Letter to editor by Kenneth R. Conklin, Ph.D. in response to
Linda Zhang, “Re-Building a Native Hawaiian Nation: Base Rolls, Membership, and Land in an Effective Self-Determination Movement,” Asian Pacific American Law Journal, Vol 22, No. 1, 2017, pp. 69-93.
http://escholarship.org/uc/item/39t1k0fx
I would like to set the record straight regarding a few errors of fact and interpretation in Linda Zhang’s essay “Re-Building a Native Hawaiian Nation.”
1. Alleged invasion of Iolani Palace by U.S. troops during the Hawaiian revolution of 1893
At the bottom of page 70 Ms. Zhang states the following falsehood: “Then, in 1893, American troops seized I’olani Palace, the home of Queen Lili’uokalani and the center of the Hawaiian monarchy …” Her only citation for that assertion is an internet link from 2005 which is now dead, where the underlying blogsite continues to publish only highly one-sided propaganda pushing the concept of Hawaiian independence.
The truth is that on January 16, 1893 there were 162 U.S. sailors who landed in Honolulu as a peacekeeping force because of anticipated violence between an armed militia of local men seeking to overthrow the government, and the government’s forces. Their orders were to protect American lives and property and to prevent rioting and arson. 808 pages of sworn testimony before the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs in February 1894, in open session and under severe cross-examination, shows that the peacekeepers never invaded the Palace grounds and, indeed, did not take over any buildings nor in any way provide help to the rebels. See the Morgan Report at
http://morganreport.org
Even the Blount Report, much ballyhooed by Hawaiian sovereignty activists, makes no claim of any invasion of Palace grounds by U.S. troops.
Unfortunately the 2009 movie “Princess Kaiulani” (originally titled “The Barbarian Princess”) falsely shows such a scene. The webpage for a future film “The Islands” by Tim Chey [See endnote of 12/12/17] indicates that there will be a similar scene. Both films, of course, are produced with story lines intended to sell lots of tickets by spectacularly distorting historical fact in ways that will appeal to current sentiments. Portraying U.S. troops invading the Palace is pure propaganda which only serves to incite racial strife and anti-Americanism.
2. Alleged statistical evidence of Native Hawaiian victimhood in poverty, incarceration, and health
Page 71, near the top, says “Since then, studies have shown that Kanaka Maoli, or Native Hawaiians, continue to have some of the highest rates of poverty, incarceration, school drop-out rates, and display several negative indicators of health.”
This assertion has been repeated so many times, both in the popular media and in academic “studies”, that people now believe it. This victimhood claim is cited by tycoons of the Hawaiian grievance industry who benefit from hundreds of millions of dollars in government and philanthropic grants; and also cited by politicians seeking to arouse public sympathy for efforts to create a Hawaiian tribe. The assertion arises from statistical malpractice, whose perpetrators must surely be aware that they are engaging in a scam. Two of the main points debunking the assertion are as follows:
(a) According to Census 2010 the median age of ethnic Hawaiians in Hawaii is 26 while the median age of everyone else in Hawaii is 42. That 16 year age gap explains why incomes of Native Hawaiians are significantly lower than incomes of other ethnic groups. It also explains why Native Hawaiians have higher rates of incarceration and longer sentences than other ethnicities — not because of their ethnicity but because of the huge age gap. Drug abuse, spouse abuse, and crime — especially violent crime — are the sins of young people far more than middle-age people.
(b) Virtually all so-called Native Hawaiians have mixed ancestry. Perhaps 3/4 of them each have at least 3/4 of their heritage being Asian or Caucasian rather than Hawaiian. But when someone is a victim of poverty, incarceration, disease, etc. and is asked “What are you?” they are classified as “Native Hawaiian” AND ONLY AS NATIVE HAWAIIAN even if their native blood quantum is only a small fraction of their ancestry. Someone who is mostly Caucasian or Asian should have his victimhood attributed to one of those racial groups rather than to Native Hawaiian. The most accurate way to award victimhood tally marks to ethnic groups would be to give a fraction of a tally mark to each ethnicity in a victim’s heritage equal to the fraction of that ethnicity in his genealogy. But social scientists apparently consider it politically incorrect to ask victims for ethnic percentages; and tycoons of the Hawaiian grievance industry do not want to be robbed of the victimhood claims they use in grant applications; and researchers excuse their malpractice by saying that if they award victimhood tally marks to the highest percentage in a victim’s heritage then there would be too few Native Hawaiians to be statistically significant.
