Tag Archives: 4Hawaiians

Guest Series on Tribal Gaming (Part 3)

Today, we continue with the third part of our guest series on the development of Indian casino gaming in California, by Jim Marino.  (This series originally ran in the Santa Ynez Valley Journal.)

Sometimes it seems as though the issue of gaming is an unspoken controversy that advocates of the Akaka Bill are desperately trying to avoid.  As though the fact that it is not allowed under the current version of the bill is a sufficient guarantee forevermore.  But, as today’s installment demonstrates, a state can move from no casino gaming of any kind to a flood of Indian casinos in a surprisingly short time–and with little to no real input from the public.  Those who are concerned about Akaka being the path to Hawaiian casino culture would do well to take note of California’s experience. . .

RESULTS OF I.G.R.A AND THE PASSAGE OF PROPOSITION 1A AND THE FLOOD OF INDIAN GAMBLING CASINOS IN CALIFORNIA
Santa Ynez Valley Journal
By Jim Marino, Guest Columnist
April 29, 2010

(Part 3)

The first week I discussed what led up to the enactment of the IGRA. Last week I wrote about all of the antiquated, ambiguous and contradictory aspects of federal Indian law and policy in existence, when the ill-advised Indian Gaming and Regulatory Act [IGRA] was enacted by Congress, in a feeble attempt to provide an economy for Indian tribes.

As you may recall from last week, the controversial Indian gambling law was enacted by Congress without even considering the impact the existing body of federal Indian law and policy would have. This resulted in the authorization of tax free, lawless and unregulated casino gambling by Indian tribes and related businesses in which patrons, workers and the nearby communities are, in effect, deprived of all their legal and Constitutional rights and cannot sue for injuries or damages occurring in those casinos and businesses. I also wrote of how that Act has also enabled these tiny often questionable tribes to make hundreds of millions in profits, while still collecting federal welfare and grant monies that are monies needed by real Indians still living on remote reservations and living in conditions of abject poverty.

This week’s article deals with how Indian gambling was legalized in California and some of the impacts of the IGRA and the Indian casinos it spawned in California, has had on nearby non-Indian communities.

To give Congress the benefit of the doubt, Congress created the only method that States had available to them in order to control and regulate Indian casino gambling under the IGRA. That mechanism was the requirement that prior to engaging in Class III gambling casinos the tribe and state government would have to enter into a compact (or contract). They did this by including section 2710 d.(3) in Title 25. Under that provision, Indian tribes seeking to engage in class III casino gambling were required to negotiate and have the affected state approve, a compact. If the state lawfully approved a compact, then it was lawfully in effect according to State law.

Following the enactment of the IGRA in 1988 many bands of Indians in California, some with only one or two members, began operating class II Bingo games with unlimited money pay-offs. The Santa Ynez Chumash built a cinderblock building as a “Bingo casino” funded at least in part by the Las Vegas singer Wayne Newton and other Las Vegas gambling investors and apparently did so under questionable circumstances. It soon closed down amongst rumors and controversy, but with a view toward reopening in the future.

Class II “Bingo” gaming under the IGRA does not require a tribal-state compact, only a license from the National Indian Gaming Commission [NIGC] and is in effect unsupervised gaming beyond licensing and annual audits. Before the Supreme Court struck down the provision in the IGRA, giving the tribes the right to sue the state when they claimed the State was not negotiating in good faith, California tribes threatened the State with several suits if the State did not negotiate compacts for full-scale Class III casino gambling. The California Constitution Art. 4, Section 19, prohibited full-scale casino gambling including slot machines, blackjack, craps, roulette and so forth.

Because slot machines generally make up 85 percent of the revenue any casino brings in, the tribes were threatening lawsuit if the State would not negotiate for slot machines and banked card games like blackjack. (Remember the Cabazon case discussion earlier. The State had the absolute right to refuse to allow all forms of gambling by any Indian tribe, as long as those types of games were also prohibited for everyone else in the state to operate.) Slot machines had been illegal in California for years and use, possession or transport was a violation of the California Penal Code.

