LOTS happening in my sphere lately including the wonderful experience of Deeksha or the Oneness Blessing!  For now, here is the trailer for The Moses Code.  I only heard about this about a week ago, and it seems it has been much anticipated.  It opens today around the country, and you can view it online too.  I suspect that it is much like The Secret. 

2007 seemed to be a really difficult year for me. The unending barrage of events were so extreme, they were almost ridiculous after a while. For a time, I was walking around wondering if God realized that my name is JO not JOB. Then after discovering that a lot of people I know weren't spared the rough times either, I felt a little better; I wasn't being singled out. Funny how that works...

At the end of the year, words don't exist for what I'd like to say now. More accurately, the sheer quantity of goings on would prevent brevity. I don't have the energy to write a novel length blog entry, which in essence, spares the rest of you more tales of woe :) So here are songs that hit the highlights of the year perfectly.

For my two friends who found themselves suicidal this year then survived the pain, I hope you've rediscovered your faith in life:

For my 12-year-old dog who in February ate a little biscuit tainted with poisoned wheat gluten and after a six week battle, bravely recovered:

For the many who touched my heart who left us suddenly in 2007:

For the native people who considered themselves free despite their many obstacles:

For my ikaika uncle who passed away on Christmas Eve, a hui hou a me ke aloha palena'ole:

 

For my depressed girlfriends for whom I still have hope because they haven't stopped laughing yet:


Finally, if this year has taught me anything it's how to remain grateful. After all is said and done, I still believe in a thing called love even after the Darkness has faded (har har):


Happy New Year to everyone.

Wow.  Has it really been four months since I last posted?  Time sure does fly when you're "having fun."  Mine has consisted of a process of software conversions that has taken months.  Hopefully 2008 will bring me a bit of a break in the action.

That I haven't posted is in no way an indication that I've abandoned Zaadz.  I still think this place rocks!  I still read posts, visit blogs, and marvel at the growth of this place as evidenced by the fast sprouting of really cool advertisers.  It's great to know that 2007 has been very good in growing this great community.

I vow each year that I'm going to get into the Christmas spirit, all giddy and bouncey and jolly.  But quite frankly, I haven't been able to get as excited since I was a youngster.  Aside from the fact that I am insanely busy at work, I'm always sort of caught up in the whirlwind that is Christmastime, however.  I love how perfect strangers smile and say "Merry Christmas!"  I so thoroughly enjoy how everything smells like a pine forest in the Pacific Northwest all the way here, in Hawaii.  I love how the sun, at this time of year, sets in just the right angle so that it shines through the trees and makes beautiful, dancing shadows in my bedroom.  Even the days themselves look different -- the sky is bluer, the rain is sweeter, the stars are brighter.

All this makes me happy.  And that's when I decide that perhaps the pursuit of excitement is not quite the same as the pursuit of happiness.

I wish you all a very inspired Christmas and a wonderfully hopeful 2008!

Oh, and.....

GO UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII WARRIORS IN THE SUGAR BOWL!!!

Hawaii Warriors Football New Haka - Hawaiian Ha'a War Chant

A friend just emailed me a link to an incredibly cool, wonderfully novel experiment in evolution!

Electric Sheep

Electric Sheep is a free, open source screen saver run by thousands of people all over the world. It can be installed on any ordinary PC or Mac. When these computers "sleep", the screen saver comes on and the computers communicate with each other by the internet to share the work of creating morphing abstract animations known as "sheep". The result is a collective "android dream", an homage to Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.

More than 10,000 people packed the War Memorial Stadium in Wailuku, Maui, to hear the Dalai Lama speak on peace, compassion and preserving the culture of indigenous peoples.

Posted on: Wednesday, April 25, 2007

Dalai Lama: feeling of peace
By Christie Wilson
Advertiser Neighbor Island Editor
 

WAILUKU, Maui - Even before the Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso appeared on stage yesterday at War Memorial Stadium, his message of peace and compassion permeated through the crowd, estimated at more than 10,000.

"You get that vibe that everyone's together," said Mike Serro, 27, of Brooklyn, N.Y., as he wandered around the booths selling food and Tibetan crafts with Jen Bino, 25, of Toronto.

"I'm just thinking how lucky I am that he's here right now. It's amazing," Bino said about the Dalai Lama's first visit to Maui.

Wailuku resident Tina Del Dotto said she's not a Buddhist and never studied Buddhism, but felt a need to experience the occasion. "If there was going to be an opportunity to be with people of Maui who have a heart of peace and kindness in this world of turmoil, I want to feel that Maui energy and the peace," said Del Dotto, 55.

Tenzin Gyatso, known as his Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, visited O'ahu and the Big Island in 1980 and 1994. His Maui appearances this week kick off a U.S. tour of eight cities.

