Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 37, Number 3, 1 Malaki 2020 — Aloha mai kākou, [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Aloha mai kākou,

/ 'ŌLELO A KA POUHANA V ^ MESSAGE FROM THE CEO r

THE " V A L U E " 0F LAND 'āina n. Land, earth. Cf. 'ai , to eat; 'aina, kama'āina.

My mother was raised by her grandparents in Ka'ūpūlehu north of Kailua-Kona. Her grandfather was a fisherman and they lived on the beach in a simple house that he built himself. He took the fish he caught and traded with folks up ma uka for the produce and other things the family needed. He had no palapala for the land they lived on. If there was a Tax Map Key for the property he did not know what it was. They just lived, as they had always lived, on the land whieh fed them. Today my great-grandparents would be considered squatters, homeless. The outraged landowner would certainly contact the County to eomplain. And a crew of government employees would forthwith converge on the site giving my great-grandparents just a few moments to collect their personal belongings before dispassionately tearing down their home and summarily removing the resulting debris, leaving the family with nothing. And it would be perfectly legal. The spiritual, intimate and reciprocal relationship of Hawaiians to the 'āina has been marginalized and discounted since Western concepts of land ownership were imposed on the kingdom by foreigners hungry to purchase Hawaiian land. Since statehood Hawai'i has seen in-migration from the continent, a massive influx of tourists, and increased real-estate speculation by foreign investors. Our traditional connection to the 'āina is invisible in the existing structure; a structure we did not create and whose laws and policies have literally eroded the foundations of many 'ōiwi by physically removing them from places they are tied to by generations of ancestors. Where are the Hawaiian voices in these discussions about the "value" of land or in the creation of the systems in whieh the value of land is expressed? Increasingly priced out of our homeland, the separation of 'ōiwi from kulāiwi takes many

forms, from families forced to live in tents on the side of the road, to the diaspora of Hawaiians moving to the continent because of the laek of affordable housing and the corresponding high cost of living. While some are fortunate to o wn land through kingdom awards or the pmdent purchases of their kūpuna, the value of the land has skyrocketed due to speculation and development, and many Hawaiian families have already lost, or are in danger of losing, their ancestral lands because they cannot

afford to pay the property taxes. In this issue of Ka Wai Ola we share the story of the ChangKukahiko 'Ohana of Makena, Maui. Like many other families they are trying to hold on to 'ohana land despite property taxes of about $100,000 a year. We also take a look at homelessness from a social-political perspective and talk to an advocate for a homeless eamp on O'ahu. I We cannot continue to allow the laws and policies affecting land in Hawai'i to be made without our input. Hawaiians need to ensure that we have a seat at the table. We must become an informed and active citizenry. We need to get out and vote. Otherwise we have no voice. ■

Sylvia M. Hussey, Ed.D. Ka Pouhana/Chief Executive 0fficer