For a detailed analysis and examples of both points (a) and (b) see “Native Hawaiian victimhood — malpractice in the gathering and statistical analysis of data allegedly showing disproportionate Native Hawaiian victimhood for disease and social dysfunction.” at
http://tinyurl.com/j3aolqg
3. The proposed Native Hawaiian constitution is both racist and fascist
Linda Zhang’s article tries to portray the Hawaiian sovereignty movement as benign. For example, she says on page 77 “Part A(i) of the membership criteria is based on the lineage model. The criterion is broad enough to include ‘non-Hawaiians who were citizens of the Hawaiian Kingdom and therefore have a rightful place in the citizenry,’ thereby avoiding a potential constitutional challenge under Rice v. Cayetano.” But the actual wording of Part A(i) says “An individual who is a descendant of the aboriginal peoples who, prior to 1778, occupied and exercised sovereignty in the Hawaiian Islands” — which clearly would NOT include people with no native blood who were subjects (citizens) of the Kingdom; and thus it is clearly a racial requirement and cannot avoid running afoul of Rice v. Cayetano.
A claim to racial supremacy is displayed in the proposed constitution for a future federally recognized Hawaiian tribe adopted on February 26, 2016. That constitution also demands race-based ownership and control of all the lands and waters of Hawaii, as though nobody else has rights. Up front the preamble says “we join together to affirm a government of, by, and for Native Hawaiian people” [i.e., of the race, by the race, and for the race], and “affirm our ancestral [i.e., race-based] rights and Kuleana to all lands, waters, and resources of our islands and surrounding seas.” So what will become of the 80% of Hawaii’s people who have no native ancestry? The constitution asserts the same sort of “blood and land” concept as found in other fascist governments — Native Hawaiians are descendants of the gods and brothers to the land in a way nobody else can ever be who lacks a drop of Hawaiian native blood.
See “Hawaiian religious fascism” at
http://tinyurl.com/j4o2cdj
The proposed tribal constitution passed by the Na’i Aupuni convention on February 26, 2016 is available at
http://tinyurl.com/zegptkr
Note added by Ken Conklin on December 12, 2017:
Today I received a complaint that this blog entry of October 8 unfairly blames Tim Chey, the director/producer of the film “The Islands”, for a racially inflammatory and anti-American falsehood apparently portrayed in the film. According to its publicity webpage the film depicts U.S. troops invading Iolani Palace in 1893 and Queen Lili’uokalani surrendering to the U.S. troops. So who then should be blamed when a film portrays a historical falsehood which misleads viewers to think it is true and which inflames anti-white and anti-American passions? The person who hires the writers, approves the script, and assembles the financing and distribution must take the blame, as surely as the captain of a ship which runs aground or sinks because of dereliction by a navigator or other subordinate officers.
The film’s webpage is at http://theislandsmovie.com/ On December 12, 2017 the webpage still states what it has stated for many months. Sentences near the end of the story’s narrative say: “Cut Forward to: 1893 We see the reporter and Liliuokalani discussing Kapiolani when the U.S. Marines now enter the palace of Liliuokalani. She surrenders as the reporter attempts to intervene.” The falsehood about U.S. troops invading Iolani Palace in 1893 and overthrowing the Queen is apparently only a minor detail in a film that is primarily focused earlier in the 19th Century, especially 1824 when High Chiefess Kapiolani challenged the power of the volcano goddess Pele and thereby persuaded Hawaiian natives to believe in the Christian God. But a small detail, like a few drops of poison, can make a glass of sweet fruit juice deadly.