One lawsuit brought by Indian tribes in the 1990s claimed the lotto terminals the State had licensed to bars and cocktail lounges all over the state were, in effect, state run “slot machines.” Therefore, the tribes claimed they had a right to install slot machines in their casinos. The court denied that assertion but was highly critical of the definition of “slot machines” set out in the California Penal Code. As a result, the state pulled all these machines from bars all over the state and stored them in a warehouse, where I believe they still sit today.

Many tribes like the Santa Ynez Chumash simply ignored the law prohibiting slot machines and the requirement of a tribal-state compact in 25 USC 2710 d (3) requiring such a compact before Class III gambling could be allowed. Then one night in 1995, the Chumash moved more than 600 slot machines into the cinderblock former Bingo casino and began illegally offering slot machines to the public and position player backed blackjack games. The installation of these slot machines also constituted a violation of the Johnson Act, a federal law prohibiting the unlawful transportation, use, procurement and possession of slot machines. After all, the delaying litigation was exhausted in 1997. The State Attorney General and federal authorities including the F.B.I. informed the illegal casino tribes like the Santa Ynez Chumash that they intended to raid them, seize the slot machines, all monies and other illegal fruits of the illegal gambling operations and even arrest the operators. The tribes then launched a public initiative-drive entitled Proposition 5 in 1998.

Proposition 5 was an initiative to amend the California Government Code to allow Indian tribes to operate slot machines on Indian lands in California. Besides sponsoring that initiative the tribes, many of whom were operating illegal casinos with slot machines at the time, like the Santa Ynez Chumash, pumped millions of dollars into an advertising campaign to depict pictures of poverty-stricken Indian tribes self-sufficient.

In addition to this advertising campaign, these casino Indians pumped millions into the campaign coffers of Grey Davis, a career politician who was running for Governor in 1998. In November 1998, Proposition 5 was approved by the voters and Grey Davis was elected Governor. Commencing in 1999, Gov. Davis began negotiating gambling compacts with California Indian tribes, all of which was done behind closed doors. None of the traditional power groups in California such as local governments, taxpayers groups, law enforcement organizations, environmental groups, trial lawyers, workers compensation and consumer lawyer groups, women’s rights groups, union and others were allowed the opportunity to participate in the discussions and influence the terms of these tribal-state class III gambling compacts.

As a result, the compacts Gov. Davis agreed to were weak, giveaway compacts with many provisions so poorly written that they were virtually unenforceable. These compacts provided no revenue at all to the state and made no provisions to mitigate the significant negative impacts the flood of Indian casinos that resulted would have, and subsequently did have, on local communities.

In the meantime, Proposition 5 was challenged in a lawsuit and in August 1999 the California Supreme Court ruled that Proposition 5 was unconstitutional because it only amended the Government Code not the State Constitution, which contained the prohibition on casino gambling like slot machines and house banked card games in Art. 4, sec. 19.

Undaunted by the Supreme Court’s striking down Proposition 5, Gov. Davis executed some 59 of these giveaway tribal state compacts and then had the State Legislature approve them in September and October 1998. He made no effort to determine if the tribes he was negotiating with, and granted gambling compacts to, were lawfully created Indian tribes or if the land on which their casinos or proposed casinos were to be sited were legally “Indian Lands” eligible class for III gambling under federal law. In fact, many of these questionable Indian tribes were on land or acquired land that was clearly not eligible to build and operate any class II or class III gambling casinos under the IGRA.

To remedy the fact that these compacts were executed and approved when there was no longer any legal authority to do so, the Legislature put a “Legislative initiative” on the ballot for March 2000 the following year at Gov. Davis’ behest, some 6 months after they were executed and approved. That initiative, called Proposition 1A, by its language proposed to amend the California State Constitution Art. 4, sec. 19, to authorize the Governor to negotiate future compacts with California Indian tribes. The voters were never informed that a vote in favor of Proposition 1A would, in effect, retroactively ratify the 59-weak giveaway, virtually unenforceable compacts that Gov. Davis has already signed without legal authority and which were approved at his instance by the State’s Legislature. It is not coincidence that so many State legislators also received hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from these casino tribes, often funneled throu gh campaign committees and PAC’s with unassuming names. My favorite was the one calling itself “The California Native Peace Officers Association.” That PAC was funded by $5,000,000 million entirely from the Pechanga Indian Casino and the State Correctional Officers Union and was distributed to key politicians in Sacramento. The use of PACs is one of the ways politicians use to disguise receipt of gambling monies by disguising them through innocent-sounding groups. Once legalized in 2000 by Proposition 1A, the onslaught of Indian casinos in California began.

