Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 29, Number 1, 1 Ianuali 2012 — One family's land loss echoes across generations [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

One family's land loss echoes across generations

By Kekoa Enomoto Ascholar and her illustrious forbear share a historical sensibility and gift for graceful documentation. To wit: Lili'uokalani loyalist Curtis Piehu Iaukea participated in and detailed the ea, or governance, of Hawai'i in the late 19th century and early 20th century as well as international landscape. In a 1937 radio broadcast in Hawai'i and England, he shared his recollections of making visits of an official capacity to England: "My second visit to the Court of St. James was the occasion of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee in 1887. I accompanied Queen Kapiolani, Consort of King Kalakaua, in the capacity of Court Chamberlain. Also in our party was the Princess Liliuokalani, then heir apparent and later Queen of Hawaii. ... In passing let me say that England's hospitality knew no bounds." A century later, his great-great-granddaughter, Sydney Lehua Iaukea, described early territorial history as "ehaohe, heartbreaking ... intriguing and inspiring." In her recently released Tlie Queen anel 1: A Story of Dispossessions anel Reconnections in Hawai'i, she wrote: "In the unfolding stories of Curtis P. Iaukea, his Queen, and many others, the raw emotions and complex interactions that characterized territorial governance are revealed. I never knew how mueh happened during this period, because history books tend to paint a brief and rather bland picture. Perhaps produced purposefully as part of American socialization, this narrative boredom might also have occurred because these personal stories, and others like them, are not accessible without dedicated and intensive research." Curtis Piehu Iaukea was a uniquely deft politician who served two monarchs and negotiated the political machinations of the provisional government, Republic of Hawai'i and territorial government of Hawai'i. Among more than 44 poliheal positions were his roles as a eolonel and as commissioner of crown lands and land agent of the kingdom under both Kalākaua and Lili'uokalani. He was a

major and quartermaster under Republic of Hawai'i President Sanford B. Dole. In the territorial government, he was chairman of the Hawaiian Homes Commission from 1933 to 1935, and President Woodrow Wilson appointed him secretary of the Territory of Hawai'i. In original archival research for her doctoral dissertation in political science, the author, a Kamehameha Schools graduate, discovered that Curtis Piehu Iaukea andhis wife, Charlotte, owned some 500 acres of O'ahu flat lands, most gifts of Kalākaua and Lili'uokalani. She noted that Kalākaua had deeded to her great-great-grandfather 455 acres of Kalihi property that, by the turn of the century, "had simply disappeared from the land title books." Also, her great-great-grandparents owned 25 acres of Waiklkl land, parts of whieh were condemned by the territorial government for construction of the Ala Wai Canal, or were retained by family members but "kept secret" and are "therefore scarred by recriminations concerning an open secret." Of these troubling property dispossessions, she wrote that her great-great-grandfather "wrote about all of these land deals (showing) how private property law in Hawai'i was used to disenfranchise and disassociate us individually and collectively from land, from our mo'o kū'auhau (genealogy), and 'ohana. ... I grew up landless, marginalized and without a plaee or a voice in the contemporary world." Her discourse is interspersed with personal references to surfing, paddling, familial tensions and childhood deprivations along with, like a chant refrain, various series of rhetorical questions. For example, the author asks: "Who owned it? Who sold it? How did a Waikīkī fortune, if only a small pieee of it, slip away from my mother, my little sister and me?" And: "When and how did this disconnect occur between land/body/memory for many Hawaiians? When did it occur for my own family?" The rhetorical queries sometimes may disconcert. However, they reflect the author's generational pull to Native Hawaiian sovereignty, and passion to articulate and

repatriate indigenous culture, identity and genealogical ties. In this season of the epiphany, a reader ean experience vicariously the writer's epiphany due to compelling familial reconnections, unearthed as unimagined treasures. Indeed, her illustrious forbear's incisive observations and nohle perspective of late19th and early 20th century Hawai'i - as well as letters of Lili'uokalani and others - during a period of historic upheaval and pervasive change provide a trove of gems. The sensibility and lyricism shared by author and ancestor permeate the former's intimate experience of her own rich, storied heritage, and inform their mutual desire to illuminate history and right wrongs. ■ Kekoa Enomoto is a retired copy editor and StaffWriter with The Maui News andformer Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

Sydney laukea. - Courtesy photo byRussell īanoue

Curtis P. laukea in dress uniform, 1 880s. - Hawai'i State Archive