Sovereignty in Hawai`i

By Jonathan Osorio, Ph.D.

Jon Osorio is the Director and tenured Associate Professor of the Kamakakuokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. He teaches introductory and upper level Hawaiian Studies courses with a focus on nineteenth century history. An accomplished musician, composer, and author, Dr. Osorio recently wrote Dismembering Lahui: The History Of The Hawaiian Nation To 1887, published by the University of Hawai`i Press in July 2002. A native of Hilo, Hawai`i, Dr. Osorio has spent most of his adult life in Honolulu, he has lived in Palolo Valley, O’ahu for the past 13 years.

Sovereignty in Hawai`i

From the formation of Ka Lahui Hawai'i in 1987 to the proclamation of a new government by the Reinstated Hawaiian Kingdom in 2002, a number of grass-roots initiatives have worked to restore self-government to Native Hawaiian (Kanaka Maoli). Although the sovereignty communities have been diverse in their aims, how they perceive such things as law-making and citizenship, and their strategies, there is fairly strong support among Kanaka Maoli for the restoration of a native government. This is a significant change from the political aspirations and strategies of the territorial and early statehood years.

Several important and connected trends and events contributed to the endurance and growth of the Native sovereignty movement in Hawai'i: one has been the continuation of a distinct Native culture that has defied assimilation into an American identity before and since Statehood; another has been a consistent opposition to contemporary land use and development; and a third has been the Kanaka Maoli respect, even reverence, for law.

Being Hawaiian: Maintaining Cultural Identity

The territorial government sought to Americanize the Kanaka and Asian populations in Hawai'i in the early twentieth century. This primarily took the form of English-only public schools that punished non-speakers for speaking their ancestral languages. By the 1960s, Native speakers of 'olelo Hawai'i (Hawaiian language) were a small and shrinking minority. Despite that, Hawaiian music, dance, arts and sciences flourished in the following decade greatly improving the outlook and the cultural status of Native Hawaiians who had begun to be perceived as a "failed American minority" in Hawai'i.

The Hawaiian Renaissance, as it is known, actually drew on the ancient traditions of mele, hula and oli (traditional chants and dance), as well as more recent nineteenth and earlier twentieth century songwriters who adapted western styles of music, instruments and harmonies with Hawaiian lyrics and poetic themes. Hawaiian music became a distinct popular and artistic form of Native cultural unity throughout the territorial and early statehood periods. In fact, much of the social and cultural consciousness of the era was prompted by songs that emphasized the Kanaka's connection to the 'aina, and the sorrow over the loss of the country to urbanization.

Aloha 'Aina (Love for the Land)

The tremendous economic and political changes following statehood also contributed to a growing alienation of Hawaiians from American culture and American markers of success. As some of the major landowners in Hawai'i sought to urbanize their primarily agricultural and pastoral lands, the principal economic casualties were often Kanaka residents who had rented such properties for decades, growing subsistence crops or raising livestock. When the state government began to promote urbanization, chiefly through the creation of new residential communities, the poorer residents and farmers were evicted with few alternatives for relocating, especially on O'ahu.

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In the early 1970s, young Native men and women, some of them enrolled at the university, began a serious political opposition to the steady loss of Kanaka farming communities on O'ahu and formed community-based organizations to lobby on behalf of the residents. Their strategies were collective organizing, appeals to the public and political action, which included testifying at public hearings, civil disobedience, and confrontations with police. On O'ahu, organizations such as Kokua Hawai'i, Waiahole Waikane Community Association, and Save He'eia Kea mounted large public campaigns to counter developers' and land owners' attempts to urbanize agricultural lands. The leaders were young and energetic and became increasingly familiar with laws, regulations, and procedures connected to zoning, increasingly adept at public relations, and increasingly curious about how Hawaiians had lost political and economic control of the Islands in the first place.