NEXT TIME: PART 4, THE EXPANSION OF “INDIAN CASINO GAMBLING IN CALIFORNIA AFTER PASSAGE OF PROPOSITION 1A AND THE NEGATIVE IMPACTS ON LOCAL GOVERNMENTS AND COMMUNITIES.”

That’s “Entertainment”?

So, how often do you like to kick back and watch a little Pacific Network Internet television?  Yeah, me neither.

But would you make more of an effort if you knew that they were getting nearly a million dollars from OHA for the creation of a “Hawaiian-themed internet television station and web portal”?  It kinda makes you wonder what a cool million buys these days in the way of internet entertainment . . . aside from buckets of Farmville cash or enough “adult videos” to end up under permanent FBI surveillance, of course.

Curious as to what a Hawaiian internet TV station might look like, I checked out their website, and was confronted by . . . Puppies!  Adorable ones! In a shopping cart!  Also, canoeing wipe-outs and some footage of a party in Waikiki that didn’t seem interesting enough to click on.  In all honesty, it looked more like a creation of the Hawaii Tourism Authority than anything intended for Hawaii residents, much less Native Hawaiians.  And if this were a private enterprise, that would be no big deal.  I mean, I would question their business plan, but we live in a country where people are entitled to waste their own money in whatever way they wish.  And I would no more stop someone from starting a questionable business enterprise than from going to an Rob Schneider movie.  (Ok, that’s not entirely true.  I would probably at least try to urge them, out of basic human decency, to avoid the movie.)  But this is beside the point.  Because we’re not talking about private enterprise here.  We’re talking about money intended for the benefit of the Native Hawaiian people.  And we’re talking about a quasi-governmental agency that hopes to have a big hand in the proposed Native Hawaiian Reorganization proposed by the Akaka Bill.

The crazy thing is that we have seen plenty of media enterprises aimed at speaking primarily to one minority group succeed (BET and Telemundo come to mind, but there are others too).  But they succeed or fail in the marketplace by learning to speak to their audience and growing their audience in a profitable way.  Who is the Pacific Network speaking to?  The lack of advertising on the website suggests that profitability at this point is determined only by the success of their grant proposals.  If you were (or are) Native Hawaiian, would you consider this an effective way of reaching out or fostering the Native Hawaiian community?  Or is it just another OHA vanity grant that looks good on paper, but disappoints in reality?

Certified Hawaiian

When you’re Hapa, you get used to people playing, “guess the ethnicity” with you.  Especially on the mainland.  (In Hawaii, the game is generally much shorter.  In part because one of your cousins will inevitably walk by and put an end to things.)  I actually don’t mind it though.  I’ve always liked the way that our racial/ethnic mix gives us a broad feeling of connection on the Islands.   Like we’re all in this together.  After all, even if you may not be Portuguese/Japanese/Filipino/Samoan/Hawaiian/Chinese/Haole/Etc., it’s a pretty fair guarantee that you’re at least related to someone who is.

And this leads us to one of the things that so puzzles me about how the Akaka Bill is supposed to work–namely, how do you even go about defining who counts as “Hawaiian Enough” to be part of a Native Hawaiian government.  After all, we’re talking about a culture that includes the concept of hanai adoption.  That’s about as far from a “one-drop rule” as it’s possible to get, culturally speaking.

But, of course, since we’re talking about laws and stuff here, there has to be a way to legally define who gets to play in a Akaka government.  But would you believe that, as the Bill currently lies, a significant number of those who would consider themselves Hawaiian wouldn’t count as such for the purposes of the Akaka Bill?  In fact, one analysis found that more than 73% of those who defined themselves as Hawaiian for the purposes of the census would now be counted as such for the purposes of the Akaka Bill.  Here’s why:

Under the conditions set forth in S1011, Section 3(12), for an Hawaiian to become a “Qualified Native Hawaiian Constituent” all five of the following conditions must be met:

  • (A) Must be direct lineal descendant of indigenous people living in Hawaii on or before January 1, 1893 or of a person eligible in 1921 for Hawaiian Homelands.
  • (B) Wishes to participate in the reorganization of the Native Hawaiian governing entity
  • (C) is 18 years of age or older;
  • (D) is a citizen of the United States; and
  • (E) maintains a significant cultural, social, or civic connection to the Native Hawaiian community, as evidenced by satisfying 2 or more of 10 criteria

Of the five, Parts (B) and (E) are the most likely to exclude Hawaiians from becoming “Qualified” to participate in the Tribe.  Part (B) most likely means excluding all persons who do not sign up for Kau Inoa.  The December, 2009 Kau Inoa Newsblog proudly announces: “Those who register in Kau Inoa will help shape the Hawaiian nation to come….We are happy to share that at the end of November 2009, 108,118 people were registered in the Kau Inoa Native Hawaiian Registry….”

The 2000 US Census counted over 401,000 Hawaiians in the US.  A 2004 estimate by the US Census Bureau counted 279,651 Hawaiians in Hawaii, down from 283,430 in 2000.  The out-migration of Hawaiians is a direct result of the lack of economic opportunity created by OHA-funded shake-down artists and their environmentalist allies.  The Kau Inoa number is less than 27% of all Native Hawaiians, but it gets worse.

Rule (E) excludes many of the roughly 122,000 Hawaiians living outside of Hawaii.  Exceptions are made for for college students, military personnel, federal employees (such as Congressional staffers) and their dependents,  Hawaiian Homelands beneficiaries, their children and grandchildren.

By making “Native Hawaiian Membership Organization” into the following two separate rules, an activist or other OHA operative who has been a member of two Native Hawaiian Membership Organizations thereby meets the “two of ten” qualification in Part (E):

  • (viii) Has been a member since September 30, 2009, of at least 1 Native Hawaiian Membership Organization.
  • (ix) Has been a member since September 30, 2009, of at least 2 Native Hawaiian Membership Organizations.

The bill does not contain a list of such organizations, leaving the door open to all sorts of games as some organizations are accepted and others are not.

I don’t know about you, but I find the notion of having to “prove” your Hawaiian-ness by virtue of what clubs or activities you belong to be . . . mind boggling.  Especially when you consider that the Akaka Bill includes a loophole for those who might not have Hawaiian blood, but are “regarded as Hawaiian” by the Native Hawaiian community (whatever that may mean).  By that logic, a haole with the right connections can be part of the Native Hawaiian government while a 100% local, ethnically Hawaiian guy who likes to keep to himself might not.  Seriously.  Only politicians and huge sums of money can combine to create something so ludicrous.  Don’t tell me that’s what most people are thinking of when they say that Native Hawaiians deserve some kind of recognition.

Depend On It

The Heritage Foundation has released its 2010 Index of Dependence on Government, and you will be unsurprised to hear that American dependence on government programs continues to grow–especially in the health and welfare sectors.  Now, I will be the first to admit that, when confronted by a bevy of charts and words like “index” and “variables,” my eyes begin to glaze over and I think longingly of cool drinks and reality TV reruns.  But there is a reason to pay attention to what the number-crunching prognosticator-types are talking about.

For example–do you have (or are you working towards) a government pension?  Do you want it to still be there when you need it?  Because when budget crises reach a certain critical point (*cough* California *cough*), one of the first things that they look to cut are pensions and state salaries.

So what does this have to do with government spending on Hawaiians.  Because while a few hundred million is nothing to sneeze at, spending on Native Hawaiians seems minor in a year that included the massive stimulus bill.  But there’s more to the problem of creating a dependency on government programs than just the dollars and cents of it.  As the authors of the index explain:

To be clear: Every person will be dependent on others many times during his or her life, and there is nothing wrong with that. People spend most of their childhoods utterly dependent on their parents, and many people will rely on caregivers during their last years. Dependence on family, neighbors, fellow members of community groups, and—yes—local government is the normal, everyday stuff of life.

When people receive aid from someone in their social circle, they are given an opportunity to repay that aid someday in a similar way. Mutual aid is the glue that binds communities together; it gives strength to families and the greater civil society. Most Americans know instinctively that creating strong communities and families is a matter of caring for each other.

