Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 28, Number 2, 1 February 2011 — Choice and consequences [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Choice and consequences

Aloha no kākou, 2011 is on its way and our Board is working on legislative,

recognition and legal issues that require our attention and resolution. We look forward to working with Governor Abercrombie and the State Legislature as well as with our Congressional Delegation as we have in the past. I am most grateful for the fact that I have been blessed with

life itself and all the blessings and challenges it has provided. I am also appreciative that I was bom free and have the ehanee to choose every minute of the day without being unduly restricted or forced to live in slavery. The choices I have made have been good and bad, right and wrong, smart and dumb. And I have had to live with the consequences and learn from them. There were many who appeared before me when I was a judge that were on their way to prison. I always counseled them that they were going because of their bad choices and now needed to face the consequences. I, however, recognized that bad choices are not the end of the long road oflife. We need to piek ourselves up and we need to not repeat but choose better in the future. Thus I would tell them that though they were going to prison for a number of years, they would still be coming out some day and I would probably be seeing them on the streets or in the stores of Maui. I urged them to take advantage of prison programs, to get an education and to eome out better than when they went in and eome back and contribute to our community. I am satisfied that some of them did take this counsel as I

received a number of letters from prisoners who actually thanked me for sending them to prison and getting them to reconsider their previ-

ous track in life. One evening while waiting in line to rent a video for my family at the loeal Blockbuster, the female clerk in the next line saw me and asked that I see her after I got my video. OK, so wondering what I had done I met her outside the store whereupon she asked if I remembered her.

That's a sign for "you sent me to jail," and I thought to myself, here it comes. I said I did not remember her and sure enough she said, "You sent me tojail." OK. Then she said, "And I want to thank you. You saved my life." The conversation went on for a short while as the relief flowed through my veins. She had chosen the wrong but had made something of herself and now was on the right path and felt good about it. By the same token, we at OHA have made choices and have studied, defended, professed and concluded that they are right and not wrong. The ehoiee on federal recognition we as a Board have made is the primary reason I ran for this office. No matter what compromise, what result, what government, what decisions are made, Hawaiians will ultimately need federal recognition to survive as more than just the indigenous people of Hawai'i. There lurk in the wings those who believe Hawaiians should be anyone who lives in Hawai'i and that we should all be the same legally as well as morally. We believe federal recognition will protect us from legal challenges and with a degree of sovereignty allow us to survive as a people. To that end we hope you will choose to stand with us. ■

Būyd P. Mūssman VicE Chair, TrustEE, Maui