A cadre of Native Hawaiian leadership began to surface that became more and more influential in the larger community. Such organizations and leaders could also be found on other islands as well. Hui Alaloa was formed on Moloka'i to protect public access to shorelines and forests and other land resources as resort developers began to prepare Molokai's west end for development. On Hawai'i island, the Keaukaha-Panaewa Community Association protested the relocation of Hawaiian homesteads in Keaukaha to make way for the extension of the airfield to accommodate international jetliner flights.

Political resistance often led participants to research history and to become conversant in statute and law especially pertaining to land. Activists came to believe that the historic landlessness of Kanaka, dating back to the time of the Mahele was a principal contributor to the fact that Kanaka were negatively affected by the new tourist-driven economy. But Native activists also began to probe the history of the Kingdom and the loss of independent government to the United States.

Political activism centered around the protection of the land (malama 'aina) from urbanization was at the core of the movement. But awareness among Native Hawaiians of their relative political and economic powerlessness galvanized a wide-ranging movement from students and poor taro farmers to conservative and well-placed members of the business community. In 1971, Hawaiian civic leaders and politicians created a new organization, Aboriginal Land Owners of Hawaiian Ancestry (A.L.O.H.A.) to lobby for U.S. reparations to the Kanaka for damages done to Natives as a result of American complicity in the overthrow of the Queen in 1893. A.L.O.H.A. never actually secured a congressional bill of reparations. But it did publicize the discussion of the injustice done to the Kingdom and its citizens and provided a backdrop of political activism as the cultural awareness of the Hawaiian Renaissance blossomed.

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In the mid-1970s, several issues converged: a Native-led opposition to the U.S. military bombing of Kaho`olawe Island since 1941; outrage at the rising number of evictions from the land; and public discussion of the failure of the Native Hawaiian Trusts, especially the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands. In 1977, two young Hawaiian activists, Kimo Mitchell and George Helm died trying to prevent the U.S. Navy from bombing Kaho`olawe, believing that the 'aina (land) was sacred, conscious, and an elder sibling to the Kanaka Maoli themselves.

Helm, in fact, symbolized the essence of the Hawaiian movement. As a musician and singer in the vanguard of the renaissance and a gifted orator, he brought a powerful appeal to the anti-military stance of the Protect Kaho'olawe 'Ohana. He was a researcher of Hawaiian culture and laws pertaining to land and Hawaiian rights and a visionary who believed that justice for Hawaiians and relief for the island could be secured without violence. His loss in 1977 actually spurred the public to back the effort to control and eventually end military use of Kaho'olawe and secure its return to the State of Hawai'i.

Seeking Refuge in the Law

In that same year, A Federal-State task force investigating the Department of Hawaiian Homes found a history of gross mismanagement of the trust. After more than 55 years, the Hawaiian Homes Commission (under the Territory) and the State Department of Hawaiian Homelands had awarded only a few thousand leases to qualified beneficiaries. More than half of the lands were leased to people and companies who were not Hawaiians and thousands of acres were simply appropriated by the State and Federal governments. Over 7,000 claimants languished on wait-lists, some as long as 30 years (it would climb to over 17,000 in the 1980s). The task force recommended a half-billion dollar expenditure to create sufficient infrastructure to actually implement the aims of the program, calling on both the Federal and State government to share the expense. Neither would.

Disgust with American promises and priorities, and a cultural renaissance in Hawaiian music, dance, art, literature, history and language fueled the nationalist movement. Yet, the movement was always rooted in the Kanaka preference to invoke and adhere to the law. In 1978, future governor John Waihe`e led a group of Native delegates to the State Constitutional Convention to draft and secure the inclusion of laws that would protect Hawaiians and their culture. The new constitution mandated the teaching of Hawaiian history, language and culture in all public education institutions, included Hawaiian as the second official language of the State, and created the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, to receive and distribute funds from the ceded lands for the benefit of Native Hawaiians.

