Di Alto
2003 APSA paper
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respond to their critics who contend that the diversity of thought weakens the sovereignty movement.
By far the most common response I received was that Hawaiians were being held to an unfair,
hypocritical standard not applied to other groups in American society. Nearly every individual I
interviewed said something to this effect. According to one respondent
that’s the most racist criticism that is in the community. No other
political or ethnic group is expected to speak in one voice. Nobody says
haoles should all agree on this. Nobody says Japanese should all agree on
this. Nobody says Indians should all agree on this. But they say Hawaiians
have to agree. [It’s] very racist.
Another respondent echoed this sentiment noting that “hell, haoles are divided, you know,
Japanese divided, Chinese divided…[Critics say] oh, we’re [Hawaiians] not united. Well, you know,
take a walk. That’s what I say to them all. You’re not united either”. A third individual responded
that
if you look at Congress you won’t find a unified voice there very
often either. If you look at the [political] races, [for instance] for governor,
there is no unified voice. If you look at the Democratic party and the
Republican party there’s no unified voice. Politics in the West is very
fractured and factionalized…And so while people criticize us for that it’s sort
of like throwing rocks when you live in a glass house. And yet we take these
criticisms to heart.
Another respondent noted that the diversity present in the Hawaiian community “is not
unique or distinctly different from other groups of ethnic people…and I regret that people tend to
stereotype us as being very unique and it’s not”. The comments provided here are only a small
sample of those representative of this kind of response. It was striking how similar the language and
examples used by respondents were used despite their ideological differences.
Another response that was echoed by several respondents was that before Hawaiians
could approach unity it was necessary for them to work out their differences and that this process
takes time—Hawaiians should not be expected to come together overnight and the expectations of
their critics were unrealistic. The modern sovereignty movement only emerged in the late 1970s and
grew in strength during the 1980s so it is a relatively young movement. One individual I spoke with
noted in a comment that was representative of this sentiment that “I don’t think you can have a
unified voice unless you have examined the diversity and the disagreements. To simply accept or
expect a unified voice is a very weak process. It’s not a human process”. It is unfair to expect
Hawaiians to agree without giving them a chance to explore their differences.
Convention