The Mystery of Hawaiian History

Correcting historical revisionism and misconceptions promoted by the Akaka Bill

Office of Hawaiian Affairs: Rant vs. Reason on Race (A Debate)

Jan 25

Posted by Ken Conklin in Uncategorized | Comments off

On January 24, 2011 Hawaii Reporter published an analysis and full text of an e-mail dialog between OHA Trustee Rowena Akana and Grassroot Institute member Jere Krischel regarding the Akaka bill. The dialog began  with Akana’s published diatribe in the OHA monthly newspaper (circulation 60,000) in which Akana accused Krischel of being a racist. Krischel then engaged in an e-mail dialog with Akana for several rounds, clearly and patiently explaining what’s wrong with the Akaka bill and defending his right to say it without being called a racist. He demanded an apology but never got one.

See “Office of Hawaiian Affairs: Rant vs. Reason on Race (A Debate)” at

http://www.hawaiireporter.com/office-of-hawaiian-affairs-rant-vs-reason-on-race-a-debate

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Governor Abercrombie’s scurrilous and unnecessary lie about Hawaiian language in his “State of the State” speech

Jan 25

Posted by Ken Conklin in Uncategorized | Comments off

Hawaii Governor Neil Abercrombie said something false in his “State of the State” speech on January 24, 2011.

It was not a mistake, and not a normal political lie. His statement was scurrilous because it serves to promote racial hostility. It’s always bad to stir up resentment and anger by one race against another, especially when the grievance has no basis in fact. Following the Tucson political massacre, our President has urged us all to speak with greater civility.

In the written press release of his speech, his falsehood was “In 1896 it was made illegal to teach in the Hawaiian language.” The sentence he actually spoke was even worse: “In 1896 it was made illegal to teach the Hawaiian language.” These are variations of a commonly told lie, which says that In 1896 Hawaiian language was made illegal.

Any of these sentences is usually mentioned in the middle of a long diatribe listing alleged historical grievances to show that Caucasians oppressed and abused ethnic Hawaiians, and Hawaiians are therefore entitled to apologies, repentance, and reparations from Caucasians.

A webpage provides full text of Abercrombie’s written speech, an audio podcast and a video of the speech (with timeline and closed captioning), and further analysis. See
http://tinyurl.com/4l5hdlv

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Hawaiian Language as a Political Weapon

Jan 20

Posted by Ken Conklin in Uncategorized | Comments off

Hawaiian language is a great treasure for Hawaii and the world. But it is also used as a political weapon in ways unlike any other language. The worthy goal of preserving Hawaiian language and helping it thrive has been hijacked by using tax dollars to pay for programs whose hidden intention and practical effect is to foster racial pride, racial separatism, and ethnic nationalism, thereby undermining the sovereignty of the State of Hawaii and of the United States.

A large and heavily documented new webpage explores the following topics, at
http://tinyurl.com/668vqyz

(1) Demanding that the names of places and streets must be Hawaiian — historical background and 4 case studies: Thurston Ave. (Kamakaeha), Barbers Point (Kalaeloa), Dillingham Military Reservation (Kawaihapai), Fort Barrette Road (Kualakai).

(2) Demands that Hawaiian language as an “official language” of Hawaii be taken seriously by requiring that it must be used in government documents and that people must be allowed to use it when filing court documents or giving testimony before boards and commissions, or in court.

(3) How Hawaiian language, and the ancient Hawaiian religion, are used as political weapons in government hearings and political performances.

(4) The essential role of Hawaiian language in Hawaiian religion

(5) Sprinkling Hawaiian words occasionally throughout a speech or essay, to create an appearance of authentic Hawaiian-ness.

(6) The insistence on using Hawaiian grammar or spelling when speaking or writing English. Examples of pluralizing nouns and using ‘okinas.

(7) Hawaiian culture and language are used for political indoctrination in the tax-supported public schools — the Hawaiian Studies component of the general curriculum; the Hawaiian-focus charter schools; the Hawaiian language immersion schools; how Kamehameha Schools has infiltrated the public schools.

(8) Why are there no automated translation programs for Hawaiian, when such programs are easily available for other languages? It appears that Hawaiian language experts want to keep control of the language so it can be used only for “politically correct” purposes, and also to provide job security for a growing cadre of instructors and independent-contractor translators who must be politically correct to keep their jobs.