The 71-year-old spiritual leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner and author of the best-selling "The Art of Happiness" fled into exile in India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese communist rule in Tibet. He continues to negotiate with the Chinese government over maintaining some degree of self-rule and cultural autonomy for Tibet.

A group of kumu hula from four islands yesterday welcomed the Dalai Lama with a series of oli and lei offerings, followed by a performance by Halau Hula Wehiwehi O Leilehua. The guest of honor noted with a chuckle that the women's Hawaiian garb resembled the robes worn by Buddhist nuns.

He was quick to laugh throughout his hour-plus talk, titled "The Human Approach to World Peace," enchanting the crowd with his humor and humble demeanor. The Dalai Lama said religion may not be essential to a happy life, but that respect for basic human values is.

Many people consider love and compassion as a religious matter and not important in daily life, the Tibetan leader said. "That's totally wrong, he said." In fact, in a busy world, love and compassion are even more critical than ever, he said.

Just as we choose the right foods that are good for our bodies, we should make proper choices from our "supermarket of emotions" for the good of our mental health, he said, avoiding hatred, jealousy, envy and anger.

CRITICIZES ISOLATION

Speaking to the issue of cultural preservation, the Dalai Lama said he disagrees with those who think isolation is the best way to protect indigenous cultures. He said native peoples should take advantage of education and "modernization" to keep their identity.

He also said that in the context of a modern world, cultural leaders should pick which traditions to perpetuate and which to abandon because they are no longer relevant or helpful to their cause.

After the Dalai Lama departed the stage with a simple "aloha," Maui kumu hula Hokulani Holt-Padilla told The Advertiser he was a "practical man who offered practical, useful advice." She said she agrees that some cultural ideas must change while Hawaiians and other native peoples preserve their language and "hold out the values and things we have that keep us who we are."

The Dalai Lama's remarks on the worth of pursuing a right and just cause even though it may seem hopeless in one's lifetime put the struggle for Native Hawaiian rights in perspective for Big Island kumu hula Pualani Kanaka'ole Kanahele.

"It may take more than one lifetime to do it. Sometimes we get a little bit anxious about it getting done in our lifetime," she said.

Maui audience hears Tibetan monk's counsel on preserving indigenous cultures, compassion

Reach Christie Wilson at cwilson@honoluluadvertiser.com.

If I wasn't looking through the paper this morning for the weekly produce specials at the market, I would've missed the article completely: cell phones may be killing honey bees.  Ironic, I thought, that I should be doing something as benign as looking for fruits in newspaper ads only to be hit with the realization of how much I take for granted.  Without bees, fruits would be a rare commodity.  And yet, the article was so unobtrusive, I'm sure a lot of folks missed it.

Take a look at these articles, or run your own search to find a host of equally small snippets on the subject:

Study: Cell Phone Radiation Could Be Killing Bees

Are Cell Phones Killing Bees?

Are Mobile Phones Wiping Out Our Bees?

http://www.ascd.org/ed_topics/el199904_halford.html
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development
April 1999 | Volume 56 | Number 7
Understanding Race, Class and Culture   Pages 8-13
 

How can education reflect all voices in our history? Can multiculturalism reunite our fragmented society? Educator and historian Ronald Takaki discusses the power of a curriculum that mirrors many ethnic perspectives.

Joan Montgomery Halford

A pioneer in the field of ethnic studies, Ronald Takaki has written nine books on diversity in American society, including the widely acclaimed A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America (1993) and A Larger Memory: A History of Our Diversity, With Voices (1998). Takaki, the grandson of Japanese immigrants in Hawaii, has bridged many cultures as a student, a scholar, and an activist. As a young professor, for example, he taught the first black studies course offered at the University of California, Los Angeles, shortly after the Watts riots. Recently, Takaki spoke with Educational Leadership about diversity and education.

How do you define multicultural education?

The multiculturalism I have been seeking is a serious scholarship that includes all American peoples and challenges the traditional master narrative of American history. The traditional master narrative we've learned in our schools says that this country was founded by Americans of European ancestry and that our ideas are rooted in Western civilization. But when we just look around at ourselves, we realize that not all of us came from Europe. Many of us came from Africa and Latin America, and others were already here in North America. And others, like my grandfather, came from a Pacific shore. It is not only more inclusive, but also more accurate to recognize this diversity. The intellectual purpose of multiculturalism is a more accurate understanding of who we are as Americans.

Multicultural education has been misrepresented by the critics of multiculturalism, especially Arthur Schlesinger Jr., who presents multiculturalism as ethnic separatism in his book The Disuniting of America. What Schlesinger has done is to equate multiculturalism with Afrocentrism. But Afrocentrism is not multicultural, it's monocultural. And so what Schlesinger has done is to reduce multiculturalism to the shrillness of ethnic separatism manifested in some versions of Afrocentrism.

