Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 25, Number 3, 1 March 2008 — The great divide [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The great divide

Walter M. Heen Vice Chair, TrustEE, O'ahu

In 1920, the United States Congress inserted within Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalaniana'ole's bill for the Hawaiian homestead program a requirement that only Hawaiians with a minimum of 50 percent of Hawaiian blood would be eligible for its benefits. Without that requirement the law would not have been enacted. And it still remains an integral part of the Hawaiian Home Lands (HHL) program. The requirement was very cynieal, based on the belief that eventually there would not be any such 50 percent Hawaiians and the program would die. It has proven to be very divisive. Suggestions that the requirement should be eliminated or reduced as an iniīial qualification have met with strong and vocal opposition. More than 40 years ago I suggested to the Royal Order of Kamehameha that the requirement should be reduced to 25 percent. I thought they were going to hang me! There have, fortunately, been some fairly recent efforts to ameliorate its most egregious effects and lessees are now able to transfer their homesteads to their less than 50 percent offspring Over the years, the quantum requirement has pitted those eligible for the program against those who are not. And the dispute has now been extended to OHA. Right now, there is pending in federal court a suit brought by a small group of eligible Hawaiians charging that OHA is wrongfully expending its funds to support programs benefiting Hawaiians who are not eligible for HHL benefits. They contend that the State Constitution and Hawai'i Revised Statutes, Chapter 10, the legal foundations for OHA, were intended to benefit solely those eligible for HHL benefits. OHA is vigorously defending against the suit. And the disagreement has now spilled over into the discussions eoncerning OHA's proposed settlement of the dispute with the State over unpaid rents owed to OHA from trust lands

revenue taken in by the State from 1978 to 2008. On Saturday, Feb. 9, several Senate committees held a hearing on a bill submitted to the Legislature by OHA that would have the Legislature approve the settlement reached on that issue between OHA and the State Administration. The bill provides for some State-owned lands in Kaka'ako, Kapolei, and Hilo to be transferred to OHA together with an additional sum of approximately $13 million. The total settlement is worth $200 million, whieh, of course, OHA would be able to devote to its programs to better the conditions of Native Hawaiians. Although a sizable majority of people who spoke at the hearing was supportive of the measure, a goodly number spoke against it. Most of the opponents did not address the bill's particulars but presented testimony ranging from wrongs not rectified since the overthrow to the need to establish a "Hawaiian Bank" to their opinions on the shortcomings in various OHA programs. What struck me, however, was a recurring theme among some persons that OHA's mission was solely to benefit those of 50 percent Hawaiian blood. That is simply not OHA's sense of its obligation under the law. Article XII, section 6 of the Constitution authorizes OHA's Board of Trustees to manage and administer lands and ineome "from whatever sources for native Hawaiians and Hawaiians." Every empowerment eontained in the article authorizes the Board to provide for both "native Hawaiians and Hawaiians." The Board has always acted on the premise that its kuleana is to ensure "the betterment of conditions" of Native Hawaiians and Hawaiians as defined in Hawai'i Revised Statutes S.10-2 and as imposed on it by S.10-3. Our kuleana is to better the conditions of all Hawaiians regardless of quantum. It is indeed tragic that the cynieal blood quantum imposed by a Congress thousands of miles away continues to be a wedge between and among Hawaiians. It stands as another reason why people ask, "Why can't Hawaiians get together?" E3

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