Wrapping-up 2016

Congratulations to all of the candidates who were elected to office in 2016.  Campaigning is a grueling process but the real work is about to begin.  I look forward to working with all of you in the 2017 Legislative Session to better the conditions of Native Hawaiians.

The Constitution of the Native Hawaiian Nation

On February 26, 2016, the majority of the Na‘i Aupuni ‘aha participants voted to adopt The Constitution of the Native Hawaiian Nation.  As one of 154 individuals that participated in the ‘aha, it is very difficult to put into words what an awesome experience this was for me.  Not only was this an important historical turning point in our history, but it was moving to see people who were often on opposite sides of an issue come together for the good of the whole and finally draft the governing documents needed to restore our nation.

Forced Land Sales Bills

During the 2016 legislative session, Kamehameha Schools led the charge against legislation that would have forced Hawai‘i’s landowners to sell leasehold lands to their lessees.  If HB 1635 or HB 2173 had become law, private land developers could have moved in to condemn and redevelop historical lands that were passed down from generation to generation of Hawaiians.

Thankfully, on February 8th, KS announced that the House cancelled the hearing for HB 1635 and HB 2173, which effectively killed the bills.  However, 2017 brings a new legislative session with new legislators who are unfamiliar with the issue.  Let us all be makaꞌala (watchful).

Wishing our dear Princess a very happy 90th birthday

It was with great admiration and respect that I dedicated this column to honoring Her Royal Highness Princess Abigail Kinoiki Kekaulike Kawananakoa who celebrated her 90th birthday on April 26th.  Age has not slowed her efforts to help the Hawaiian people and to preserve and protect in perpetuity the legacy passed down to the present generation.

One Voice, One Message

On August 24th, the BAE Committee and OHA’s CEO proposed a new policy called “One Voice, One Message,” which required that all external communications be submitted to the CEO for review and approval prior to execution or engagement.

If this policy were to be approved, Trustees will no longer be able to publically voice their opposition to any board decision without facing severe sanctions for speaking out against the majority.  Thankfully, the proposal was deferred due to concerns about it being unconstitutional.  I will continue to strongly oppose this undemocratic policy if it returns to the board table.

The U.S. Department of the Interior announces a pathway to nationhood

On September 23, 2016, the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) announced a “final rule to create a pathway for reestablishing a formal government-to-government relationship with the Native Hawaiian community.”  It is now time for all of us to work together for the cause of recognition.  While the board has NOT voted to accept the rules as written, let us begin to agree on the things that we can agree to and set aside the things we differ on and move forward together for the future generations of Hawaiians yet to come.

Merry Christmas

May each of you have a joyful and merry Christmas surrounded by family and friends.  Stay safe out there.  Aloha Ke Akua.

Wishing our dear Princess a very happy 90th birthday

`Ano`ai kakou…  Before the Kingdom of Hawaii was illegally overthrown in 1893 it was a thriving, internationally recognized nation with a royal family that was beloved by the people.  While many of the institutions of the Kingdom of Hawaii may be gone, the royal family continues to live on and flourish to this day.

It is with great admiration and respect that I dedicate this column to honoring Her Royal Highness Princess Abigail Kinoiki Kekaulike Kawananakoa who celebrated her 90th birthday on April 26th.

The great grandniece of King David Kalakaua and Queen Kapi‘olani, Princess Kawananakoa was born in Honolulu and was adopted by her grandmother, Princess Abigail Kawananakoa, who was the widow of Prince David.  She grew up learning from the keepers of our traditions – many of whom had served the monarchy.

Princess Kawananakoa is best known as a philanthropist who has helped sustain authentic Hawaiian history, music, hula, literature, and language.  As president of the Friends of ‘Iolani Palace for nearly 30 years, she was the moving force behind the palace’s monumental and historic restoration project.  The palace operates as a “living restoration” that tells the story of Hawaii’s monarchy.  Visitors leave understanding how advanced a society Hawaiians had created before the overthrow.