Does multiculturalism risk being treated as a fad?

I don't think it will be a fad because of the changing face of America. By 2001, whites in California will become a minority group just like African Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans-and 2001 is only three years away. Within three years in California, we will all be minorities. California is only the thin end of a larger entering wedge. Researchers have projected that by around 2050, all of us in the United States will be minorities. In the coming multicultural millennium, we will be reminded of our diversity every day. It would be a danger for multicultural education to be a fad. It needs to be up front and central.

I often think about the Los Angeles riots of April 29, 1992. That night on our TV screens, we saw the black smoke rising to the skies above Los Angeles, the Korean stores burning out of control, and the frightening violence on the streets. But the most powerful image that was beamed out of L.A. that night was the trembling face of Rodney King. Many of us still hear his words echoing in our minds. He said, "Please, people, we're stuck here for a while. We can get along, we can work it out." The question is, How do we work it out? How do we get along unless we learn more about one another in a systematic and informed way? Multiculturalism can help reunite America.

A few months ago, a white elementary school teacher in Brooklyn chose to teach the book Nappy Hair, which celebrates African American hair, to her predominantly African American class. The teaching of the book provoked parents in the school to make physical threats against the teacher. Incidents such as this have frightened educators. How can educators safely address diversity in the classroom?

It's very important for educators to explain clearly to parents what they are doing and why they are doing it. Educators must work with parent organizations to explain why, for example, we're teaching a book called Nappy Hair. Had that school had open discussions about the texts that teachers would be using in the classroom, parents would know that teachers don't make decisions about what they'll be having their students read in isolation from the community.

But there is a larger problem here. Many parents who complain don't attend the parent-teacher meetings. In many cases, these parents are working long hours, and it's very difficult for them to get to meetings in the evening or the late afternoon. The social and economic contexts make this kind of information sharing very difficult. And that's something that needs to be kept in mind.

Educators such as E. D. Hirsch advocate teaching a curriculum of core knowledge. What is your opinion?

I agree with Hirsch. There's knowledge that I think every American should know. There should be a core. The question, however, is, What should be the content of this core? This is where Hirsch and I differ.

At the back of Hirsch's best-selling book, Cultural Literacy, What Every American Needs to Know, a 66-page appendix lists terms that every cultural literate person should know. If you look at this list, you'll find that it's very Eurocentric. For example, the list includes Ellis Island, but it omits Angel Island. How many Americans have heard of Angel Island? People who live in San Francisco can see Angel Island in the middle of San Francisco Bay. We think of Angel Island as a place to bike, hike, and picnic. However, Angel Island was also the site of the immigration station for Chinese and Japanese immigrants; the remains of it are still there. We need to include Angel Island in a list for cultural literacy.

So I agree with Hirsch that we need a core, but the question is, Whose core will this be? I would like this core to be reflective of a more accurate understanding of who we are as Americans.

Do you think the standards movement is helpful in promoting this core?

The problem is that these standards are often set by bureaucrats. More educators should come together and determine what core knowledge is and engage one another in dialogue and debate. Just the term standards is intimidating. It suggests rigidity. Knowledge is something that is more vibrant, more fluid. I would be reluctant to endorse or promote standards. The question is, Where are the standards going to be made? Many people making them in the agencies are not educators.

How do class differences factor into multicultural education? People often discuss multiculturalism in terms of race and ethnicity, but what about class?

Class is very important. Most of us wouldn't even be here if it were not for the demand for the labor of our ancestors. Jews, for example, were needed as workers in the garment industry. And the Irish were needed to build the railroads and to work in the textile mills. My Japanese grandfather would not be here had it not been for the need for his labor on the sugar plantations of Hawaii.

Class is a hidden reality of American history. We overlook class, but class is central to the ethnic experience, including the experience of European immigrant groups. This is where multiculturalism can bring us together. When we examine our history, we will all find that we are linked to one another in terms of our class in intricate ways.

Take, for example, slavery. How many Americans really know why slavery was established in what would become the United States? Many people have this notion that slavery just began when the first 20 Africans were landed by a Dutch slave ship in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1619. But actually, those first 20 Africans were not slaves. They became indentured servants. There was no law for slavery in the English colonies at that point.

Even in 1675, 55 years later, blacks constituted only 5 percent of the total population in the Virginia colony. If slavery was such a profitable institution, why didn't these white planters bring in more labor from Africa? Well, they had this vision of Virginia as a reproduction of English society in the New World. Hence, there was resistance to the importation of large numbers of non-English, especially laborers who did not look European.

