The Continuum of Hawaiian Sovereignty

 

Written by: Natalie Wilson


Photo description: “In August 2019,  the Makaliʻi ’Ohana—based on Hawaiʻi island but with ties around the world—brought offerings and sung songs in honor of the Mauna and all who stand to protect her.”

Photo credit: Kapulei Flores. Retrieved from “A New Documentary Centers Protest, Poetry, and the Fight for Native Hawaiian Sovereignty” Vogue. 19 February 2021. https://www.vogue.com/article/this-is-the-way-we-rise-documentary-protest-poetry-mauna-kea-hawaii


“We are not American!” This is the cry heard across generations of Native Hawaiians; from Haunani-Kay Trask at the 1993 commemoration of the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian government to Jamaica Osorio facing off against police at protests to protect Mauna Kea nearly thirty years later, echoing down a violent history of oppression and cultural erasure in Hawaii.[1] The government of the Hawaiian Kingdom was illegally overthrown by white colonizers in the 1890s, an act which President Grover Cleveland described at the time as “an act of war committed … without the authority of Congress”. Their Queen was imprisoned, and soon their language suppressed to the brink of extinction, and control of their ancestral homelands was robbed from them. Then President Bill Clinton even apologized for this act in 1993, the same year Trask made her impassioned speech about Hawaiian national identity.[1] What sovereignty means to Native Hawaiins today is a deeply nuanced discussion amongst a community with great ideological diversity and often very different perspectives. Trask’s “We are not American” speech is an iconic moment in Native Hawaiian activism, yet at the same time, not every Hawaiian wholly rejects American identity, as pointed out by Office of Hawaiian Affairs trustee Peter Apo, who is Native Hawaiian but insists his parents raised him to be proud to be American.[2] The Hawaiian Sovereignty movement is both an ongoing community debate about what it means to be sovereign and a facet of a larger struggle for recognition, reparation, and justice for Native Hawaiians.

Many have referred to the overthrow as an annexation, though officially sanctioned annexation via Congress had failed twice because of Native Hawaiian resistance as well-known sovereignty activist Kaleikoa Keoa states in the same PBS roundtable.[3] Due to the fact that his ancestors never ceded that they accepted the dissolution of their government, he argues that Hawaiian sovereignty is not a goal that needs to be achieved, but a goal already achieved that needs to be recognized and respected. Ultimately, the United States seized control from Native Hawaiians on the basis of a mere resolution, though this was never accepted by many Native Hawaiians such as Keoa. The people who live in Hawaii, both Native Hawaiians and Hawaii residents, live steeped in the tension of this history every day. Since the overthrow Native Hawaiians have been disenfranchised, suffered cultural erasure and forced assimilation, had their lands systematically seized from them, and been forced to witness and in many cases participate in the commercialization of their culture on the very land or aina that they are their kupuna or ancestors have been connected to for thousands of years, which they can no longer control. While most Native Hawaiians agree that gaining back control of the land and thus, control of their lives is vital, they disagree on the best path to achieve this and the issue is often hotly contested.[4]
Some see the best path forward at this moment in time as federal recognition from the United States government; others like Keoa, describe it in terms as harsh as “death to our people.” The debate over what Hawaiian Sovereignty means has spilled into the arguments for and against federal recognition, which are growing due to President Biden, who looks to recognize Native Hawaiians in a similar manner to the way the government recognizes Native Americans.[5] Some Native Hawaiians such as Lilikala Kameeleihiwa, director of Hawaiian Studies at UH Manoa, argue that this could potentially offer them the chance to elect their own officials and governing bodies, offer legal routes or avenues to potential land back, and allow Native Hawaiians more direct control over their own communities.[1] On the other hand, many Native Hawaiians don’t see any value in agreements under a government they view as an illegal occupying power. As Tisha-Marie Kekumu-Beattie, a Native Hawaiian from Maui puts it, “You cannot give me back something I never gave up … take your thing you wanna give us, throw ’em in the trash. We don’t want it. We sovereign.” In a similar sentiment, Ka‘iulani Lovell insists that “We don’t need to be recognized by you. We know who we are.”[2]
The necessity of control over land as a vital issue for the Native Hawaiian community reached a fever pitch in 2019 when protesters clashed with US authorities while standing in the defense and protection of Mauna Kea, a sacred site for not only Hawaiians but many Polynesian cultures. Protesters were angry that the sacred cultural landscape was being dismissed in favor of the development of a massive, high powered telescope that could permanently alter and in many cases destroy what is sacred to Hawaiians.[3]  Ciara Lacy, director of a documentary film about the protests called This is How We Rise, described the experience of chaining herself to the land she was trying to protect as being interspersed with pride to be protecting the land as well as “moments of ‘eha, of pain, and kaumaha, this weight, of realizing that this is what it means to be Hawaiian in 2019. Our voices and our bodies meant so little to our leadership, our governing individuals, that the only way we can protect our land is to lay our bodies down on the street, chain ourselves to something, and make it impossible for them to remove us.”[4] 

Hawaii residents and others who are not Native Hawaiian often point out the different spectrums of opinion about Hawaiian Sovereignty amongst the Native Hawaiian community as a way to discredit the movement as fractured and irrelevant, but the fact that the issue is so emotional and hotly debated is evidence of the passionate movement to have the deep trauma of the loss of land, culture, and control over their futures and the futures of their descendents acknowledged and, to the extent that it can be, repaired. Native Hawaiians may disagree about the mechanisms of how sovereignty can be accomplished today, but they are united in their desire to see their land, communities, and lived experiences respected, honored, and recognized.



Sources:

[1]Hofschneider, Anita. “Mauna Kea Ignited A New Wave Of Hawaiian Pride. Where Does It Go From Here?” Honolulu Civil Beat. 5 February 2020. https://www.civilbeat.org/2020/02/mauna-kea-ignited-a-new-wave-of-hawaiian-pride-where-does-it-go-from-here/

[2]Kerr, Breena. “Hawaii politician stops voting, claiming islands are 'occupied sovereign country'” The Guardian. 30 Nov. 2018. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/29/hawaii-politician-jennifer-ruggles-sovereign-country

[3] What Would It Take to Achieve Hawaiian Sovereignty? | Insights on PBS Hawai'i. PBS Hawaii. Youtube. 17 July 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbKMs1Ux3kk

[4] Ibid.

[5] Hofschneider, Anita. “Mauna Kea Ignited A New Wave Of Hawaiian Pride. Where Does It Go From Here?”

[6]Maile, Uahikea. “The US government has always given Native Hawaiians a raw deal. It still does.” The Guardian. 4 March 2021. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/04/us-government-native-hawaiians-raw-deal

[7] What Would It Take to Achieve Hawaiian Sovereignty? | Insights on PBS Hawai'i. PBS Hawaii.

[8] Maile, Uahikea. “The US government has always given Native Hawaiians a raw deal. It still does.”

[9] Hofschneider, Anita. “Mauna Kea Ignited A New Wave Of Hawaiian Pride. Where Does It Go From Here?”

[10] Escalante, Eunica. “A New Documentary Centers Protest, Poetry, and the Fight for Native Hawaiian Sovereignty” Vogue. 19 February 2021. https://www.vogue.com/article/this-is-the-way-we-rise-documentary-protest-poetry-mauna-kea-hawaii



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