In 1978, the Hawai`i State Supreme Court ruled that Native Hawaiians were entitled to 20% of the ceded lands revenues as they represented one of five uses mandated by the Organic Act. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs, with special voting provisions allowing only Natives to participate, became a source of self-rule that was, nevertheless, limited and tightly controlled by the Hawai'i State legislature and Governor's office, which appropriated money for its operation.

In 1987, more than a hundred Kanaka activists and kupuna (elders) gathered in Keaukaha in Hilo and founded Ka Lahui Hawai'i (The Hawaiian Nation). With a constitution and a citizenry that numbered over 20,000, Ka Lahui has been the most consistent presence in the sovereignty movement over the years. Under the leadership of Mililani Trask, Ka Lahui spearheaded "Onipa'a" in 1993, the well-attended centennial observation of the overthrow, which brought such public attention to the sovereignty movement. "Onipa'a" was followed closely by the convening of a Peoples' International Tribunal (Ka Ho'okolokolonui Kanaka Maoli) held on all of the islands in October 1993 by Ka Pakaukau (The Table), a federation of more than a dozen sovereignty and Kanaka activist organizations, which claimed that the defendant United States had committed a number of violations of international law and continued to oppress the Kanaka Maoli. The Tribunal's recommendations were that Lahui Kanaka Maoli are entitled to be reinscribed on the list of Non-Self-Governing Territories slated for decolonization under the provisions of Article 73 in the United Nations Charter.

The Tribunal was but one mechanism for placing the Kanaka Maoli sovereignty quest at the level of international law. Several Hawaiian organizations including Ka Lahui (KLH) have been working with international agencies at the U.N. and have had a hand in formulating the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. But KLH has also pursued recognition with the Unrepresented Peoples' Organization, and has extensive relations with Indigenous and Native American nations as well.

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Ka Lahui's model of government has always been a nation-within-a-nation and follows the example of hundreds of Native American nations within the United States. The KLH Constitution calls for the Kingdom's crown and government lands to be returned to the Kanaka and be the territorial base of the nation. Full citizenship and participation in government would be limited to people of Hawaiian ancestry and, when recognized, would provide a nation-to-nation relationship with the United States.

Since its inception in 1987, Ka Lahui has managed to elect legislatures and its executives, a kia'aina (governor), and lukanela (lieutenant governor), as well as a judiciary. Without control of lands and no revenues to speak of, KLH has, nevertheless, continued to assert Native rights before international agencies, and to track and influence state policies and lawmaking, particularly with regard to the former Kingdom's lands.

Government Responses to Sovereignty

In 1993, U.S. President Clinton signed Public Law 103-50, known as the Apology Bill committing the United States to a process of reconciliation for having participated in the overthrow of the Kingdom while acknowledging that the Hawaiian people had not surrendered either their sovereignty or their lands. Sovereignty groups interpret the effect of this law differently, with some arguing that the bill sets the stage for federal recognition of Hawaiians as a Native people possessing a trust relationship with America, while others argue that the law allows the restoration of full independence.

After "Onipa'a," the State of Hawai'i responded to Hawaiian calls for self-government by initiating and supporting two organizations, the Hawaiian Sovereignty Advisory Committee (HSAC) and its replacement, the Hawaiian Sovereignty Elections Council (HSEC). Ka Lahui led opposition to these two agencies, arguing that they were not representative of the Native Hawaiians and that, as a state agency, they could no more exercise Hawaiian self-determination than could the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.

In 1996, HSEC presided over the Native Hawaiian Vote sending ballots to more than 80,000 adults of Hawaiian ancestry, asking "Shall the Hawaiian people elect delegates to propose a native Hawaiian government?" Of the 30,000 ballots that were returned, over 22,000 (73%) voted in favor. As in the Apology Bill, different sovereignty groups interpreted the results differently, with Ka Lahui and Hawaiian independence supporters pointing out that over 60% of the ballot recipients had not returned the ballots, implying a wide-spread boycott.

