Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 22, Number 7, 1 July 2005 — Akaka Bill offers last hope to survive legal calamity [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Akaka Bill offers last hope to survive legal calamity

Aloha all. I write this as I am at the Chicago Airport on my way back from Washington, D.C., where with other trustees I was privileged to attend the lei-draping ceremony for the Kamehameha statue at the nation's capitol and other events while seeking to assist the work of those seeking federal recognition for Native Hawaiians. It is interesting to see how people continue to divide themselves up along so many variations of what is best for Hawaiians. The most vocal are those who insist that the only way to true happiness is a return to 1893 via their particular mō'ī or their already approved form of government. The other most obvious group, those who are filing lawsuits against Hawaiians, make themselves heard nationally via their resources and seem determined to establish that "color blind" trumps "Hawaiian

kine," despite history, the U.S. Constitution and the fact that Native Hawaiians are the first people of Hawai'i, just as the American Indians and Alaskan Natives are the first people of the North American continent. Another group advocates aeknowledgment of only Hawaiians who are 50 percent or more blood quantum and has no hesitation in joining the groups above to work together against any federal recognition of Native Hawaiians regardless of blood quantum. And so our pride, our unwillingness to work together, our stubbornness, our complacency and our selfcenteredness work to keep us from ever achieving any sense of identity as a nation of people. Surely, different ideas are a good thing, but different directions because ideas cannot be blended into one direction ean only spell d-i-s-a-s-t-e-r. As a people, Hawaiians have one

last hope to survive the legal ealamity that a loss in the courts will impose upon us, and that is the passage of the Akaka Bill. No king or queen, no United Nations resolution, no International Court, no threat to secede, no demonstrations will overcome a decision by the courts that without federal recognition the Equal Rights Amendment must take precedence over any other argument and therefore there ean be no justification to treat Native Hawaiians any differently from others. That will be the death knell of the Hawaiian people as we begin to see every reference to us deleted from the laws of the state and nation one by one. Sure, we will continue to exist and eall ourselves Hawaiians, but that term will apply to all who live in Hawai'i, and our identity will then be continued only by virtue of the Hawaiian organizations that continue to exist for so long as they

ean without funding or leadership and without themselves becoming subject to lawsuits. So ean you understand that now is the time for all Hawaiians to prepare by at least agreeing to support the Akaka Bill, by Hawaiians continuing to share ideas and dreams, and by Hawaiians not only working with eaeh other but with our Congress and our governments to make Hawai'i a better plaee for all and to insure that our children will forever have a plaee to eall their homeland? As I leave Washington, D.C., having met with a few in Congress, I reflect on our OHA calendar with its beautiful pictures of native indigenous flowers, many on the endangered species list and protected by state and federal laws, and I wonder: will we as a native indigenous people ever gain the protection from extinction that our flowers and fauna have? Kaulana nā pua o Hawai'i. Kū kanaka. L-1

Boyd P. Mossman Trustee, Maui