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Hawaiians Are Not the Enemy of the General Public

Saturday, February 8th, 1997

By Trustee Rowena Akana
February 8, 1997

A chaotic assault on Native Hawaiian entitlements got underway during the first week of the 1997 legislature. First, we heard the House Committee on Hawaiian Affairs take a swat at OHA’s submission for general funds, our only source of assistance for Hawaiians who do not meet the legislatively imposed fifty-percent blood quantum. Then we saw the House judiciary committee Chair Terrence Tom bully out of committee a Constitutional Convention, structured to give our legislators summer jobs gutting Native Hawaiian entitlements in 1998. On top of that, there is a measure afoot to repeal the statute that allows us access to justice and lets us sue the State when it fails to comply with its trust obligation to Hawaiians.

Clearly, many of our lawmakers have bought into the Governor’s public relations blitz targeting Hawaiians as Public Enemy Number One. While the same old cronyism and mismanagement–woes he vowed to fix–continue, the Governor is trying to shift the blame for the State’s cloudy fiscal future to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. Some very smart people are following his camera when they should be focusing elsewhere.

So that we are all on the same page, I’ll set out the numbers again. The State gets 80 percent of ceded land revenues, or the lion’s share of land leases and rents. Until OHA took the State to court and won a determination to the contrary, the State was assured of ALL of the “sovereign” income from the big-ticket tenants such as the airport, Duty Free Shops, the University of Hawaii, etc. In addition, it collects revenues via the highest income tax in the United States, the most inequitable and pervasive general excise tax and other sources of funding extracted from its citizens, including Hawaiians. The Office of Hawaiian Affairs gets 20 percent of the income from ceded land leases and rents. Period. While Circuit Court Judge Dan Heely determined that OHA should be getting a percentage of “sovereign” income too, OHA has never received any. In an attempt to make sure we never do, the State is appealing Judge Heely’s decision. Currently Cayetano & Co. are floating the rumor that a hired gun from the Mainland will replace their consistently losing team from the Attorney General’s Office. In case this suit is, once again, decided on the merits, there is a bill in the hopper, drafted last year and brought back from the dead by Representatives Calvin Say and Nathan Suzuki, the Governor’s bag men in the House, excluding “sovereign” income from the ceded lands formula.

All this leads to the conclusion that the State is following the federal example in reneging on its treaties with Native people. Sadly, it has successfully stirred up public resentment so that the betrayal appears justified. A recent Honolulu Star Bulletin article called for OHA’s revenue percentage to be reduced, and I would not be surprised to see a bill proposing such a reduction this session. The State has not told the public that the 20 percent figure represents a compromise by OHA, the legislature, and the Governor, ratified by the voters in 1978. What would prevent the State from claiming a new, lower figure is still too much? Clearly, Hawaiians cannot have any confidence in the State even when it commits its word to law.

And there is an even bigger shibai going on, one affecting Hawaiians and non-Hawaiians alike. Whether the legislature chews up Hawaiian entitlements piecemeal during this session or swallows them whole during a Constitutional Convention, the financial bottom line will not change. Considering the entire State budget, the annual sum owed OHA based on 20 percent is very small, hovering around one percent. Paying it in full and on time should not bankrupt a fiscally responsible State. On the other hand, eliminating the payment won’t be the solution to poor management. The real bottom line here is that no one should trust the State’s representations when it comes to Hawaiian entitlements. The non-Hawaiian public should realize that Hawaiians are sharing 80 percent of our trust with them. To take more from us than we are already giving would be unconscionable.

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Does Blood Quantum Divide Us?

Monday, October 3rd, 1994

By Trustee Rowena Akana
October 3, 1994

The definition of “native Hawaiian” was not created by Hawaiians themselves. Indeed, the proviso was added to the language of the 1920 Hawaiian Homes Commission Act at the behest of powerful sugar planters who were anxious to preserve over 200,000 acres of choice, inexpensive leases.

Divide and rule. It was a classic tactic of colonial regimes throughout the world, including the Territorial Administration of Hawaii. The Territory used it all too well, filling the coffers of the sugar planters while maintaining Hawaiians in factionalized penury. Seventy years later, Hawaiians are still wondering whether or not we own our own land. And of course, in alienating Hawaiians from their land, Hawaiians were alienated from their spiritual and cultural selves as well.