The complainer also said that the film has not yet been completed, so no falsehood has yet been portrayed. Plenty of time to fix any problem. But that assertion about timing is also false. The movie’s webpage on December 12, 2017 clearly states “Production has wrapped on the high-profile movie, ‘The Islands’ set to hit theaters in November 2018.” Tim Chey’s tweet on November 24, 2017 says “So happy! We just wrapped filming on ‘The Islands’! God is good!”
https://twitter.com/TimChey1/status/934271514257473536
In early 2017 I first became aware of the effort to produce this film, thanks to news reports in Honolulu. I found the film’s webpage, was horrified by the historical falsehood, wrote a comment seeking to correct the historical falsehood, and sent it through the film’s webpage. I also spoke with a friend of mine who has the ear of Mr. Chey; but my concern failed to elicit a response. When does the point of no return come in writing or producing a multimillion dollar film? When is the time to prevent a film from portraying a scurrilous falsehood which then gets viewed by a mass audience and inflames hatred? And once the film has finished production and gets scheduled for the theaters, and perhaps ends up getting viewed by millions on “The History Channel” or “Showtime”, how can the damage be mitigated? That problem is now in the hands of Tim Chey. I am ignorant about how films are made, and unable to recommend how to correct the problem. But surely a Christian with strong moral values, who is an expert on film production and responsible for this one, will find a way to obey the Commandment “Thou shalt not bear false witness.”
This falsehood about U.S. troops invading Iolani Palace in 1893 (sometimes also that the troops arrested the Queen and imprisoned her there) has been going around. Senators Inouye and Dorgan told that lie on the floor of the U.S. Senate on June 23, 2008 to portray Native Hawaiians as victims of the U.S. to whom we therefore owe restitution and federal recognition as an Indian tribe; and it was also portrayed in the 2009 film “Princess Kaiulani.” It’s time to put a stop to this falsehood before it pollutes the Aloha Spirit. I have also been working for years to discredit other scurrilous falsehoods inciting hatred, such as: The last Hawaiian flag atop Iolani Palace was torn into pieces distributed as souvenirs to the haoles who overthrew the Queen; President Grover Cleveland issued a proclamation naming April 30, 1894 as a national day of prayer and repentance for the U.S. overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom; Hawaiian language was made illegal after the overthrow; The Royal Mausoleum was exempted from the ceded lands at annexation and remains a piece of Hawaiian Kingdom sovereign land; Native Hawaiians have the worst statistics for all the major diseases, drug abuse, poverty, incarceration etc. For the debunking of these and other falsehoods, put keywords into the search window, or read the history section, on my website at
http://tinyurl.com/6gkzk
To understand the political struggle in Hawaii which falsehoods like these are worsening, see the book “Hawaiian Apartheid: Racial Separatism and Ethnic Nationalism in the Aloha State” at
http://tinyurl.com/2a9fqa
Note added by Ken Conklin on December 3, 2019:
Tim Chey’s ecumenical Christian movie “The Islands” is finally being released on December 6, 2019 in many dozens of theaters scattered throughout the mainland and in Hawaii. Rumor has it that the film no longer includes the racially inflammatory scene falsely depicting U.S. Marines invading the Palace and arresting the Queen.
Events in Hawaii during the two years since filming wrapped prompted Ken Conklin to take another look at the battle between Christianity vs. the ancient Hawaiian religion for the hearts and minds of today’s ethnic Hawaiians. The ancient Pagan religion is being revived for political purposes, to support a desire for racial supremacy in government decision-making and land use policy. This has been seen most clearly in the protests over the TMT telescope project on Mauna Kea. Chey’s movie focuses on the heroism of a high chiefess invoking the Christian God in 1824 to stop a volcanic lava flow threatening Hilo. But 57 years later, in 1881, a very powerful native princess ignored the Christian God and successfully prayed publicly to the volcano goddess Pele to stop the lava threatening Hilo in 1881 after the Christian community had failed. In 2018 a massive weeks-long volcanic eruption destroyed hundreds of homes in the Puna area of Hawaii Island, but there were no public appeals for either the Christian God or the Pagan goddess to stop the lava. Both Christianity and Hawaiian paganism are in a steep decline; but the ancient Hawaiian religion is definitely winning the battle as seen at Mauna Kea. For further discussion see the following new webpage by Ken Conklin:
The rise and fall of Christianity in Hawaiian politics. Ethnic Hawaiian race-nationalists are currently rejecting Christianity and reviving their ancient Pagan religion as a political weapon to assert racial supremacy over government decision-making and land ownership. Something similar happened in the 1800s. A movie released December 6, 2019 portrays a heroic native Hawaiian chiefess publicly defying the volcano goddess Pele and invoking the Christian God to stop lava from destroying Hilo in 1824; but in 1881 a powerful native Hawaiian princess saved Hilo by publicly praying to Pele after Christian missionaries and their followers had failed to stop the lava.
