(Page 29 of 34) - Unity Within Diversity? Native Hawaiians Respond to Critics of the Sovereignty Movement's Multiple Voices. authored by Di Alto, Stephanie.

Di Alto

2003 APSA paper

They are doctors and lawyers and professors and corporation executives, as well as small-business people and
laborers and farmers and fishmen—who have studied their history, and who believe that the only just reparation for
the overthrow of the Hawaiian nation is the return of native Hawaiian sovereignty in the form of an independent
nation” (p. 135-36).

For instance, in a recent article published in the Honolulu Advertiser it was observed that “Hawaiians can so easily

unite in anger after each setback, yet can never pull together behind positive efforts to prevent more painful losses in
the future” (Shapiro 2002: p. A14). The writer went on to argue that “Hawaiians must pull together. If they don’t,
there will be more tearful scenes and further erosion of assets” (p. A14). Several years earlier, Senator Daniel Akaka
(himself a Hawaiian) publicly expressed concern about Hawaiians’ lack of unity. Akaka argued in a 1998 speech at
the University of Hawaii’s Center for Hawaiian Studies that “diverse viewpoints within the community need to be
respected. ‘We cannot move forward as a people if Hawaiian leaders continue to show disrespect for each other,’
Akaka said. ‘Diversity of views is healthy. Animosity is not’” (Gordon 1998: p. A27).

For instance, in his study of the civil rights movement Haines (1984) studied the effect that “radical” black

organizations had on external financial support of more “moderate” groups.

I use the term “Native Hawaiian” (with a capital ‘N’) inclusively to indicate any individual of Hawaiian descent

irrespective of blood quantum in keeping with the ways in which the Hawaiian community has traditionally defined
membership. Kauanui (1999) notes that “Hawaiian cultural definitions of who is Hawaiian tend to be the most
inclusive because they take genealogy into account over blood quantum percentages. In other words, Hawaiians are
more likely to go by genealogy over and above blood degree in order to decide who counts as Hawaiian” (p. 138).
The federal government has a number of definitions it uses to define membership in the Hawaiian community but
there are two prominent and competing definitions that are most frequently used. One definition, which emerged in
the mid-1970s, identifies members of the Hawaiian community according to lineal descent—Hawaiians are those
individuals descended from ancestors indigenous to the islands prior to Captain Cook’s arrival in 1778. This
definition is used, for instance, in Public Law 103-150 (the “Apology Resolution) whereby Congress defines “Native
Hawaiians” (with a capital ‘N’) as those individuals descended from “the aboriginal people who, prior to 1778,
occupied and exercised sovereignty in the area that now constitutes the State of Hawaii”. The second definition
often used by the federal government defines “native Hawaiians” (with a lowercase ‘n’) according to blood quantum.
This definition first appears in the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act of 1920 and establishes Hawaiians as those
with fifty percent or more Hawaiian blood. Many Hawaiians contest this definition because it does not fit with the
ways in which they would define membership in their community and they contended at the time of the act that
Congress created the blood quantum in the belief that soon there wouldn’t be any fifty percent or more Hawaiians
remaining and therefore the government would no longer have a pool of beneficiaries it would have to serve under
the public policy. Although these are two of the more prominent ways of defining membership in the Hawaiian
community additional definitions abound. For instance, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) “lists 19 different
federal and state methods for identifying a member of the Hawaiian race. Some depend on self-identification, others
on genealogical research” (Staton 1998: p. ?). The capitalization of the word ‘Native’ is not only used to indicate
inclusiveness but is also used by many Hawaiians as a politicization of the term. For instance, Hawaiian scholar and
activist Dr. Haunani-Kay Trask writes that the word Native

is colonial in origin, like ‘Black’ as a description of Africans transplanted to America.
But just as ‘Black’ was politicized, used for self-identification, and capitalized, so
‘Native’ has undergone similar transformations. I capitalize it to emphasize the political
distance between that which is Western and that which is Native. But I also do it to
highlight the word and therefore its referent. In Hawai‘i, we generally call ourselves
Hawaiians. But since the sovereignty movement, the consciousness that we are Natives
and not immigrants to Hawai‘i has meant a greater identification with the term Native,
especially as immigrant history here has been glorified and falsified at the expense of
Natives. It’s a typically American line to reiterate, i.e., ‘we are all immigrants’. My use
of Native is in opposition to that line: caps remind the reader that some of us aren’t