Princess Kawananakoa has supported many projects throughout the state, from the first Hawaiian language immersion schools to the historic renovation of the Hawaiian Hall at Bishop Museum which named the kahili room in her honor.  She nurtured the Merrie Monarch from its earliest days and continues to be a faithful and generous sponsor of halau.

In 1978, she established the Abigail K. Kawananakoa Foundation to continue her commitment to the preservation of Hawaiian culture and a wide range of charities throughout the world, and she later formed Na Lei Ali‘i Kawananakoa, which serves and represents the interests of Native Hawaiians and has preserved many Hawaiian artifacts.

Known globally for her love of horses and her support of animal rights, Princess Kawananakoa endowed a university chair for research on equine orthopedics at the College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at Colorado State University from which more than 160 Hawai‘i students have graduated.  She has been a pioneer in the use of advanced veterinary science with her horses.  These successes have led to her becoming an advocate for translating breakthroughs in veterinary medicine into techniques and therapies that would assist humans.

In 2009, the University of Hawaii conferred an Honorary Doctorate and in 2016, Colorado State University did as well, both recognizing her extraordinary commitment and contributions to civic life.

As holder of the largest share of the Estate of James Campbell, she has encouraged its support of important community programs throughout Ewa.  Her dedication of land to create the UH West Oahu campus is another important contribution our Princess has made to education.

Age has not slowed her efforts to help the Hawaiian people and to preserve and protect in perpetuity the legacy passed down to the present generation.  She has used her persuasive voice to seek proper stewardship of our natural resources including Mauna Kea and Haleakala.

A matter of common knowledge, but never revealed, is her personal assistance to literally thousands of individual Hawaiians and Hawaii groups in times of distress.  Much of what we take for granted as part of the “Hawaiian Renaissance” only exists because of her devotion to seeing that our true heritage is not lost.  Aloha Ke Akua.

HONORING SAINT DAMIEN

By: OHA TRUSTEE ROWENA AKANA

Source: December 2009 Ka Wai Ola o OHA Column

On October the 11, 2009, Father Damien was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in St. Peters Basilica in Vatican City, Rome.  Saint Damien was born Joseph De Veuster on January 3, 1840 in Tremelo, Belgium into a large family.  His parents were farmers and merchants and it was expected that Joseph would take over the family business after his oldest brother decided to enter the congregation of the Scared Hearts of Jesus and Mary.  However, this was not to be.

In 1859, Joseph entered the novitiate in Louvain, Belgium, the same religious order that his brother had entered, where he took the name of Damien.  In 1863, his brother became ill and could not leave on a mission to the Hawaiian Islands.  Joseph obtained permission from the Superior General to take his brother’s place.

Joseph arrived in Honolulu on March 19, 1864 where he was ordained to the priesthood the following May 21st.  In learning about Saint Damien and the struggles he endured as a priest living in Kalawao, Molokai, or what is now known as Kalaupapa, I can truly say that no one in this lifetime could have survived the harsh and cruel conditions there with the same grace and compassion.

Damien’s arrived at a time when the Hawaiian Monarchy was struggling with the dilemma of what to do about the outbreak of Hansen’s Disease that was quickly spreading throughout the islands.  It was decided that all those who were infected be isolated on the island of Molokai in the remote area of Kalawao.

The entire Catholic Mission led by Bishop Louis Maigret was concerned about the abandonment of the “lepers.”  He asked for volunteers who would take turns administering aide to them and four priests volunteered.  Damien was first to leave on May 10, 1873.  After seeing the harsh conditions in Kalawao and how seriously ill the patients were, he asked the Bishop’s permission to remain indefinitely on Molokai.  Thus, Damien spared the other priests from exposure to the disease.

On October 1, 2009, I traveled along with a Hawaii delegation on a pilgrimage to Belgium and to Rome to honor Father Damien.  We visited Father Damien’s hometown of Tremelo where the people of the town embraced us.  I can now truly understand where the kindness and compassion that father Damien had for our Hawaiian people came from.

“We are reminded through the life lessons exemplified by Father Damien that we are each given an opportunity while we are on God’s earth to try and make a difference in someone’s life no matter how big or how small.  It only matters that we try.”