Hawaiian names for Honolulu train stations — weaponizing Hawaiian language to assert racial dominance
Nov 28
Posted by Ken Conklin in Commentary, Reviews | Comments off
To:
Honolulu Authority for Rapid Transit
info@honolulutransit.org
From:
Kenneth R. Conklin, Ph.D.
46-255 Kahuhipa St. Apt. 1205
Kane’ohe, HI 96744-6083
tel (808) 247-7942
e-mail Ken_Conklin@yahoo.com
Re: Hawaiian names for train stations
Date: November 28, 2017
Responding to the mission statement of the Hawaiian Station Naming Program
http://hartdocs.honolulu.gov/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-21439/20171122-hawaiian-station-naming-program.pdf
and the media news release of November 22, 2017
http://hartdocs.honolulu.gov/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-21438/20171122-nr-station-hawaiian-naming.pdf
Those documents try to make it appear that it has already been decided that the train stations must have Hawaiian-language names, and that the only question remaining is what particular name each station should have.
But no! There are good reasons why Hawaiian names should not be the primary names displayed or announced; and even more good reasons why Hawaiian names should not be given any official role at all.
Mayor Mufi Hannemann said we must keep in mind the difference between “need to have” and “nice to have.” And I am adding here: considering how Hawaiian language is being used as a political weapon, Hawaiian station names might not be nice to have at all.
Here are 5 points which the HART board of directors should consider before proceeding to adopt Hawaiian-language names:
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1. APPLY THE LEGAL CONCEPT OF “LACHES”: THE CITY COUNCIL RESOLUTION 09-158, NOT IMPLEMENTED FOR ALMOST 9 YEARS, SHOULD BE REGARDED AS EXPIRED AND IS NOW MOOT IN VIEW OF TURNOVER OF COUNCIL MEMBERS, AND NO LONGER IMPOSES ANY LEGAL OR MORAL OBLIGATION ON TODAY’S COUNCIL.
Resolution 09-158, calling for Hawaiian-language station names, was adopted on April 29, 2009 — nearly 9 years ago! There was hardly any publicity back then despite its potentially controversial nature.
The membership of City Council has turned over many times between then and now. Council Member Ann Kobayashi might be the only current member who was on the Council when the resolution was adopted. Perhaps she will recall the large controversy that erupted in 2009, at the same time when this resolution was adopted — Hawaiian activists were trying to get the Council to take away all the existing street names in the former Barbers Point military base (which had recently been turned over to Honolulu as surplus federal lands) and replace them with Hawaiian names. Old-time residents of the area, including military veterans, sent written testimony and appeared at several hearings to demand that the military heritage names be kept; and the Council decided to keep the names. It seems plausible that Resolution 09-158 was adopted merely as a ploy to mollify or calm the activists in view of the rejection of their demands to abolish military/English-language heritage names. One of the Hawaiian activists in that controversy, Shad Kane, is now a member of the current Station Naming Working Group, thus showing that his primary motivation is probably related to the politics of Hawaiian sovereignty. Furthermore, one of the proposed station names now (Kualakai) is the same as one of the proposed replacement street names from 2009, despite being a considerable distance away; which raises doubts about cultural/historical authenticity of a name that should be uniquely specific to the station’s location. See topics #4 and #5 below for more information about the old street name controversy and how it illustrates the use of Hawaiian language as a political weapon — naming something is an assertion of power or ownership.
It is inappropriate to expect today’s members to feel bound by such an old stealth or “sleeper” resolution. We’ve all seen science fiction horror movies where a long-dormant mummy, zombie, or vampire is awakened and wreaks chaos upon a hapless community. We would do well to let it remain asleep — or better yet drive a stake through its hart (pun — intentional misspelling!)