When the federal government provides aid, that aid also binds the dependent person to the aid giver. This aid, however, is anything but mutual. No one expects the dependent person one day to give similar aid to the federal government. And government aid certainly does not strengthen communities and families: If Americans have learned anything about the federal welfare system, it is how effectively it undermines family structure and hollows out communities.

Worse, dependence-creating programs quickly morph into political assets that policymakers all too readily embrace. Voters tend to support politicians and political parties that give them higher incomes or subsidies for the essentials of life; but no matter how well-meaning policymakers might have been when they created government aid programs like Medicare, unemployment insurance, and subsidized housing, these same programs quickly grow beyond their mission and turn into a mechanism that creates and sustains a never-ending cycle of dependence—and entitlement thinking.

Is there a clearer delineation of the problem inherent in depending on government to shore up the health of a community, be it racial, ethnic, or otherwise?  I’ve been worried for a long time about the slowly dissolving sense of ohana in the Islands, and I begin to wonder if this is part of the explanation for it.

OHA’s Official Grant Goals

Break out the champagne and the 12-pages of Hawaiiglish, it’s OHA grant application time!  (What is Hawaiiglish?  It’s the name I’ve come up with for the bizarre hybrid of English and Hawaiian that is especially popular in the field of obtaining Hawaiian grants or talking about Hawaii when you’re running for office.  You know . . . when you get sentences like, “The kapuna understand the matrix of needs required to foster care of the ohana.”  Yes, this is a pet peeve of mine, since I feel like it’s pandering–as though Native Hawaiians are going to applaud anything you say just because you stuck the word “pono” in the sentence.)

Anyway, as part of its announcement of the new granting year, OHA also published its list of priorities.  And, to be scrupulously fair, many of them are completely reasonable and even necessary.  For example, there is a huge emphasis placed on increasing economic self-sufficiency for Native Hawaiians, with a specific goal of increasing family income and housing stability.  There are also laudable mentions of the need to exceed education standards and preserve Hawaiian culture.  Heck, I don’t even have a quarrel with the emphasis on preserving the environment and protecting the land.  There are places in this country where I might not be moved by that (I’m looking at you here, Newark), but Hawaii . . . well, that is some beautiful, beautiful stuff.

Of course, what I’ve done here is once again (like a broken CD or KPOI’s playlist) come back, yet again, to the same theme.  In effect, laudable goals do not equal laudable programs.  That’s why this exercise in transparency is so necessary.  Native Hawaiians deserve to know if all of these efforts to increase their family income, preserve their land, and protect their culture are actually good and effective program, or if they’re nothing more than vanity projects, giveaways to favored groups, or noble ideas that just don’t work in the real world.  Or whether they’re working like crazy and just need some more publicity and support to really help.  Some people get threatened by transparency efforts like 4HawaiiansOnly.  They think we’re trying to attack people or take away their support.  That’s a very defensive and short-sighted view.  All we’re doing is giving people the information they need to make an informed judgment about how their money is being spent.  You have to wonder about the motivations of those who want to prevent people from having that knowledge.

Racial Equality . . . Brought to You by Kellogg

Yes, that Kellogg.  Or, more accurately, his charitable legacy, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.  It’s Grrrrrreat!

It was recently announced that Chaminade is the lucky recipient of a $200,000 grant from the Kellogg Foundation for a program that will help promote racial equality and healing (their words, not mine) through . . . er . . . well, as near as I can tell, through a travelling history exhibit and some college seminars.  Oh yeah!  Bring on the healing, Chaminade.  I know that nothing makes me feel more like destroying complicated socio-historical boundaries than a multi-disciplinary university conference.  I’m sure the fact that Martin Luther King, Jr. didn’t mention them in his “I Have a Dream” speech was just an oversight.

Ok. I’m being a little glib and unfair here.  The grant (which is spread over two years) actually goes to support the Chaminade History Center’s Native Hawaiian History Initiative, which plans to bring “expert instruction” on things native Hawaiian to schools with lots of Native Hawaiian students.  And then of course, there will also be the various university symposia, lectures, and so on.