To Father Damien, people were people, and his service to his God meant to serve all of God’s people.  We are reminded through the life lessons exemplified by Father Damien that we are each given an opportunity while we are on God’s earth to try and make a difference in someone’s life no matter how big or how small.  It only matters that we try.

We walked along the same streets that he walked and entered his boyhood home which is now a small museum.  Touring the century old town with its quaint streets and beautiful classical buildings was an unforgettable experience.  At the end of a Mass held in Tremelo, the Bishop of Belgium said, “Thank you Hawaii, we gave you a priest and you gave us back a Saint. We are forever linked together as one people.”

On October the 6th, our group arrived in Rome and our hotel was very near Saint Peters Square and the Vatican.  Upon arrival, I was acutely aware of the stark contrast between the smaller towns of Belgium and the hustle and bustle of Rome.  I also found it interesting how Rome’s ancient history and architecture deeply intertwined with the modern city.

It is fascinating how parts of ancient Rome continue to exist in modern times as they did centuries ago.  I walked upon the same cobblestone streets that Romans in ancient times traversed.  What is astonishing is that a large city like Rome has not widened its streets to accommodate automobiles.  Cars and motorcycles regularly zip in and out of narrow streets made for horses and foot traffic.  To add to the congestion, Romans regularly double and triple park their cars.

Almost every building in Rome has ornate architecture and statues.  The 600 churches within the city are decorated with beautiful paintings on both the walls and ceilings.  St. Peters Basilica is the most beautiful church I have ever seen.  St. Peter is buried underneath the Basilica.  Located nearby is the Sistine Chapel where Michelangelo spent more than half of his life painting the magnificent ceiling.  Everything that you have ever read about in school is there before you.

Despite the many distractions, we did not forget the reason we all made our pilgrimage to Rome — the canonization of our beloved Father Damien.  On October 11th, we lined up at St. Peters square at 6:30 am to ensure we got seats before the program began.  The gates opened at 8:15 am and by that time there were 60,000 people waiting to get into the Square and many more coming in tour buses and walking in large groups.  Suddenly, they all rushed towards the gate with a determined look in their eyes.  There was much pushing, shoving, and shouting in different languages as everyone scrambled to get one of the limited number of seats available.  Thankfully, no one was trampled.

The Mass began at 8:30 am.  The King and Queen of Belgium, the Royals of Italy, Senator Daniel Akaka and Lt. Governor Duke Aiona were but a few of the many dignitaries  in the audience.  Participants included the Brothers and Fathers of the Scared Heart Order of Connecticut, Los Angeles, the Philippines, and the Northern Marianas, who were all led by Bishop Silva of Honolulu.  St. Peters Basilica was packed to its brim with visitors from everywhere in the world, with thousands more listening and watching on the jumbo screens in the square.  All told, there were as many as 100,000 people there.  Before we knew it, like a blink of an eye, the Mass was over and Father Damien had become Saint Damien.

Our next stop is the thriving community of Assisi, about three hours outside of Rome.  We traveled through farm country and lots of open spaces.  It was a sharp contrast to Rome.  Finally, high on the mountain top of Assisi, we witnessed the birth place of Saint Francis.  The view was breathtaking.  We then visited St. Francis’s Church and his tomb.  Beautiful, centuries old buildings were still being used as merchant shops and homes.  We stopped long enough to get some heavenly sweet gelatos.  There really is no such thing as a bad meal in Italy.  The smells, the deserts, the wines, the people, the excitement of the cities and its energy were invigorating.

Next, our group attended a Hawaiian Mass at St. Paul’s church in Rome presided over by Bishop Silva and the Priests of the Scared Hearts Order including the Honorable Father Lane Akiona, Father Gomes, Father Jonathan, Father Preston, Father Bruce, and others. Special dances by our Halau and our choir made this Mass very special.  St. Paul’s church is one of the most visited churches in Rome and second in size only to St. Peters Basilica.

The next day, we say aloha to Rome and head back to Hawaii.