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2. THE PRIMARY PURPOSE OF A TRANSIT STATION’S NAME IS TO QUICKLY INFORM PASSENGERS WHERE THEY ARE SO THEY WILL KNOW WHEN TO GET OFF. THE NAME SHOULD BE IMMEDIATELY RECOGNIZABLE UPON A SINGLE GLANCE AT A SIGN OR UPON HEARING A VERBAL ANNOUNCEMENT. HAWAIIAN-LANGUAGE NAMES WOULD BE UNHELPFUL AND CONFUSING TO BOTH TOURISTS AND LOCALS.
People must be told the easily recognizable English name of a currently-existing building or shopping center or neighborhood — not the ancient Hawaiian name of a long-forgotten chief who lived there once upon a time — not the ancient Hawaiian name of a geological feature which is no longer visible because of large buildings now in the way.
99% of local residents, and 100% of visitors from the mainland, will have no clue whether to get off when they see or hear some of the Hawaiian-language place-names under consideration.
Some of the names actually proposed by the Committee are extremely confusing even to local residents, because the names are contrary to actual place names already in use. One anonymous commenter to a newspaper report said the following: “So the “placeholder names” that future riders can actually associate with locations they know “now will be replaced” with these new names. Hence there will be no Pearlridge Center Station but instead there will be a Pu’uloa station that is next to Pearlridge Center but miles away from Pu’uloa Road. Really? And the station smack dab in the center of the new Ho’opili subdivision will no longer be called the Ho’opili station but instead will be called the Honouliuli station, even though the Honouliuli neighborhood is actually more directly accessible from the West Loch station, which itself will be renamed the Ho’ae’ae station. Hmmm…”
Consider how The Bus currently announces each stop. Suppose you change Puakea Nogelmeier’s recorded announcement “Kane’ohe Library and Kane’ohe Police Station” to “Hale Waihona Puke o Kane’ohe a me Hale Maka’i o Kane’ohe”? Huh? Wat dat? Wah choo sane?
Recently a half-mile-long object from outside our solar system passed by at high speed — the first such interstellar visitor known to humans. News media reported that a committee of Hawaiian language experts held meetings to figure out what name to give it, because the right to name it belongs to the astronomical observatory on Mauna Kea that discovered it. The committee dredged up the word “‘Oumuamua” which, they tell us, means leader or scout. Does that word have kaona (hidden meaning) intended to imply that creatures from outer space will soon be invading and have sent an advance party to scout our defenses? How many people, even in the community of Hawaiian-language experts, ever heard that word before now? Why not choose the somewhat more commonly heard name “‘Elele” (messenger), as in the ‘olelo no’eau “He ‘elele ka moe na ke kanaka.” (A dream is a messenger to a person) Or choose even the very commonly heard name “malihini” (visitor or guest), which also does not carry any of the hopohopo-inducing ominous kaona associated with “scout” or “messenger.” What we had with “‘Oumuamua” was a gang of language experts dredging an obscure word out of the same abyss from whence came the interstellar object. That process resembles what is being done by the transit station naming committee. Neither local residents nor tourists will have a clue what the name means when the initial publicity fades away after a few weeks. Eventually those names would make good questions in the game “Trivial Pursuit” or perhaps a Hawaiian version of “Jeapordy.”
Consider how transit stations should be (re)named in other parts of America to evoke their Native American heritages, following the lead of the committee in Honolulu:
The transit station at the bottom of Manhattan, and/or the embarkation point for the ferry boat, should be (re)named “Kioshk” which was the Indian name of what is now called Ellis Island.
The bus stop nearest to Lake Superior in Duluth Minnesota should be (re)named GitcheGumee which is the Indian name for the lake, as we know from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s famous poem “Song of Hiawatha” (“By the shores of Gitche Gumee, By the shining Big-Sea-Water, Stood the wigwam of Nokomis, Daughter of the Moon, Nokomis. …”)
In Chicago, “Navy Pier” juts out into Lake Michigan; therefore the transit station serving it should be (re)named “Mishigami” from that lake’s Indian name (Ojibwa or Algonquin).
