#230 in the Moʻolelo series, here I try to determine what events in the years since 2000 pass the threshold for being considered historical – it is a difficult process to view your own time from the lens of history and here I just take a first stab at such a process, focusing mainly on how events affected Hawaiians.
In 2000, the Rice v Cayetano case had just been settled at the Supreme Court and the Hawaiian community was reeling from a new climate in which one of the few exclusive, “special” rights Hawaiians had was undermined. Attacks followed on all the Hawaiian trusts, most unsuccessful: Hawaiian Homes, OHA itself and Kamehameha Schools admissions policy, in an era I call the “backlash.” Opponents, who later organized into institutional form in the Grassroot Institute, sometimes used civil rights concepts against these programs, arguing that they were not “colorblind.” In 2006, Kamehameha briefly lost its admissions policy, but this decision was reversed in en banc review. The Akaka bill appeared in multiple forms between 1999 and 2012, more and more “watered down” in my view, but more importantly, using strange logic to circumvent the use of race in the selection of leadership. The bill ended its 13 year run after the death of Senator Daniel Inouye and retirement of Senator Daniel Akaka.
At the same time, between 1999 and 2001, the groundbreaking Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom case took place at the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, Netherlands. The case concerned a Hawaiian national, Lance Larsen, who had been incarcerated for driving without license plates and claimed that the Acting Hawaiian Kingdom, led by Keanu Sai, should have protected his rights. The case at The Hague centered around whether the United States was required to participate in the proceedings (it had explicitly refused to do so), but the subtext was really whether the Hawaiian Kingdom existed as an Independent State. The outcome of this case has been debated and many are inconclusive as to its meaning, but the record in the PCA does list the Hawaiian Kingdom as a “State” i.e., sovereign country.
In 2002, Republican Linda Lingle was elected Governor and she initiated the most aggressive distribution of Hawaiian homes leases in the program’s history – about one third of all leases in the programʻs history were disbursed in the first few years of the Lingle administration. In 2010, Neil Abercrombie was elected in what turned out to be one term. Abercrombie immediately got Bill 195 passed, granting to OHA the lands of Kakaʻako Mākai, valued at the time at $187 million, to settle claims to ceded lands revenue up to that point (not future revenue due).
In 2014, the Department of Interior held hearings on most islands and sites on the US continent (some in Indian casinos) asking for feedback on a proposed “rule change” that would allow for the recognition of a Hawaiian national entity akin to an Native American nation – what we now call “Fed Rec.” About 98% percent of oral testimony in Hawaiʻi was in opposition to the rule change and the term “occupation” was often heard at the hearings (I attended the hearing at the State Capitol), showing the growth of the independence movement. When written testimony was recorded later, the balance was 65% in favor of the rule change and 35% opposed, according to a count made by Law Professor Williamson Chang. (Most of the written testimony in favor were form letters provided by the Hawaiian Civic Clubs).
In conjunction with this nation-building effort, the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission, called Kanaʻiolowalu, was organized, followed by a constitutional convention, called Naʻi Aupuni. The certification of the election of delegates was prevented, however, by the US Supreme Court and so the convention occurred with all candidates admitted as “participants” (the couldnʻt be called delegates on account of not being elected). The election of Donald Trump in 2016 prevented the continuation of these processes, though they could continue under the Biden administration.
the umiverse 