The Virginia planters did not want to bring in Africans, but they did bring in large numbers of white indentured servants from England and Ireland. But these white indentured servants had the right to bear arms. That was an English right. In 1676, they engaged in Bacon's Rebellion; the rebels burned down Jamestown. And the rebellion was repressed only after British troops came to Virginia.

After Bacon's Rebellion, the planter class realized that it would be dangerous to depend on a white laboring class that had the freedom of assembly and the right to bear arms. At that point, the planter class decided to shift from white indentured servitude to enslaved African labor. African labor was denied the right of assembly and the right to bear arms. The working class could be disarmed because of race. By 1740, the black population in Virginia had risen from 5 to 40 percent. This was when slavery became an institution.

The point I'm making involves the relationship between class and race. Racial diversity was forged in the crucibles of white class conflict. Black workers were used and pitted against white workers. And white workers who were also economically exploited and degraded thought that they belonged to a white aristocracy. During the Civil War, these white workers went to war and were killed to defend an institution that did not benefit them economically or socially.

So when the president is asked to apologize for slavery, the question I have to ask as a historian is, Apologize to whom? It's not just to Africans and their descendants, but also to the white workers who were then pitted against these newly imported workers from Africa. Race is tied intricately to class. When we understand this intricate tie that binds us, we begin to see that we do share much common ground in class.

Why do you distinguish between race and ethnicity?

In American history, Americans who had distinct physical characteristics because of their skin color or the shape of their eyes represented an ethnic group because they had different religions and different cultures-but they also represented a racial group. And people were stigmatized because of their distinct physical characteristics. And this led to legislation against them, like slavery, the Chinese Exclusion Act, and the internment of Japanese Americans. Neither Italians nor Germans were interned during World War II. You have to make a distinction between ethnic experience and racial experience. To lump together race and ethnicity violates this complex reality.

I am a scholar who strives to make the distinction between race and ethnicity. European immigrant groups were ethnic groups. They represented different religions. And Catholics and Jews suffered the oppression of ethnocentrism inflicted upon them by a Protestant America. But because they were white, they were eligible for naturalized citizenship, and they were able then to exercise political power and advance their economic and social interests.

On the other hand, Asian immigrants were not eligible for naturalized citizenship. The Naturalization Act of 1790 specified explicitly that to be eligible for naturalized citizenship, you first had to be white-and it used the term white. You might think, "That was 1790." Well, this law was in effect until 1952. And because of this law, my grandparents never became U.S. citizens. How is that for an example of the difference between race and ethnicity?

What are your thoughts on bilingual education?

Students who go through a good bilingual education program learn English with greater competency and rapidity than students who are just immersed in English-only classrooms. Teaching students in their native languages gives them cultural dignity.

Bilingual education doesn't disunite us. It's not a cultural separatism. Actually, it lets America be America, to use the phrase of Langston Hughes: "Let America be America where equality is in the air we breathe." For us to acknowledge the native languages of others is to embrace equality for them.

Talk with us about your stance on affirmative action.

Most Americans support affirmative action. In January 1997, the New York Times reported that only 25 percent of Americans polled actually wanted to abolish affirmative action. Another 25 percent said they want to continue affirmative action as is. And about 40 percent said let's mend it, not eliminate it. Most of us as Americans realize that we belong to a nation that-to use Lincoln's language in his Gettysburg Address-is dedicated to the "proposition" of equality. We believe in equality and fairness, and we realize that the playing field is not a level one. A person's life chances depend largely on where he or she resides or goes to school. And so we need to create a more level playing field.

The government is an important instrument to do this. Now, when we think of affirmative action, we usually think of it in terms of affirmative action for underrepresented racial minorities. But actually the primary beneficiaries of affirmative action have been white women. Affirmative action has opened up opportunities for them to enter professions such as law, medicine, and business in increasing numbers. With Proposition 209 in California, there was a misrepresentation of affirmative action as a racial program.

I have written a draft of a pro-affirmative action initiative, the California Equality Initiative, for the ballot in 2000. The California Equality Initiative revises the principle and policy of affirmative action. My initiative reads that in order to act affirmatively in the promotion of equality of opportunity, it shall be lawful for the State of California to consider race, gender, or socioeconomic class disadvantage as criteria in the selection of qualified individuals for education, employment, and government contracting. This law does not permit quotas, but it does allow the consideration of the above three categories.

What I've done in my draft is to include socioeconomic class disadvantage. I've been teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, for almost 30 years now. And I don't find white students or even black or Chicano students from the working class and the lower class. The average family income of our students exceeds $100,000 a year; we are an elite university in terms of class. And if we want to practice our commitment to equality of opportunity, then we have to practice it in terms not only of race and gender but also of socioeconomic class disadvantage. And students who come from the lower classes and the working classes are at a disadvantage.