————
3. ENGLISH LANGUAGE PLACE NAMES OF CURRENT BUILDINGS OR USES SHOULD BE PRIMARY, WHILE HAWAIIAN-LANGUAGE REMINDERS OF CULTURAL OR HISTORICAL FEATURES SHOULD BE SECONDARY. IF IT IS DESIRED TO “EDUCATE THE PUBLIC” OR TO CONVEY A FEELING OF RESPECT FOR HAWAIIAN LANGUAGE OR FOR ANCIENT PLACE-NAMES, THAT OBJECTIVE COULD BE ACHIEVED BY PLACING A SEPARATE EXPLANATORY PLAQUE ON THE STATION WALL; OR PLACING THE HAWAIIAN NAME IN SMALLER LETTERING BELOW THE COMMONLY USED ENGLISH NAME IN A SIGN, OR FOLLOWING IT IN A VERBAL ANNOUNCEMENT.
The primary purpose should be to give people practical information quickly and accurately in terms they can understand to get to their destination; but it is only a secondary purpose to educate them about historical or cultural factors which are not immediately necessary and might be of little interest to them.
If you have cancer and go to a doctor for treatment, you need to know where to go for surgery or radiation; or get a prescription for drugs. You do not need a lecture on the history of improvement in the design of scalpels, or how Marie Curie extracted radium from pitchblende, or how tamoxifen gets processed by the liver; although you should certainly be helped to get that information if you want it.
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4. A GENERAL PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS EXPLAINING THAT THE DEMAND FOR HAWAIIAN-LANGUAGE NAMES IS THE WEAPONIZING OF HAWAIIAN LANGUAGE TO GAIN PUBLICITY AND POLITICAL POWER IN A STRUGGLE FOR RACIAL DOMINANCE. IMPOSING A NAME UPON A PERSON, PLACE, CREATURE OR OBJECT IS A POLITICAL ACT — AN ASSERTION OF DOMINANCE. SEE A LARGE, DETAILED WEBPAGE “HAWAIIAN LANGUAGE AS A POLITICAL WEAPON” AT
HTTP://TINYURL.COM/668VQYZ
It is a political act — an assertion of power or dominance — to impose a name upon a person, place, creature, or object. According to the Bible, God gave man dominion over all the creatures of the Earth, including the right to name them as a sign of man’s dominion over them. Parents who adopt a baby have a right to (re)name the baby and to get a new birth certificate reflecting the chosen name. Owners have the right to impose a name on any property they own; conversely, imposing a name is an assertion of ownership, authority, and power.
Black activists Malcolm Little, Cassius Clay, and Lou Alcindor discarded their “slave names” to become Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, and Kareem Abdul Jabbar; while Hawaiian activist Lily Dorton gave herself the heroic name Lilikala Kame’eleihiwa. The boy Collin Kwai Kong Wong who graduated from Kamehameha School in 1990 gave himself the powerful female name Hinaleimoana when transitioning to the woman Hinaleimoana Kwai Kong Wong-Kalu, chairperson of the HART Hawaiian Station Naming Working Group.
Racial activists and transgenders, like those on this committee, understand very well that choosing a new name is an intensely political action, an exercise of power, and a way of converting an aspiration into an apparent reality. Owners have the right to impose a name on any property they own; conversely, imposing a name is an assertion of ownership, authority, and power. The race-nationalist political motive of the HART Hawaiian Station Naming Working Group is clear from their backgrounds.
“He who pays the piper calls the tune.” Thus corporations pay megabucks for the naming rights to a sports stadium. Medical buildings and university buildings are named after the donors who endowed them. The many Billions of dollars for the Honolulu train system come from the taxpayers, not from an ethnic group claiming victimhood status reflected in allegedly low incomes and therefore low contributions to the taxes that finance the project. Seizing the naming rights to the buildings in the Honolulu rail project is a theft of the property rights of all the taxpayers in general.
According to a Hawaiian proverb: “I ka ‘olelo no ke ola, i ka ‘olelo no ka make” which means: In language there is life, in language there is death. Thus naming streets or train stations is a way of asserting ownership and authority over them through an act of political power. Streets, places, or buildings with haole or Hawaiian names mark the territory as being haole or Hawaiian in the same way as an animal urinates on a place to leave a scent mark asserting control of it, or a graffiti artist paints his indecipherable tag on a wall.
