US Out of Hawaii
An upcoming election has highlighted the deep disagreement between native Hawaiians over what the future should look like. For some, it’s formal recognition of their community and a changed relationship within the US. Others want to leave the US entirely – or more accurately, want the US to leave Hawai’i.
When US officials came onto the stage that June night, they must have known they would be hearing from a hostile audience.
Speaker after speaker came up to the microphone, decrying a rigged process and an occupying government with no legitimacy.
“We do not need you here. This is our country.”
“Get out of our house! Go home.”
The officials weren’t hearing from foreign nationals, but a crowd of citizens in Honolulu, Hawai’i. Someone began singing the opening words to Hawaii Ponoʻī – a national anthem of the Hawaiian Kingdom and the state’s official song.
“Hawaii ponoʻī (Hawaii’s own), Nānā i kou moʻī (Be loyal to your king).”
Many in the room at the Hawaiian state capitol began singing along.
This was the first in a series of 2014 hearings by the US interior department about whether it should offer a path to federal recognition to the Native Hawaiian community. Such a path has been long open to Native American groups on the mainland, but not to the descendants of Hawaii’s indigenous people.
A year later, the interior department has made it official – publishing a proposed “procedures for re-establishing a formal government-to-government relationship”.
The first ballots to elect delegates to a convention, or ‘aha, for this purpose have now gone out in Hawai’i. Forty delegates from across the islands will meet in February to discuss whether there should be a Native Hawaiian government and what it should look like in the 21st Century.
But not everyone is happy with the ‘aha. Some of those who would be eligible to vote, or become delegates themselves, have said they will boycott it. One delegate candidate has already dropped out, calling the ‘aha “not pono” (upright or fair).
Federal recognition has been a wish of some activists for decades, but previous attempts to do so in Congress have failed. A prominent Hawaiian in Washington, however, has moved the process forward.
Barack Obama publicly supported the last attempt to gain the recognition option through Congress. Like other issues that have been stymied in the polarised legislature, the administration has now decided to take action through the executive branch.
But for those who see Obama as their best chance, time is running out – his term ends just over a year from now.
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