Now obviously, I have my reservations about how much a feel-good program designed to appeal more to resume-burnishing college professors than ordinary folk is going to do to break down racial barriers.  But here’s the neat thing:  who cares?  It’s a private grant from a private foundation.  No taxpayer funds involved.  Granted, I can be one of those annoying people who points out everything else they could choose to do with their money, but in the end, it is their money.

Of course, that doesn’t answer the question of whether it’s a program that will actually help Native Hawaiians in any measurable way.  (Let’s just dispense with the pretense that this is going to promote any kind of racial healing at all.  Problems of racial equality are rarely soothed by a bracing university lecture series.)   So were I Native Hawaiian, I’d be a tad annoyed that so much of the money spent to allegedly “help” me goes to community centers, elitist conferences, and travelling history displays.  But then again, if I were Native Hawaiian, I’d have a whole list of gripes to work through about the sheer number of people throwing around gobs of money to “help” me–as though I were some kind of sad, incapable social project.  (And on that note, I’d better stop before this becomes even more rant-y.)

Spotlight Grant – Waipa Foundation

In 2009, OHA gave a grant of $150,000 to the Waipa Foundation for a project that can best be described as an attempt at cultural conservation.  This seems to be a something of a modern trend in Native Hawaiian granting, so if you’re looking for Native Hawaiian grant dollars, I can only recommend that you find some culturally significant land (not hard in Hawaii–there’s a good chance that you’re standing on some right now) and propose the building of a community and cultural center there to preserve some kind of tradition.  And if you could throw a sustainable farm into the mix, that wouldn’t hurt either.

The Waipa Foundation is doing just that in Waipa, Kauai, where the project stepped in to prevent the further development of the area and preserve Waipa as a, “sustainable, culturally and community-based model for land use and management.”  There is, of course, a Native Hawaiian cultural center at the heart of the project, and an ambitious plan for a kitchen, a poi mill,  and the farming of local crops.  The original vision of the Foundation involved a strong theme of restoring the land to its potential, and the website does allude to future plans for reforestation and similar ecological projects.  (Personally, as someone with family on Kauai, I can’t help but wonder if the grant application mentioned the need to preserve the Hanalei area from affluent hippies.)

Of course, it remains to be seen whether these types of projects will be successful in the long-term . . . especially because they (by necessity) take a long time to develop and evolve.  A switch in grant trends could leave Waipa and similar projects high and dry (financially speaking) unless they were able to reach some level of sustainability and self-sufficiency.

And of course, there is still the big question that lies at the heart of so much of Native Hawaiian granting.  Does this project truly help Native Hawaiians?  Is this how they would choose to spend the funding if allowed to vote on the matter?  (This then leads to obvious questions about the finances of Hawaiian self-determination, but we’ll leave that debate for another day.)

A Real Help in Education

Don’t think that I haven’t noticed a certain . . . cynicism coming from many of our analyses of the grants on our site.  I swear that it’s not because I’m a curmudgeon with a skeptical nature.  Well, let’s say that it’s not entirely because of the skeptic/curmudgeon thing.  To be clear: I think that there are great things that can be done to help Native Hawaiians.  I want to see the ones that work get the kudos they deserve.  But this is an area that needs the bright light of transparency like Lady Gaga needs a new stylist.  (Translation for the pop culturally-impaired: It needs it a lot.)

Anyway, lest it be said that we never have anything nice to say about OHA or their grants, let me take the opportunity to bring attention to their K-12 Family Education Assistance Program, which is now accepting applications from Native Hawaiian Families with significant education costs.  In short, these are grants of up to $5000 to Native Hawaiians families who are spending a large proportion of their income in order to send their children to private school.  The point is (obviously) to help give disadvantaged families better access to private education.  (And by extension, better academic and career chances, etc., etc.  Not to disparage public schooling in Hawaii, but . . . um . . . you know, my mom always told me that if I didn’t have anything nice to say, it’s better to keep my mouth shut.)

Who couldn’t get behind individual scholarships help for disadvantaged Hawaiian families?  This is the kind of thing that the trust monies were made for.  Moreover, it’s good to see the effort to help Hawaiians get a better education at the lower grade levels, thereby setting the students up for more success as they get older.  It’s nice that there are college scholarships to help Hawaiians as well, but how many promising kids slip through the cracks and never even get the opportunity to apply to college.  Quite a few education experts feel that we should be focusing our efforts at improving opportunities in primary and secondary education rather than placing so much emphasis on college entrance rates.

