The Hawaiian petitions protesting annexation

In 1897 more than 38,000 Hawaiian nationals (the total population was 40,000) signed petitions, that were delivered to and acknowledged in Washington, D.C., protesting annexation by the United States. A hundred years later in 1997 Noenoe K. Silva, a Hawaiian, educated present-day Native Hawaiians when she found the documents in the U.S. Archives and brought them back to the Islands.

I was reminded of this last night over dinner with two woman warrior friends, Karen and Pat, who told me of the demonstration this past Monday at the statue of President William McKinley in Honolulu, where he is holding a so-called “Treaty of Annexation.” The point was, there is no annexation treaty.

Karen and Pat also alerted me to a controversial bill, relating to government, in the current Hawaii State legislature that is already set to be heard in the Ways and Means committee on Friday, Feb. 25. Hawaiian sovereignty activists, take note.

You may head on over to http://kalahuihawaii.wordpress.com for my Feb. 23 accounts and links to details of each. One is “Kue petition revisited” and the other is “Akaka bill: now what.” Noenoe Silva’s article is most sobering. http://libweb.hawaii.edu/digicoll/annexation/pet-intro.html

Copyright 2011 Rebekah Luke

Master plan for Hawaiian sovereignty

A master plan for Hawaiian sovereignty exists. It is entitled “Hookupu a Ka Lahui Hawaii,” and I just installed it on http://kalahuihawaii.wordpress.com/. It was first published in 1995, 15 years ago. If you are interested in the manao (ideas) of Native Hawaiians concerning their homeland, do take a look.  Mahalo!

A Native Hawaiian initiative

Some of my friends may know that I am a citizen of Ka Lahui Hawaii. I attended a working group meeting today to give a progress report on the new website http://kalahuihawaii.wordpress.com/ that I manage. It is even newer than Rebekah’s Studio.

For weeks we’ve been figuring how best to install certain documents for the public, and from the response of citizens at today’s meeting we uploaded the “Constitution of Ka Lahui Hawaii.” I am so happy! And there will be more information to come.

Looking back, quite a lot of nation building occurred in the 1990s. The citizens and honorary citizens were very active on all islands and on Moku Honu (North America). I remember attending legislative sessions throughout the islands: Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Maui and Hawaii. There was an extensive sovereignty education program and citizens took stands on issues often.

Many of our kupuna (Hawaiian elders) who guided the nation in the early years have passed over. Remembering the legacy they left us, we are now continuing to pick up the pieces and press onward.

I think people who are unaware or, and I say this kindly, ignorant of the Native Hawaiian situation—whether they are sympathetic to Native initiatives or not—will be surprised at how much work Ka Lahui Hawaii accomplished:

The Constitution, Master Plan, resolutions, work at the United Nations level, treaties with other nations, educational and economic programs, research—all done at a grassroots level. We met in churches, in parking lots, in parks, at community centers, at each others’ homes.

If you have an interest, please visit

kalahuihawaii.wordpress.com

Through the power of the internet, the Ka Lahui Hawaii working group is recording the nation’s efforts in cyberspace for current and future generations.

Copyright 2009 Rebekah Luke

Keeping up on sovereignty issues

Three live panel discussions on the status of Hawaiian sovereignty will be held tomorrow, Saturday, Oct.  24, at the UH Kamakakuokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies, 2645 Dole Street, in Honolulu, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. They’re free to the public. For those interested, this will be a good opportunity to catch up and become more informed. As filmmaker Anne Keala Kelly noted (see my 10/9/09 post “Wrongful occupation of Hawaii”), the Hawaiian activists are on the map, but they are all over the map.  I’m planning to attend some of the talks so I can make some informed decisions for myself. The Hawaiian Studies center is a safe environment, and all are welcome. Some details about the speakers and the topics are on the Calendar of Events page of the following website:

kalahuihawaii.wordpress.com

A hui hou! Malama pono!

Wrongful occupation of Hawaii

Anne Keala Kelly has made a very disturbing documentary film entitled “Noho Hewa: The Wrongful Occupation of Hawai‘i” that all Hawaiians and Hawaiians at heart should see. It is so disturbing that at the end of last night’s screening, when the house lights came up and Keala asked the audience for questions, there was dead silence in the Paliku Theatre of Windward Community College.

