Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 7, Number 10, 1 October 1990 — Commentary 1990 elections: perilous time for Hawaiian voters [ARTICLE]

Commentary 1990 elections: perilous time for Hawaiian voters

By Dan Boylan Hawaiian and part-Hawaiians constitute roughly 18 percent of the state's populahon. Their support helped make it possible for a young, vigorous, politically adept Hawaiian to hold the highest office in state government for the past four years. And their help this year may elect a Hawaiian of great gentleness and good will to the United States Senate. Yet in the midst of campaign 1990 (in whieh both that young Gov. John Waihee and that U.S. Senate candidate Dan Akaka are candidates) you would hardly know Hawaiians eonhnue to reside in the state. This year's gubernatorial, senatorial, congressional, and state legislative candidates discuss few issues of particular importance to Hawaiians. A Hawaiian agenda seldom finds its way into candidate forums, television debates, or campaign pamphlets. Why? A eouple of reasons suggest themselves. First, few politicians or reporters, not to mention non-Hawaiian voters, understand clearly what Hawaiians want (The assumption, for the moment, is that Hawaiians do). Ten years after the inception of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, roughly two decades after the Hawaiian renaissance eommenced, the goals of the Hawaiian community remain confused. Hawaiian sovereignty (Whatever that means)? The return of Kaho'olawe? Native claims against the federal government for wrongs committed in 1893? Of course, it means all of the above. And more. But what else and in what order? The confusion may be attributed to the ignorance of haole journalists like me. But it also rests with the Hawaiian community. Hawaiians must coalesce around a set of political goals and pursue them singlemindedly. A second reason for the invisibility of Hawaiian issues is the recent historical failure of the Hawaiian vote. Like many at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder throughout the United States, Hawaiians don't show up at the polls in numbers commensurate with their shar'e of the populahon. Politicians count. Successful ones count very well. They know that Hawaii's Japanese-Americans

vote as if election day were a Confucian holiday. They know that Hawaiians sometimes vote, and sometimes don't. That inconsistency alone is sufficient to keep Hawaiian issues and Hawaiian voters near the back of a politician's mind; even a Hawaiian politician's mind. If Hawaiians are to find their way to the center of campaign discourse in this or any other eleehon year, they must hone their agenda and make voting a civic religion. But Hawaiians must go further; they must play every card in their poliheal hand and draw more from the deck when necessary. Particularly at the beginning of what promises to be a perilous decade indeed for Native Americans and working people everywhere. Throughout the 1970s and mueh of the 1980s, Hawaiian activists have followed the route of mainland Native Americans. They emphasized the wrongs done them by haoles throughout the monarchy period and demanded that both the federal and state governments rectify some of those wrongs. The creation of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs by the delegates of the 1978 Constitutional Convention was a sjep in that direction. The recent agreement by the state to ehannel 20 percent of the funds from ceded lands to the Native Hawaiian community of 50 percent native blood is yet another and obviously more important one. Both resulted, in no small part, from the willingness of an emerging, younger generation of Island , politicians to repair some of the many injustices done Hawaii's original inhabitants. Steeped in the recent history of minority and Native American movements on the mainland, these younger politicians acted out of a sense of righting past wrongs, or seizing the morally high ground (With a little prodding thrown in, particularly on the ceded land issue.). Included among them, or course, were Hawaiians John Waihee and Henry Peters, and in the legislature of the 1980s politicians like Malama Solomon and Peter Apo. But also among them were elected officials from every ethnic group in the Islands. Political coalitions helped Hawaiians realize the gains of the past two decades. Such coalitions will be even more important in the decade ahead. After Nov. 6, Hawaiians will probably continue to have one of their own in

Washington Plaee. But despite his good will and that of politicians of his generation in the legislature, Hawaiians may find the 1990s far more difficult than the 1980s. The state has known unprecedented prosperity during the past decade, yet the good times have been unevenly distributed and are growing daily more so. Gov. Waihee has had half-billion dollar state surpluses to spend on state needs. To his credit, he hasn't hesitated to spend them, primarily on social programs. But still the 1980s saw the gap between Hawaii's rich and poor grow ever wider. The state's changing economy helped exacerbate the problem. High-paid jobs in plantation agriculture gave way to lower-paying jobs in service industries; hotels and restaurants for example. As the decade closed, the end of the cold war promised a "peaee dividend." But, ironically, the peaee dividend may include the loss of lucrative jobs on Island military bases. Nationally, the 1980s saw a massive redistribution of wealth from the bottom four-fifths of the nation to the top one-tenth. Few Hawaiians find themselves the beneficiaries of that redistribution. Hawaiians, along with working-class people throughout the country, face the same problems: housing, jobs, good schools, enough ineome tc raise their children and lead decent respectabk lives. To solve those problems, Hawaiians will need to b.uild coalitions in the years ahead; coalitions that force politicians to confront the survival issues of working people across the ethnic spectrum. Those coalitions, along with a sharpening of the particular Hawaiian agenda and an expanded and committed Hawaiian electorate, would insure that poliheal discourse in the mid-1990s would be far more reflective of Hawaiian concerns than that of 1990. Dan Boylan teaches history at the University of Hawai'i, West O'ahu. He writes a monthly politieal eolumn for "Honolulu Magazine," provides poliheal analysis for KGMB News, and appears occasionally on KHET's "Dia/og." He resides in Pearl Cify with his wife Gloria, an elementary school teacher, and his two children, Peter 10, and Erin 4.