(9) There are political and emotional implications of using Hawaiian language rather than English, and sometimes those implications depend on the race of the speaker.

(10) How Hawaiian language, culture, and sovereignty are interconnected

(11) The role of the Christian missionaries and their native partners in creating a written Hawaiian language.

(12) A brief history of the dominance of English language in Hawaii — How English became almost exclusively the outside language whose words were incorporated into Hawaiian, and how English gradually replaced Hawaiian as the dominant language among foreigners and natives alike.

(13) The false claim that Hawaiian language was made illegal by the Republic of Hawaii after the monarchy was overthrown, and that this was done for the purpose of destroying Hawaiian culture. How this false claim is used for political purposes, to evoke anger and solidarity among ethnic Hawaiians and sympathy among non-ethnic Hawaiians to support demands for sovereignty.

(14) The Honolulu Star-Advertiser (and its predecessor the Honolulu Star-Bulletin) publishes a column every Saturday in Hawaiian language with no English translation. Often the topics are twisted versions of Hawaiian history intended to stir up anti-American or anti-Caucasian hostility.

For details on all these topics please see
http://tinyurl.com/668vqyz

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New law prohibits ethnic studies courses from inflaming racial hatred and anti-Americanism

Jan 9

Posted by Ken Conklin in Uncategorized | Comments off

A new law took effect in January 2011 which prohibits ethnic studies courses in the public schools and charter schools from being used as propaganda factories to build racial solidarity and anti-Americanism. The law targets courses which attract primarily students of any particular ethnicity, where the curriculum fosters hatred toward other racial groups by portraying them as oppressors — courses that promote anti-American, secessionist attitudes by describing America as invader and occupier of the ethnic homeland.

What? Did local media last year fail to report a law enacted by the Hawaii legislature or Congress? Will we now see a major cleanup of racial hate-mongering and anti-Americanism in the “Hawaiian-focus” charter schools, Hawaiian language immersion schools, the “Hawaiian studies” curriculum throughout all the public schools and perhaps even the University of Hawaii and community colleges?

No. The law was passed by the Arizona legislature because of concerns over the “La Raza” curriculum in that state’s ethnic studies courses. The La Raza curriculum is dangerous because it fuels Mexican nationalist hatred toward America, and racial hatred toward Anglos (Caucasians), in the hearts and minds of Mexican-American teenagers; using taxpayer dollars.

A new webpage describes the Arizona law in detail, and analyzes a Hawaiian-language weekly column in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser to show how the column would be prohibited in a Hawaiian studies course if the Arizona law were applied in Hawaii.

For further details, including footnotes with internet links to the Arizona law, the newspaper articles, more analysis of the Star-Advertiser column and the Hawaiian Studies system in Hawaii, go to
http://tinyurl.com/2vas5tm

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The Akaka Industry

Jan 2

Posted by Malia Hill in Office of Hawaiian Affairs | Comments off

Conventional wisdom says that (despite the boasts of our newest Governor) with the new Republican Congress in place, the Akaka Bill is effectively dead for the time being.  The theory is that the Bill never had much support among Republicans in Congress, and no Democrats will be willing to expend large amounts of political capital in order to push for it.  How true this is remains to be seen, but there are some groups in Hawaii who have way too much invested in the Akaka Bill to let a mere detail like political deep-freeze derail their efforts to promote it.

Like (brace yourselves for the surprise) OHA.

In a rather irregular move, OHA Trustee Haunani Apoliona called for OHA to continue its efforts to enroll Native Hawaiians for a possible Native Hawaiian government as called for by the now-defunct Akaka Bill. The reasons given by Apoliona and OHA CEO Clyde Namuo are fairly predictable–and they take care to note that they are looking to enroll Hawaiians living outside of Hawaii.  The reason for this effort is fairly obvious–OHA clearly believes that it will be easier to pass the Bill in the future if there is an established roll of “qualified” Native Hawaiians to be recognized by such a bill.  So a future version of the Akaka Bill will simply be able to reference the OHA-headed group as the Native Hawaiian government without the accompanying concerns about who should be included and how registration should proceed.  In addition, OHA clearly has a lot invested in being the preeminent Native Hawaiian organization in any Native Hawaiian government.  Sovereignty groups and other Native Hawaiian organizations that question OHA’s actions and motives can be absorbed and disarmed by OHA preemptive organization, thereby shutting down or minimizing any Native Hawaiian opposition to a future Akaka Bill.