They have lower SAT scores for one thing. They don't have the family resources to take those expensive SAT preparation courses. Further, students who are admitted to Berkeley are given what's called a bonus point for advanced placement courses or honors courses. So if you have the privilege of attending an elite suburban high school where you can find an abundance of AP courses, then you are awarded five points; an A is regarded as five points for AP courses. And so we have students with 4.0 GPAs who are black and Latino who are competing against white and Asian students with 4.2, 4.3, and 4.4 GPAs. And this is unfair.

In the epilogue of A Larger Memory, you write movingly about your high school religion teacher, Dr. Shunji Nishi. Could you tell our readers how Dr. Nishi made a difference in your life?

When I was a teenager, I was not academically inclined. I was growing up in Hawaii, and my parents had a restaurant near the beach. I became a very good surfer. In my Episcopalian high school, I didn't do especially well. I was required to take a course in religion that was taught by a teacher named Dr. Nishi, a Japanese American with a Ph.D. I was curious and impressed. I can remember going home and saying to my mother, who had been born on a plantation and who had only an 8th grade education, "My teacher's name is Dr. Nishi. He's Japanese American and he has a Ph.D. What's a Ph.D.?" And she looked at me and she said, "I don't know, but he must be very smart." A light bulb went on in my head. I thought maybe I too could become a Ph.D., Ronald Takaki Ph.D.

Dr. Nishi became a role model for me. He wrote comments on my papers: "How do you know this is true? Is this point valid?" Often, he wrote, "Interesting." Occasionally, he wrote, "Insightful." A relationship developed between the two of us. During the second semester of my senior year, as I was walking across campus, Dr. Nishi saw me and he said, "Ronald, I think you should go away to college. There's a fine liberal arts college in Ohio called the College of Wooster. Would you like to go to the College of Wooster?" I immediately blurted out, "No, that's too far away." I had never been off the island. I could not imagine going all the way to Ohio to attend college. But Dr. Nishi asked, "Would it be OK if I wrote to the college to tell them about you?" And I said fine.

A month later I received a letter from the dean of the College of Wooster and the letter read, "Dear Mr. Takaki, you have been accepted to the College of Wooster, but please fill out the application form." When I look back at this,

I realize that this was an early version of affirmative action. This dean was offering me an opportunity to pursue educational equality. He hadn't even received my transcripts to know what my GPA was, and it wasn't that high. This dean had not received my SAT scores, which were not that high, either. I think he decided on the basis of that letter written by Dr. Nishi that I represented quality. How do you measure-how do you quantify-"insightfulness"? It's not something that we can reduce to numbers. We have become prisoners of quantitative instruments and quantitative measurements of merit and quality. I also think this dean thought it would be good for the College of Wooster to have greater ethnic diversity, that it would be good to have Asian Americans.

This experience changed my life. I accepted the invitation to go to the College of Wooster, and that sent me on the path that led me to this conversation we're having. Had it not been for Dr. Nishi, had it not been for this dean taking a risk and admitting me, I would not be a professor at the University of California, Berkeley.

When I got to Wooster, most people did not see me as an American. My fellow white students would ask me questions like, How long have you been in this country? Where did you learn to speak English? I realized that I didn't look American to them. My name didn't sound American, yet my grandfather came here in 1886. As a family, we've been here longer than many European immigrant groups, longer than the Italians, the Irish, and the Polish. And yet no one would ask them, How long have you been in this country?

I could have changed my name to Ron Taylor, but that wouldn't have helped. I began to think about what it means to be an American and how many people did not see Americans except in terms of a European perspective. After I earned my degree at Wooster, I decided to pursue a Ph.D. When I came to Berkeley, I was swept up in the Civil Rights movement. And this is what stirred me to study race in America.

You use the term hidden reality to characterize the stories left out of American history. How do educators begin to give voice to these hidden realities?

We need to do our homework. When I went to college, multicultural research was not available to me. And the master narrative of American history wasn't very critical of our past. But now this scholarship is in our schools of education. The new generation of teachers will have a more accurate understanding of American history. And it's important to have this accurate understanding if we're going to get along with one another. We're going to find out about these hidden histories because multicultural scholarship has emerged.

Multiculturalism is an affirming of what this country stands for: opportunity, equality, and the realization of our dream.

---

Ronald Takaki is Professor of Ethnic Studies in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of California at Berkeley, CA 94720. Joan Montgomery Halford is Senior Associate Editor of Educational Leadership.