The final Aloha and Mahalo to St. Damien took place on the grounds of Iolani Palace on November 1st.  Belgium dignitaries and our own Princess Abigail Kawananakoa exchange their gratitude and love for St. Damien.  In this final farewell, the Princess shares some intimate letters that were written between Queen Kapiolani, King David Kalakaua and Princess Liliuokalani with St. Damien.

Princess Liliuokalani first visited Kalaupapa on September 15, 1881.  She witnessed the patients’ swollen, half-shut eyes, the black scabs and running sores, their mutilated members, and their gangrenous hands and feet.  Some of the sufferers hid their wounds under bloodstained bandages; others let their wounds show as though they no longer thought of them.  Princess Liliuokalani burst into tears when she recognized some of them.  She attempted to speak, but could not.  She wanted to see everything at the site including the housing, the hospital, the orphanages, the churches, the rectory and the stores.  She left with a broken heart.

Father Damien wrote to Queen Kapiolani about the plight of the Hawaiian people whom he cared for and appealed to her to send provisions.  In a June of 1884 letter, Queen Kapiolani wrote, “Dear father Damien, I am awaiting your approval of the allotment of clothes for the lepers and the number to be supplied.  The giving of the clothes for he lepers are being withheld until I hear from you.  With best wishes to you and our beloved lepers, Kapiolani.”

On July 30, 1884, Damien responded, “I was honored to receive your letter. To execute your loving orders I put myself right to work.  I have visited the homes and saw with my own eyes their needs, and inquired of their pain.  Here is a list of Kalawao.  The list for Kalaupapa I will mail next week.  My respectful greetings to the King.  Your humble servant.”

On August 6, 1884, Father Damien wrote, “To the Royal mother of the people in suffering Queen Kapiolani, greetings.  Your letter is in the hands of your obedient servant.  I have fulfilled your requests.  I have finished the catalogue of names of the sick people imploring the mercy of their mothers.  Through the Board of Health you will receive a list of all of the people who are living here with their date of birth.  A kind request for myself and my large family to you, O princess, when all of the freight is ready to be shipped, tell the head Sister, Sister Marianne, to board the ship with you in order to select a site for the establishment of the sisters at Kalawao.”

It is clear from these writings that Father Damien enlisted the aide of not only the Royal family but also the support of anyone who would listen.  He then used whatever materials he could find to build houses, churches and hospitals for the patients.  Against all odds he formed a sense of community and provided much needed services such as baptisms and marriages.  In one of his writings he wrote: “My greatest happiness is to serve the Lord in these poor sick children, rejected by others.”

Today, as it was then, the world now rejects the less fortunate of all kinds such as the victims of AIDS and other diseases, abandoned children, disoriented youth, abused women, neglected elderly, oppressed minorities and the homeless.  In Damien, we see the Good Samaritan, who stopped to give aide to the sick and to those who had been cast aside by society. Damien is and will remain for all of us a servant of the human spirit and person, a servant of humanity that needs to live but more importantly needs reason for living.

This is the Damien challenge to all of us today.  Can we find the Good Samaritan in us?

More OHA News

By: TRUSTEE ROWENA AKANA

Source: September 2009 Ka Wai Ola o OHA Column

MAUNA KEA SELECTED FOR THIRTY METER TELESCOPE

Despite the serious concerns voiced by our administrator regarding the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) Observatory Project, on July 2, 2009, the board of trustees voted in favor of an OHA resolution supporting the selection of Mauna Kea as the site for the proposed project.  Trustees Cataluna, Waihee, and I were excused from the meeting and did not vote for the measure.

On July 22, 2009, Advertiser Staff Writer Mary Vorsino reported that Mauna Kea was selected for the TMT project despite the strong opposition from Native Hawaiian and environmental groups.  While Mauna Kea is considered sacred to us, the environmentalists are concerned about how the project will impact rare native plant and insect species at the top of the mountain.

The planning and permitting stage will begin in 2010.  Construction is scheduled to begin in 2011 and completed in 2018.  While this may seem like a done deal, the opposition posed by potential lawsuits could delay work on the new telescope. 