Anyway, the deadline for applications to these grants is June 30th, so if you know someone who might be interested, send them to to this page on the OHA website to learn more about requirements, applications, and so on.

Akaka by OHA

So, if you’ve been living in a cave on Mars, with your fingers in your ears, going, “La, la, la, la, la” over and over again, you’ll probably be glad to hear that the Office of Hawaiian Affairs has launched an “informational” page to help people truly understand the implications of the Akaka Bill.  Of course, if you’re even slightly conscious and an inhabitant of Hawaii, you probably already have  grasp of the basics.  But I’m sure OHA’s effort will be deeply appreciated by those who just woke from a coma or those who don’t care to have their news tainted by elements of impartiality.

Of course, there’s not much new to find there–they’ve basically taken the “There, there . . . no need to worry, it won’t change anything except the very foundations of the state,” approach.  It was interesting to see that they skipped right past the fact that a roll of names of eligible Hawaiians to participate in the formation of the of the new Native Hawaiian government would be determined and published . . . without really questioning how that determination would be reached.  This was especially fascinating in light of OHA’s assurance that the Akaka Bill is not race-based.  Technically speaking, that would be proper, as the Kingdom of Hawaii was not a racial entity, but a regular old sovereign government with borders, citizens of many races, and so on.  But that’s not exactly the history of Native Hawaiian programs in the last several decades, which (understandably) tend to focus on actual Native Hawaiian lineage.

The claim that the Akaka Bill is not race-based does bring up an interesting paradox, however. Pretend for a moment that it really was going to reflect the history of the Hawaiian nation and include anyone who can trace their heritage to citizens of the Kingdom–including Native Hawaiians, Chinese, whites, and so on.  It certainly would be a most accurate representations of Hawaiian citizens at the time of annexation.  But would there be much support for an Akaka Bill that wasn’t at it’s heart, race-based?  Somehow, I doubt it.

Hey Buddy, Can You Spare a Sustainable Plant?

Sometimes, I really have to wonder about the thinking behind some of these grant programs.  Take, for example, the $444,500 granted in 2009 to the Ali’i Pauahi Hawaiian Civic Club from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  (Yep, federal funds.)  The grant is being given for Ka Mahi’ ai ‘Ihi o Wailea (The Sacred Farm of Wailea).  Again, I have to stress here that this is the actual language from the grant.  I am not making  up the sacredness of the farm in question.  So what is it that the Sacred Farm is going to do with hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxpayer funds?  Why, the money is for, “Establishing a community and culturally-based sustainable farm to raise sacred and important native plants for domestic use and export.”  Sacred and important Hawaiian plants.  As opposed to non-sacred or unimportant plants.  Not to get too hung up on the plant judgment thing, but I couldn’t resist doing a Google search to try to find out what counts as a sacred Hawaiian plant.  Unfortunately, there isn’t a sacredandimportanthawaiianplants.com.  As far as I can tell, a sacred native plant is a plant with some degree of use in Hawaiian culture + the word “sacred”.  So we’ve got taro, ‘ohelo, and so on.

Ok, I’m getting a little obsessed here.  I just can’t stop envisioning some pencil-pusher in Washington nodding and saying something like, “Of course we do have to protect the sacred native plants.”

What I don’t get is how this is really an effort to help Native Hawaiians.  I’m sure the argument is about creating a viable business for the community, but if that were really the goal, then there wouldn’t be so many limitations on the products of the farm.  Assuming that there is a viable trade in export and sale of Hawaiian plants (which there clearly is), then why not make the focus on creating a sustainable source of income for the community?  Obviously, there are competitors in the native plant business.  And at least some of those aren’t going to be adding cost to their production by requiring the farming to be “culturally-based” and “sustainable.”  Not that these aren’t selling points in themselves–as the organic trend has taught us, there are people willing to pay the upcharge for philosophy-based farming–but who is this really helping?  If you lived in a struggling community, how happy would you be to hear that your newest economic opportunity was in the form of a Sacred Farm?  I just can’t shake the feeling that this is more about helping Sacred Farm then aiding the community at large.