Copyright © 1999 by Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development

Spring 2006 Human Rights Magazine

American Bar Association
Aboriginal Occupiers of the Soil
Spring 2006, Volume 33, Number 2
By Melody Kapilialoha MacKenzie

Kaulana na¯ pua a'o Hawai'i
Ku¯pa'a mahope o ka 'a¯ina

Famous are the children of Hawai'i
Ever loyal to the land

These lyrics are from a song by Ellen Keho'ohiwaokalani Wright Prendergast, written shortly after the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893. They express the sorrow of the Native Hawaiian people and their determination to oppose annexation to the United States. The song further declares, "No one will fix a signature / To the paper of the enemy / With its sin of annexation / And sale of native civil rights . . . / We are satisfied with the stones / The astonishing food of the land," and concludes with the lines, "We back Lili'ulani / Who has won the rights of the land / Tell the story / Of the people who love their land."

The story of the Native Hawaiian people, a people who love their land, is a complicated and difficult one. But when told in broad strokes, it is a familiar one: a story of an indigenous people and of greed, racism, and imperialism.

Foundation of the Kingdom

The Polynesian ancestors of the Hawaiian people undertook the long ocean voyage from the Marquesas Islands to Hawai'i at least 1,700 years ago.At European contact in 1778, an estimated 400,000 to 800,000 Hawaiians lived in a society with highly complex political and social systems. Separate high chiefs governed the major islands, with subordinate chiefs managing ahupua'a, self-sustaining land units encompassing broad plains near the sea running up valley ridges to the mountains. Within the ahupua'a , the people had use rights to the resources necessary to sustain life-access to offshore fishing and shoreline gathering; plots of land and sufficient water for growing taro, banana, breadfruit, or sweet potatoes; the right of way to the uplands for timber and fuel; and the right to hunt and gather wild plants and herbs.

After European contact, Hawaiians quickly adopted foreign technology, and by 1810, Kamehameha I united the islands under one rule, aided first by can­nons and firearms and then by diplomacy. By 1840, Kamehameha's successors had established a constitutional monarchy, recognized as a fully independent and sovereign nation, entering into treaties with the United States, Great Britain, France, and other nations.

Although private property did not exist in traditional Hawaiian society, in the late 1840s Kamehameha III, upon the advice of western advisors and under pressure from foreign governments-who frequently used gunboat diplomacy to enforce the claims of their citizens living in Hawai'i-instituted private land ownership. Through the Ma¯hele (division) process, the intertwining interests of king, government, chiefs, and common people were separated. Of Hawai'i's four million acres, roughly, the king received 24 percent, the government 36 percent, and the chiefs 39 percent. The common people received less than 1 percent, only 28,658 acres, albeit the most fertile and productive lands. Even though the king and chiefs received vast acreages during the Ma¯hele, they lacked the capital or skills to operate in a cash economy. Subsequent laws allowed any resident, regardless of citizenship, to own land; adopted the adverse possession doctrine; and permitted nonjudicial mortgage foreclosures, there ­ by leading to loss of lands by king, government, chiefs, and commoners alike.

Hawaiians as a race also appeared to be dying out. In 1832, the Native census showed a population of 130,000. By 1870, it had dropped to between 40,000 and 50,000. By 1890, it had decreased to only 35,000, although the part-Hawaii­an population was slowly growing.

In the years after the Ma¯hele, the kingdom's economy became dependent on large agricultural crops, especially sugar, grown on plantations owned by American and British interests. By the 1880s, dependence on the American market caused business interests to favor annexation to the United States to ensure that Hawaiian sugar and other produce could enter the United States free of tariffs. In 1887, these business interests forced King Kala ¯kaua to adopt a new constitution, known as the Bayonet Constitution, limiting the crown's authority, effectively increasing the influence of the nonnative merchant faction and disenfranchising most natives. Not surprisingly, Kala ¯kaua's successor, Queen Lili'uokalani, chafed under the constraints of this constitution. In January 1893, the queen sought to promulgate a new constitution returning authority to the throne and the native people.

Overthrow and Annexation

Using the queen's actions as the rationale, a small group of businessmen, including Americans, and other annexationists conspired to overthrow the government of Hawai'i. They immediately called for the aid of John L. Stevens, U.S. minister to the Hawaiian kingdom. Stevens caused U.S. armed forces to invade the Hawaiian nation on January 16, 1893, and to position themselves near the Hawaiian government buildings and the palace. On the afternoon of January 17, a Committee of Safety representing American commercial interests deposed the Hawaiian monarchy and announced the establishment of a provisional government. Minister Stevens quickly extended diplomatic recognition to that government. Soon thereafter, the queen, seeking to avoid blood­shed, relinquished her authority under protest, fully expecting that the United States would repudiate Stevens's actions.

On February 1, Stevens raised the American flag and proclaimed Hawai'i to be a protectorate of the United States. The provisional government immediately sought annexation to the United States. However, after an investigation, newly inaugurated President Grover Cleveland refused to recognize the legitimacy of the provisional government and called for restoration of the monarchy. Instead, the Republic of Hawaii was established on July 4, 1894.

