Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 8, Number 6, 1 June 1991 — Hawaiians vs. Read [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Hawaiians vs. Read

On his last day in office in early 1981, President Jimmy Carter named nine commissioners to the Native Hawaiians Study Commission (NHSC), a Congressionally-mandated investigation into the needs and concerns of Native Hawaiians. The purpose of the NHSC was to recommend actions that might be initiated by the U.S. Congress to address the troubling social and eeonomie gaps between Native Hawaiian (here defined as either full or part-Hawaiian) and the general populahon in Hawai'i. For Hawaiians at the time, including the trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, the study commission represented a bright, shining promise. Here was all the power and prestige of the nation's capital ready to focus, for a moment, on the symptoms and the root cause of Hawaiians' dispossession from their own land. Hawaiians were optimistic that the study commission would document the U.S. role in the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893 and that it would perhaps be honor-bound to recommend some kind of official apology and a plan for reparations from the federal government to the Hawaiian people. When Ronald Reagan was sworn in as Carter's successor, he quickly disbanded the NHSC, citing it as an example of government waste. At least one member of the Reagan administration called the Commission a "boondoggle." Eventually, however, pressure from Hawai'i

Windward O'ahu residents listen intently to testimon; during its hearing in Waimanalo in 1982.