There is, after all, a great deal of money and political power at stake.  It would be asking too much to think that OHA could just let that go.

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The Lure of Bad History

Dec 28

Posted by Malia Hill in Reference | Comments off

A long time ago, in a state far, far, away, I was a history major.  In answer to the question already forming on the lips of some of my readers, no.  I did not want to be a teacher.  I was a history major because I liked history in general and I liked it a whole lot more than other things that one can major in. I also, quite obviously, had no notion whatsoever of useful majors for lucrative post-college careers.  But that’s not the point of being a history major.  The point of being a history major is the ability to watch movies and then bore your friends with a huffy catalog of historical inaccuracies therein.  Be kind to your history major friends as they do this.  They had to write 20-page examinations of the political situation in medieval France and have no other outlet for this knowledge.

And we do live in a world full of historical inaccuracies.  This is nothing new, of course.  The temptation to reframe history for one’s own purposes (or because of one’s own biases or learned biases) is an eternal one.  What’s important is that we recognize that tendency and work to prevent it from becoming the basis of bad policy.  No, I’m not just legitimizing your friend’s tendency to go on about the problems in the movie Titanic.  (A noble calling in itself.) To some extent, history can be a matter of interpretation, but we can’t just give bad facts and specious interpretations a pass.

And when it comes to Hawaiian history, boy do we have a minefield of inaccuracy.  Whether based on the desire to romanticize the past or a political agenda, very few things have become as distorted as Hawaii’s path to US statehood.  It can even rear its head in a simple corporate publication, as Ken Conklin’s recent article in the Hawaii Reporter demonstrates.  Conklin identifies and corrects a series of inaccuracies in a recent HMSA magazine. The article is worth reading in its entirety, but here is a small sample:

Jokiel writes “In the years following the 1893 overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawai’i, the new government worked tirelessly to eradicate the Hawaiian language.” That’s totally false. Here’s what’s true.

Immediately after the revolution of January 17, 1893 royalist newspapers (both Hawaiian and English language ones) were suspended by the Provisional Government. That’s normal after any revolution. But after a few weeks all the newspapers resumed publication, with zero censorship.

Noenoe Silva published a book in 2004 entitled “Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism.” On page 181 Silva says there were both Hawaiian-language and English-language newspapers supporting Lili’uokalani after the overthrow and throughout the Republic period; and also newspapers in each language that were pro-Republic.

When the Republic of Hawaii was created in July of 1894, its Constitution was published in both English and Hawaiian. The continued publication of Hawaiian language newspapers, and publication of the Republic’s Constitution in Hawaiian, clearly disprove Jokiel’s assertion that “the new government worked tirelessly to eradicate the Hawaiian language.”

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Thank You, National Review

Dec 19

Posted by Richard O. Rowland in Commentary | Comments off

The omnibus spending spending bill died last week for lack of support. Senator Inouye had inserted into it a mandate for a study to figure out how to make a federally recognized Indian tribe out of persons who have native Hawaiian blood.

Commenting on that insert, National Review online editorialized: “ That’s a reference to the notorious Akaka Bill, an odious piece of segregationist legislation that would establish a race-based government on the Hawaiian archipelago”. That is a great description. Thank you National Review. It now appears that the proposed Bill is road kill. Now if we could only get some prudent management of the grant activity revealed on this website. That’s the mission, please help.

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Omnibus Luau

Dec 16

Posted by Malia Hill in Commentary, Office of Hawaiian Affairs | Comments off

I don’t know why we should be surprised that Senator Inouye is so accomplished at adding pork to the federal budget.  After all, if there’s one thing we love out here, it’s a luau.  But even the most liberal spender might blanch at the provision that Inouye just attempted to slip into the notorious Omnibus Spending Bill:

NATIVE HAWAIIAN RECOGNITION STUDY AUTHORIZATION
SEC. 125. The Secretary of the Interior shall, with funds appropriated for fiscal year 2011, and in coordination with the State of Hawaii and those offices designated under the Hawaii State Constitution as representative of the Native Hawaiian community, including the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, and the Attorney General of the United States, examine and make recommendations to Congress no later than September 30, 2011, on developing a mechanism for the reorganization of a Native Hawaiian governing entity and recognition by the United States of the Native Hawaiian governing entity as an Indian tribe within the meaning of Articles I and II of the Constitution.