In 1897, President William McKinley took office on a platform advocating "control" of Hawai'i. The new administration negotiated an annexation treaty, which was ratified by the Hawaiian Republic's Senate on September 8, 1897. When an annexation treaty with the United States appeared imminent, Native Hawaiians presented petitions to the U.S. Congress-over 21,000 signatures-protesting annexation and calling for the restoration of the Hawaiian government. The annexation treaty failed.

But, during the next year, pro-an­nexation forces introduced a joint resolution of annexation. The annexation of Hawai'i by joint resolution was hotly debated in the U.S. Senate. Many argued that the United States could acquire territory only under the treatymaking power of the U.S. Constitution, requiring ratification by two­-thirds of the Senate. Nevertheless, with the advent of the Spanish-American War, the islands became strategically significant; annexation was accomplished through a joint resolution, requiring only a simple majority in each house.

The Joint Resolution of Annexation, 30 Stat. 750 (1898), made no provision for a vote by Native Hawaiians or other citizens, assuming instead that ratification of a treaty by the Hawaiian Republic's Senate almost a year earlier showed sufficient assent. Under the joint resolution, the republic ceded 1.8 million acres of crown, government, and public lands to the United States. In the Organic Act of 1900, 31 Stat. 141 (1900), Congress established the Territory of Hawaii, placed these ceded lands under its control, and directed that proceeds from the ceded lands be used for the benefit of the inhabitants of Hawai'i for education and other public purposes.

Recognition by Hawaiian leaders, and eventually by Congress, of the rapidly deteriorating social and economic conditions of the Hawaiian people led to the passage in 1921 of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act (HHCA), 42 Stat. 108 (1921). The HHCA set aside approximately 200,000 acres of ceded land for a home­steading program for native Hawaiians, defined as "any descendant of not less than one-half part of the blood of the races inhabiting the Hawaiian Islands previous to 1778." In hearings leading to the HHCA's passage, the relationship between the United States and Native Hawaiians was deemed analogous to the trust relationship between the United States and other Native Americans.

Statehood and Litigation

When Hawai'i became a state in 1959, Congress turned over administration of the HHCA to the state. The state, in turn, accepted a trust responsibility for the program. In addition, Congress transferred another 1.2 million acres of ceded lands to the state, creating a public land trust for five specified purposes, including "the betterment of the conditions of native Hawaiians, as defined in the [HHCA]." Admission Act, 73 Stat. 4, §§ 4 & 5 (1959). It was not until 1978, however, with amendments to the state constitution, that proceeds from the ceded land trust were finally designated for the benefit of Native Hawaiians. The amend­ments established the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA), to be governed by a nine-member Native Hawaiian board of trustees elected by Native Hawaiian voters, to administer those funds. Haw. Const., art. XII, §§ 5 & 6.

Providing Native Hawaiians with a measure of self-governance was a second important objective in OHA's creation. For a twenty-year period, all Native Hawaiians, regardless of blood quantum, elected OHA trustees to administer trust proceeds and other funds and to establish programs benefiting Hawaiians.

In 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court in Rice v. Cayetano, 528 U.S. 495 (2000), rejected entirely the idea of self-governance. The Court held that restricting the electorate for OHA trustees solely to those of Hawaiian ancestry was race-based and violated the Fifteenth Amendment. The Court distinguished OHA elections from those of Indian tribes, which are "the internal affair[s] of a quasi-sovereign." In contrast, the Court said, the OHA elections "are the affair[s] of the State of Hawaii, OHA is a state agency, established by the State Constitution, responsible for the administration of State laws and obligations." Id. at 520. Subsequently, the Hawai'i state laws limiting OHA trustee candidates to those of Hawaiian ancestry were also overturned as violating the Fifteenth Amendment and the Voting Rights Act. Arakaki v. Hawaii , 314 F.3d 1091 (9th Cir. 2002).

The Court's decision in Rice was narrow, based solely on the Fifteenth Amendment and not on Fourteenth Amendment equal protection grounds. The Court also declined to decide whether Congress has the power to treat Native Hawaiians as it does the Indian tribes. That question, and the legality of existing programs for Native Hawaiians, is now being actively litigated in the courts. Several of these suits have been dismissed for lack of standing. See, e.g.,Carroll v. Nakatani, 342 F.3d 934 (9th Cir. 2003). In another lawsuit, Arakaki v. Lingle, 423 F.3d 954 (9th Cir. 2005), challenging the constitutionality of both the Hawaiian Homes program and OHA, all claims against Hawaiian Homes and most claims against OHA were dismissed on standing grounds. A single claim challenging the use of state tax funds for OHA's programs benefiting all Hawaiians was remanded for a determination on the merits. All proceedings have been stayed in that case while a petition for writ of certiorari is pending in the Supreme Court.