LEGISLATURE OVERRIDES LINGLE’S KAHANA VALLEY VETO

According to a July 16, 2009 Honolulu Advertiser article, the Kahana Valley living cultural park was established 30 years ago to preserve one of the few surviving ahupua’a.  Residents who were living there at the time received 50-year leases in exchange for 25 hours of work a month on cultural activities.  Last year, the state attorney general discovered that the leases had expired and six families without leases were told to leave.

During this past legislative session, Rep. Jessica Wooley introduced HB 1552 which authorizes the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) to issue long-term residential leases to qualified persons in state living parks. The bill also establishes living park planning councils to develop state living park master plans to ensure the living park achieves its purpose and goals.  Mostly importantly the bill establishes a 2-year moratorium on evictions of residents of Kahana valley state park.

On July 8, 2009, Governor Linda Lingle said she intended to veto the bill and this forced residents to schedule a protest rally the very same day.  After the bill was vetoed on July 15, 2009 by the Governor, the veto was quickly overridden and passed into law by the legislature, much to the relief of Kahana Valley residents.  Those residents who faced eviction last October will be allowed to remain in their homes and the way is now paved for more leases.

PRINCESS ABIGAIL KAWANANAKOA’S LAWSUIT

According to a July 17, 2009 Advertiser article by Rick Daysog, a lawsuit was filed in state Circuit Court on Wednesday, July 15, 2009 by Princess Abigail Kawananakoa against the Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR), the Department of Health, the State Historic Preservation Division (SHPD) and Kawaiaha’o Church.

Princess Kawananakoa believes that Kawaiaha’o church officials and construction workers dug up and disturbed the burial plot of her ancestor Queen Kapi’olani and those of other Hawaiian families.  She also alleged that the church skirted state burial laws, with the help of state officials, to fast-track the construction of the project.  “This project is about greed, not God,” Princess Kawananakoa said in an e-mail to The Advertiser. “I must take this to court because I cannot allow the desecration of Hawaiian graves to continue.”

In April, church officials denied that the Kapi’olani plot had been impacted.  However, a month later, they said they were unsure whether construction work had dug into the Kapi’olani plot.

George Van Buren, an attorney for Princess Kawananakoa, wrote in the lawsuit that the church and DLNR officials should have known it would find human remains because the property used to be part of the cemetery.  Van Buren also stated that church officials and the DLNR disregarded the advice of the church’s archaeological consultants, who recommended a “subsurface archaeological study for iwi, or bones, and other cultural artifacts” before beginning construction.  “Kawaiaha’o Church was concerned that any archaeological inventory survey would discover a concentration of human burial remains in the graveyard that could hinder and/or perhaps halt construction of the multipurpose center,” Van Buren said.

DLNR officials would not comment, saying they have not yet reviewed Kawananakoa’s lawsuit. 

SECOND KAWAIAHA’O LAWSUIT

The Advertiser also reported that Dana Naone Hall, former chairwoman of the Maui-Lana’i Island Burial Council, also plans to sue DLNR and church officials over their handling of the matter.  Naone Hall, who has relatives buried within the church’s cemetery ground, said that state law requires Kawaiaha’o officials to do an environmental assessment of the property since the church is a “designated historic site.” 

In her July 2, 2009 letter to DLNR, the Department of Health, and the Oahu Island Burial Council, Naone Hall has brought up the following serious concerns:

(1) The necessity to be clear about burial sites and cemeteries on Kawaiaha’o Church properties;

(2) The history of repeated disinterment of Native Hawaiian burials should not continue without any standards;

(3) DLNR has not conducted the Historic Preservation Review required by its own rules;

(4) Kawaiaha’o is not a cemetery as defined in HRS Chapter 441 and HRS 6E-41;

(5) The burials that were identified during construction were known about beforehand not “inadvertent discoveries.”

(6) DLNR and DOH do not possess the legal authority to disinter burials at Kawaiaha’o Church in the manner suggested in DLNR’s June 11, 2009 letter to Kawaiaha’o Church; and

(7) The agencies cannot permit any further construction on the Kawaiaha’o Church property until the Environmental Assessment is lawfully concluded.

Until the next time.  Aloha pumehana.