Allow me to cut through the legislation-ese:  This provision grants an unspecified amount of money for a study (made in cooperation with OHA and the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands) on implementing the Akaka Bill constitutionally.  If it weren’t for the fact that it’s a blatant pork project, one would be tempted to say something like, “Hey, since you’ve been pushing for this for years, don’t you think it would have been good to address this earlier?”  However, given the nature of politics and the truer meaning of this project, perhaps the best response would be, “Hey, you sure have a lot of nerve funneling money to the two biggest supporters of this legislation to produce a ‘study’ that will support it.”

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Akaka’s Civil Rights Problem

Dec 7

Posted by Malia Hill in Commentary, US Comm on Civ Rights | Comments off

So much of the argument for the Akaka Bill is couched in Civil Rights terms–we are given to understand that to oppose it is to somehow oppose the rights and privileges of Native Hawaiians.  In fact, one of the most pernicious historical fallacies surrounding the former Kingdom of Hawaii as it relates to the argument for the Akaka Bill ca be found in the way that Akaka supporters blithely ignore the multi-ethnic make-up of the Hawaiian government at the same time as they push for the wholesale creation of a race-based “reorganization.”  In light of this sensitive question, it might be interesting to examine where some of the nation’s experts on matters of civil rights stand on the Bill.

Would you be surprised to hear that they oppose it?  It’s true.  On Dec. 7, 2010, the United States Commission on Civil Rights delivered a letter to key Congressional leaders reiterating their opposition to the Akaka Bill. If you’re interested, you can read the letter in full here.  (And the earlier, more detailed letter it references can be seen here.)  Without equivocation, the USCCR expresses its opposition that any attempt made to attach the Native Hawaiian Reorganization Act to a spending bill this session.  In addition, the letter states that the changes that have been made or proposed to the Act are insufficient to overcome the constitutional concerns that have been raised, and reiterates the Commission’s opposition to the Bill.

What is the source of the Commission’s opposition?   The reasons given should be familiar to most of those who have made a careful study of the legislation and its possible consequences: that Congress lacks that constitutional authority to thus “reorganize” ethnic groups into dependent sovereign nations without a strong history of self governance; that doing so will set a dangerous precedent; that it should not be used as an attempt to shore up race-based benefits threatened by recent court decisions; and that it is contradictory to the history of the Hawaiian government.

Above all, the opinion of the Commission makes it clear that the questions of race that surround the Akaka Bill are far more complex than Akaka’s supporters would like to admit.  It’s as though, in their efforts to help one ethnic group, the pro-Akaka lobby has deliberately ignored the fundamental principles of civil rights.

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Transparency?— Not with the Akaka bill

Dec 4

Posted by Richard O. Rowland in Commentary | Comments off

Yesterday there was much talk in Washington, DC that Senator Inouye was planning to attach the Akaka bill (presumably the latest version after major changes) to the Senate Omnibus Spending bill later in December. That would mean that would mean that it would pass without hearings or any other vetting. Indicating that the possibility was real, four seasoned U. S. Senators released statements deploring the idea. See press release here. At about the same time, Hawaii Reporter reported the story and quoted Peter Boylan, Senator Inouye’s spokesman, as saying Inouye was not planning such a move and reaffirming Inouye’s 2009 statement that attachment to an appropriations bill would be “nonsensical”. See text here.

Next was Robert Costa at NRO who reported Senator Inouye told NRO that he would like to bring the bill forward, but “it depends on if we can work out something with amendments”. He then quoted the Senator “We’ve been working on this for over a decade now….. No one can say we’ve been hiding this”. That remark prompted a response from Steven Duffield here.

If you are not confused, you should be. But here is the bottom line: there is no transparency here. GRIH stands for transparency in government. Hawaii’s people do not know anything substantive about this bill and people in government are keeping them in the dark.k

Before statehood in 1959, Hawaii had a Plebiscite. Approval was 94+%. Now a secret “nonsensical” attachment will skirt that? Walk your talk, Senator Inouye.

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