In a related case, individual Native Hawaiians filed suit against the secretary of the Interior, claiming that regulations limiting the administrative federal recognition process to groups "indigenous to the continental United States" violated Fifth Amendment equal protection guarantees. In Kahawaiolaa v. Norton, 386 F.3d 1271 (9th Cir. 2004), the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, applying rational basis review, determined that the regulations were constitutional, stating, "It is rational for Congress to provide different sets of entitlements-one governing native Hawaiians and another governing members of American Indian tribes." Id. at 1282-83.

Finally, another suit filed under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 has challenged the Kamehameha Schools admissions policy of giving preference to children with Hawaiian ancestry. This case represents a unique set of facts. The Kamehameha Schools is a private educational institution funded from the lands of the Kamehameha chiefs and established under the 1884 will of Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop, the last direct descendant of Kamehameha I. The Hawaiian ancestry preference and Kamehameha's educational programs are designed to address and remedy the severe educational problems experienced by Hawai'i's native children. The fate of the admissions policy remains in the balance; an adverse ruling by a panel of the Ninth Circuit has been vacated and an en banc rehearing granted. Doe v. Kamehameha Schools, 2006 U.S. App. LEXIS 4167 (2006).

Ironically, in the 2002 Native Hawaiian Education Act, Congress made specific findings about the educational needs of Native Hawaiian children, looking to data and information compiled by Kamehameha Schools, and established programs specifically to address those needs. Since the 1970s, Congress has passed numerous laws benefiting Native Hawaiians, most using an expansive definition of Native Hawaiian, with no blood quantum requirement. Some laws-such as the Native American Languages Act and the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act-include Native Hawaiians in programs along with other Native Americans. Others-such as the Native Hawaiian Healthcare Improvement Act of 1988 and the Hawaiian Home Lands Homeownership Act of 2000-are directed solely at Native Hawaiians.

Partially in response to the Rice decision and other litigation, legislation is now pending in the U.S. Congress to clarify the legal status of Native Hawaiians and to allow reorganization of a government that would be recognized by the United States. See S. 147 and H.R. 309, The Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act. More­over, in 2004, Congress established the Office of Native Hawaiian Relations in the secretary of the Interior's office.

Sovereign Claims

Native Hawaiian claims have often been compared to those of other Native American groups. Although there are similarities, there is one significant difference: early in the development of U.S. law, the Supreme Court in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia , 30 U.S. 1, 18 (1831), characterized Indian nations as "domestic dependent nations" having some, but not all, of the attributes of sovereignty. Chief Justice John Marshall defined that limited sovereignty. Tribes were not nation states under the Law of Nations and thus lost their traditional territories based on the doctrine of discovery. While the Indian tribes did not have complete title to their lands, Marshall recognized that they had "aboriginal title" based on long possession.

Unlike Indian nations, Hawai'i was an independent sovereign recognized by the world community of nations. Native Hawaiians were citizens of a constitutional monarchy-an organized, autonomous, sovereign state-whose independence was recognized by other nations, including the United States.

One hundred years after the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom, the United States finally acknowledged its complicity. Apology Resolution, Pub. L. No. 103-150 (1993). It also recognized that Native Hawaiians never directly relinquished their inherent sovereignty as a people or over their national lands. From these admissions, it is clear that Native Hawaiians have valid claims for the loss of their lands and suppression of their inherent sovereignty.

In the 1993 resolution, the United States made a commitment to "acknowledge the ramifications of the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, in order to provide a proper foundation for reconciliation between the United States and the Native Hawaiian people." In an article examining Native Hawaiian rights to self-determination, Professor James Anaya of the University of Arizona concluded:

The United States must take effective measures to remedy the historical and continuing wrongs suffered by Native Hawaiians, measures that are in accordance with the choices of Native Hawaiians themselves and that, at a minimum, implement corresponding international human rights norms. Under international law, all peoples have the right to self-determination-and no less among them, the Native Hawaiian people.

The Native Hawaiian People and International Human Rights Law: Toward a Remedy for Past and Continuing Wrongs , 28 Ga. L. Rev. 309, 363 (1994).

Almost fifteen years after acknowledging its actions, the United States has yet to live up to its call for reconciliation or to provide a forum in which the claims of Native Hawaiians­-a people who love their land-can be fully heard and resolved.

Melody Kapilialoha MacKenzie is an assistant professor and director of the Center for Excellence in Native Hawaiian Law at the William S. Richardson School of Law at the University of Hawai'i-Ma¯noa.

As published in Human Rights, Spring 2006, Vol. 33, No. 2, pp.15-17, 25.

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