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5. SPECIFICALLY: THE HAWAIIAN-LANGUAGE NAMING OF HART TRAIN STATIONS IS PRIMARILY A POLITICAL POWER PLAY RATHER THAN A DISPLAY OF RESPECT FOR CULTURE AND LANGUAGE. A SUBPAGE HAS SPECIAL RELEVANCE TO THE TRAIN STATION-NAMING PROJECT: SEE “USING HAWAIIAN LANGUAGE AS A POLITICAL WEAPON BY DEMANDING THAT THE NAMES OF PLACES AND STREETS MUST BE HAWAIIAN — HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND 5 CASE STUDIES: THURSTON AVE.(KAMAKAEHA), BARBERS POINT (KALAELOA), DILLINGHAM MILITARY RESERVATION (KAWAIHAPAI), FORT BARRETTE ROAD (KUALAKAI), DOLE ST. (KAPAAKEA STREET)” AT
HTTP://TINYURL.COM/39DQN32
SOME MEMBERS OF THE HAWAIIAN STATION NAMING WORKING GROUP HAVE A LONG HISTORY OF WORKING FOR RACE-NATIONALISM AS HAWAIIAN SOVEREIGNTY ACTIVISTS. HART, AND THE TRANSIT PROJECT, SHOULD NOT BE USED AS PAWNS IN SUCH AN ENDEAVOR.
Black activists Malcolm Little, Cassius Clay, and Lou Alcindor discarded their “slave names” to become Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, and Kareem Abdul Jabbar. A Hawaiian activist whose name on her Ph.D. dissertation was Lily Dorton gave herself the heroic name Lilikala Kame’eleihiwa — she speaks with pride about her Hawaiian mother but never her haole father.
The boy Collin Kwai Kong Wong who graduated from Kamehameha School in 1990 gave himself the powerful female name Hinaleimoana when transitioning to the woman Hinaleimoana Kwai Kong Wong-Kalu, who has been head of the O’ahu Island Burial Council and culture director at a Hawaiian-focus charter school noted for the aggressive involvement of its students in lobbying or disrupting city and state government agencies.
Mahealani Cypher (aka Denise DaCosta) has been President of the O’ahu Council of Hawaiian Civic Clubs writing testimony on all sorts of state and federal legislation related to Hawaiian sovereignty. For example, she repeatedly wrote bills introduced in several legislative sessions that would have turned over Ha’iku Valley (Kane’ohe) to a race-based consortium under the jurisdiction of OHA to be then automatically transferred to the Native Hawaiian tribe anticipated to achieve federal recognition. And now here she is, continuing her political activism as chairperson of the HART Hawaiian Station Naming Working Group.
It’s interesting that at least two of the five members of the Working Group — Chairperson Mahealani Cypher and Francine Gora — are residents of Ko’olaupoko and have served as Presidents of the politically aggressive Ko’olaupoko Hawaiian Civic Club, despite the fact that the train will never serve the Ko’olaupoko area and these two women probably have very little knowledge of historical names or cultural usages of the areas where the train stations will be located. Their participation on the station-naming committee is purely political as they do not have cultural or historical expertise on the station areas.
Racial activists and transgenders, like those on this committee, understand very well that choosing a new name is an intensely political action, an exercise of power, and a way of converting an aspiration into an apparent reality. The race-nationalist political motive of the HART Hawaiian Station Naming Working Group is clear from their backgrounds.
City Council, and also some neighborhood boards, have previously considered and rejected efforts to remove English-language street names and replace them with “politically correct” Hawaiian names. There might be one or two Council members who lived through some of those struggles. See details of five case studies: Thurston Ave.(Kamakaeha), Barbers Point (Kalaeloa), Dillingham Military Reservation (Kawaihapai), Fort Barrette Road (Kualakai), Dole St. (Kapaakea Street). Those case studies are on a webpage at
http://tinyurl.com/39dqn32
Note that the name proposed for one of the train stations (Kualakai) is the same name unsuccessfully demanded in 2009, in a bitter battle before City Council, to replace the name of Fort Barrette Road, and was (and still is) the name of another street in that area. Note that Working Group member Shad Kane was one of the activists back then who appears to now be seeking to re-fight that old issue. Interestingly, resolution 09-158, calling for the use of Hawaiian language in naming the train stations, was adopted by City Council on April 29, 2009, at the same time when the battle was underway before the Council to change Fort Barrette Road to Kualaka’i.
Tags: HART, Hawaiian language, Hawaiian sovereignty, Historical revisionism, Honolulu trains