Government attempts to control, define or even to mediate the sovereignty discussion have not fared well. The latest tries by Hawai'i Senators Akaka and Inouye to shepherd a federal recognition bill through the U.S. Senate and Congress have been strongly opposed by many long-time sovereignty activists who feel that the process, in order to be genuine, must originate outside of the governmental arena, and that only a full decolonization, overseen by the U.N., or else the restoration of the Kingdom's government will constitute a legal solution to the conflict.

Many sovereignty supporters also suspect that past government solutions such as the Hawaiian Homes Act and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs have not been genuine attempts to care for the needs of Hawaiians and have been inadequate in any case. Real self-determination is too important, they believe, to be traded away for promises of government programs, money, or even land, because only sovereignty can promote Hawaiian self-confidence in their culture and reliance on their own abilities and efforts to progress.

Independence, Not Decolonization

In recent years, two important initiatives to restore the Kingdom of Hawai'i have been launched. The Reinstated Kingdom of Hawai'i, boasting several thousand members throughout the Islands, has declared the promulgation of the most recent constitutions of the Kingdom, and in 2002, elected a new Legislative Assembly, exercising one of the most fundamental rights of a modern citizenry. Two years earlier, a suit filed by Hawaiian subject Lance Larson against the Acting Council of Regents of the Kingdom for failing to protect him from incarceration by the illegal American government of occupation, was heard at the Hague's Permanent Court of Arbitration. The Acting Council of Regents, which established itself in the late 1990s by a series of legal maneuvers that were scrupulously researched from Kingdom law, appeared to earn a measure of international legitimacy by its representation at the Hague. However, the Hague did not offer relief to either Larson or the Council of Regents, as the court insisted that the U.S. was a party to the dispute and needed to be in attendance.

Both the Reinstated Government and the Acting Council of Regents argue that the annexation of Hawai'i never legally took place, and that the Hawaiian Kingdom was a full-fledged member of the "family of nations" who had extended full recognition to one another and had regulated conduct between each other in the form of international treaties. Thus, the Kingdom of Hawai'i still legally exists, albeit under a prolonged state of occupation by the United States. As international rules exist binding the behavior of an occupying power, the proper international solution is not decolonization, but the end of the occupation and restoration of the legitimate government. If the U.S. were to abide by international law, they argue, it could not set up the territorial government and certainly could not make the islands into the fiftieth state.

Clarifying Choices

Skeptics of the sovereignty movement argue that the absence of a single unified core makes Hawaiian sovereignty an unlikely eventuality. More positively, the large number of initiatives, every one of which is founded on legal claims, indicates a vitality and diversity in the movement that defies easy suppression. For example, as federal courts in Hawai'i, and even the U.S. Supreme Court have begun to rule on whether Native Hawaiian programs discriminate on the basis of race, independence advocates simply dismiss the rulings, and their potential effects on Hawaiian entitlements as illegal-the improper administration of an occupying power. Moreover, Kingdom advocates note that the Kingdom's constitutions did not deny citizenship to anyone on the basis of race (although the haole-supported Bayonet Constitution did). Thus, they argue, restoration of the Kingdom would immediately enfranchise every descendent of the Kingdom's subjects, including Asian Americans and haole.

Whether Hawaiians favor independence, a nation-within-a-nation status, or federal recognition of Hawaiians and a government managed by Federal and State interests, the movement as a whole has grown to the point where some form of Hawaiian government is increasingly seen as inevitable. The movement has matured from numerous cultural and political assertions to a determined and broad-based population of Native Hawaiians who are willing to educate themselves to know their language, their history, political organizing, and whatever possibilities of managing their lands as may exist. Sovereignty has motivated Hawaiians to make better choices for their lives and has demanded and rewarded sacrifice. In that sense, whatever happens next, the sovereignty movement has been an unqualified good for the Kanaka Maoli. To the extent that the movement demands that the general public discuss and deal with issues of justice, power and law, the movement has been good for everyone.