Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 18, Number 2, 1 February 2001 — Your confidence and aloha is deeply appreciated [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Your confidence and aloha is deeply appreciated

nN DEC. 20, 1 finally became a Trustee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, officially. We had a beautiful Investiture and swear-

I I ing-in ceremony at Kawaiaha'o Church in Honolulu. I want to thank the Pastor and members of Kawaiaha'o Church for their hospitality and good wishes. I want to thank the staff of OHA for the hard work that was put into this ceremony. I want to thank Mrs. Kekuewa and her daughter Paulette Kahalepuna for the exquisite ceremonial feather lei, and thank you to all my family and friends who eame to the church to congramlate me, wish me well and present me with all the beautiful lei. I had pua kenikeni, white ginger, 'ōhaiali'i, pink carnation, ti leaf, shell, plumeiia, pīkake, and of course, fragrant maile, and some flowers with names I don't know. This was the first time in my hfe that I had so

many; they piled up so high, I had to hold them on my arms. Also, I want to thank the many friends who sent

me baskets of goodies. What more ean I say, except, that it was a beautiful day and a beautiful occasion. Mahalo nui loa 'oukou!

With so mueh aloha from all of you, I feel blessed and will do my best as a trustee for OHA, "to work for the betterment of conditions for native Hawaiians and Hawaiians." In my campaign for OHA trustee, I said my first priority was to make us, Hawaiians, "one race of people." This is not an easy task, but leave it to me to piek something that I cannot do all by myself. The Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, 1920, as amended (HHCA), was created by the United States Congress, July 9, 1921 for two reasons - to rejuvenate and rehabilitate the Hawaiian race. In 1921, most Hawaiians had 50 percent or more native blood. Congress wanted to help the native Hawai-

ians and instimted the 50 percent or more Hawaiian blood quantum. But Prince Kūhiō, who supported 1/32

Hawaiian blood quatum, said, "We are a dying race of people." When I read the pages of the hearings before the Committee on Territories, United States Senate, 66th Congress H.R. 13500, 1 feel as though I was at those hearings and with all the millions of dollars spent by the federal and state governments on study and research on Hawaiians, nothing has changed. Whatever happened to all the study and research? Believe it or not, I still have the Federal State Task Force Report and Senate hearings of 15 years ago sitting in my files. Hopefully, we will start working on it soon. Today, we are worse off than our ancestors. In the old days, our ancestors could go fishing any plaee near the sea. They could go hunting and harvest anything in the mountains. Today, we must have a permit for everything. We are also in court for our gathering rights. How bad ean it get? Perhaps there are some who wish they could put us in a box, tie it with a blue ribbon (I insist on a blue ribbon) and throw us into the deep blue sea. Anyway, back to the "one race of people" — any mana'o? Call my office at 594-1882 and leave your name and phone number. Aloha a hui hou. ■

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