Although OHA is mandated to serve all Hawaiians, its funding mechanism restricts benefits to native Hawaiians. This gulf between OHA’s mission and its means can be seen in the instruments that created it and in those that fund it. The 1978 Constitutional Amendment that created OHA clearly requires the Board of Trustees to “manage and administer” proceeds from ceded lands for “native Hawaiians and Hawaiians.” However, OHA’s sources of revenue make the agency unable to fulfill its purpose. HRS-10 refers back to the Admission Act, which in turn refers back to the HHCA, which dedicates funding exclusively for native Hawaiians. The Act defines native Hawaiian as “any descendent of not less than one-half part of the blood of the races inhabiting the Hawaiian Islands previous to 1778.”

In a place of such great multicultural diversity as our island home, many Hawaiians are already below the blood quantum. Even native Hawaiian families are often only a generation or two away from being in a similar predicament themselves. We are one people. We cannot afford to be divided by arguments about benefits or entitlements. Not when so much work remains to be done. The struggle to regain our sovereign rights requires unity and the strength of numbers.

The blood quantum must be scrapped and benefits extended to all Hawaiians with continued priority given to native Hawaiians. As the Hawaiian race continues to “thin out” over time, we must find new ways to redefine our ohana, and on our own terms. Previous definitions were motivated by greed and formulated by strangers. New definitions will be motivated by a sense of lokahi and aloha and formulated by Hawaiians.

There is a final irony to the question of blood quantum. In addition to the requirement’s egregious moral and political shortcomings, it suffers from a profound and extremely basic problem as well. That is the question of how “race” is defined on the state records that are used to confirm blood quantum. According to the State Department of Health, the race item on vital records is not an indication of genetic extraction but is the race claimed by the informant. Thus, the legal determination of an individual’s status as a trust beneficiary is not even made according to legal rules of evidence.

The blood quantum requirement must be amended, by State or Federal action, so that OHA can serve all of the people it was created to serve, now and in the future.

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Akana Targets “Anti-Hawaiian” Democrats

Thursday, May 16th, 1991

By Mike Yuen
May 16, 1991

Source Star Bulletin

A trustee of the semiautonomous Office of Hawaiian Affairs has made overtures to Republican legislators for help in finding candidates to seriously challenge Democratic lawmakers seen as “anti-Hawaiian.”

OHA at-large trustee Rowena Akana, a Democrat, cited House Speaker Joe Souki (D, Wailuku), House Majority Leader Tom Okamura (D, Aiea), House Finance Chairman Calvin Say (D, Palolo), House Hawaiian Affairs Chairman Ed Case (D, Manoa) and freshman Rep. Kenney Goodenow (D, Waimanalo), whose district has a high percentage of native Hawaiians.

“What we saw during the legislative session this year can only be described as one of the worst assaults on Hawaiian entitlements in OHA’s 17 years,” said Akana, an organizer of the Hawaiian silent prayer vigil at the state Capitol during the past session.

She directed much of her criticism at a House-approved bill crafted by Case that would have nullified a Circuit Court ruling that expanded the definition of what was covered by the 20 percent the state owes OHA for use of ceded lands.

That provision, based on the House’s conclusion that the ruling judge misinterpreted legislative intent, was eliminated during conference negotiations at the insistence of Senate conferees. The bill approved by both chambers temporarily sets the state’s ceded-land payments at $15.1 million annually while special commission tries to resolve the dispute between the state and OHA.

Republican state Reps. Quentin Kawananakoa (Nuuanu) and Sam Aiona (Makiki), both of Hawaiian ancestry, acknowledged that Akana has had “informal discussions” with GOP lawmakers. But, they maintained, the talks have yet to reach the point of targeting any Democratic lawmaker.

The House’s 12 Republicans have closely aligned themselves with native Hawaiian concerns. Kawananakoa and Aiona said that was done because it was the right thing to do – not for strategic reasons.

Akana said she is turning to the GOP and to independents because she has yet to see Democrats back a Democratic challenger over a Democratic incumbent.

Akana stressed that while other OHA trustees are unhappy with how the Democratic-controlled Legislature acted on Hawaiian issues, her contacts with the GOP don’t reflect an official board position.

But, she added, “As a trustee, my first priority is to protect our trust. I’m not here as a Republican or a Democrat. I’m here as a nonpartisan person. When people become the enemies of this trust, whether they are Democrat or Republican, they become my enemy too.”

Akana declined to identify pro-Hawaiian candidates because there are no firm commitments.

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