected of the Commission on Civil Rights." The purpose of the Akaka Bill is reconciliation. The effect of the bill will be preservation of an entire people, their eulture and their 'āina. Passing the bill will not "break Hawai'i in two" but will keep Hawai'i Hawai'i while addressing an egregious mistake by the United States against the sovereign Hawaiian kingdom in 1893. It will accommodate closure for the past and encourage a better Hawai'i for the future. ■

Būyd P. Mūssman TrustEE, Maui