“Noho Hewa: The Wrongful Occupation of Hawai‘i” is so disturbing that it won the Best Documentary 2008 Award of the Hawaii International Film Festival. That was last October. Now, ten more minutes have been added, and the DVD is now available for $20 to help the filmmaker recoup her expenses.

Our family bought two copies. You may go to nohohewa.com for information about future screenings or to purchase the DVD. Keala will take her guerrilla film to the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque on October 12, 2009, and to Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma on October 15, 2009. Admission is free.

For more information by the filmmaker, visit nohohewa.com

Quoting the DVD cover notes of “Noho Hewa”:

Hawai‘i, thought of by most as the 50th state, is, according to international law, an independent country under an illegal and prolonged occupation by the United States. Through this occupation, Hawai‘i has become home to the largest military command on earth. It also has more endangered species’ habitats per square mile and is the location of more open field tests of genetically modified organisms than anywhere else in the world.

Beyond the illegitimacy of the U.S. presence in Hawai‘i, “Noho Hewa” looks at the methodical removal of Hawaiians from their homeland. The film considers how the erasure of Hawaiian people and history through government sponsored acts of desecration is central to an ongoing agenda to ethnically cleanse Hawai‘i of the Kanaka ‘Oiwi, the indigenous population of Hawai‘i.

If you are alive at all, “Noho Hewa” will shock you. I am Hawaiian. I consider myself an activist. My Hawaiian friends, neighbors, citizens of Ka Lahui Hawaii, and my extended family are in this film. This piece of journalism—it’s excellent—has woken me up even more to the truth about Hawaii, my beloved home. If you can, share this information with others and decide what you will do. It will take all the courage you have. Mahalo to Anne Keala Kelly for hers.

Copyright 2009 Rebekah Luke

On Native Hawaiian sovereignty

Yesterday  morning, I performed with the Punahou Alumni Glee Club at the 33rd annual “Day at Queen Emma Summer Palace.” Yesterday afternoon, I attended a meeting to reorganize Ka Lahui Hawaii, the Native Hawaiian initiative for sovereignty. It was an interesting juxtaposition of Saturday events for me.

One event honored Queen Emma who stood for Hawaii remaining autonomous as its own sovereign nation in an earlier Hawaii ruled by monarchs, and the other represented a continuing call for self determination by the indigenous peoples of the Hawaiian Islands.

The Queen Emma Summer Palace museum is operated by the Daughters of Hawaii, founded in 1903 by seven daughters of American Protestant missionaries “to perpetuate the memory and spirit of old Hawaii and of historic facts, and to preserve the nomenclature and correct pronunciation of the Hawaiian language.”

Queen Emma (Emma Naea Rooke 1836-1885) was the wife of Alexander Liholiho (Kamehameha IV). Queen Emma and King Kamehameha IV supported the Hawaiian people through major good deeds, namely the establishment in the late 1850s of Queen’s hospital in Honolulu, originally intended for sick and indigent Hawaiians, and the establishment of the Episcopal Church in Hawaii in 1861 that included the gift of nearby land for St. Andrew’s Cathedral.

Alexander Liholiho died in 1863, shortly after their son Prince Albert Kauikeaouli died at age four. After the reigns of Lot Kamehameha (Kamehameha V) and William Lunalilo, in 1875, Emma ran in an election against Kalakaua to become the next ruler of Hawaii and lost. Emma was unhappy with Kalakaua’s rule, and she considered America an enemy for wanting to possess the Hawaiian Islands. (Source: Hawai‘i the Royal Legacy by Allan Seiden, Mutual Publishing Co., Honolulu, 1992)

The proceeds from yesterday’s fundraiser will help to restore and preserve Queen Emma Summer Palace as well as Hulihee Palace in Kailua-Kona. Queen Emma Summer Palace is a most beautiful spot, built where cool breezes blow down the valley and through a lovely landscaped tropical garden. Imagine women in long white dresses and parasols enjoying tea on the patio or strolling beneath a spreading Chinese miulan tree (Michelia champaca).

Actors portray King Kamehameha IV (Alexander Liholiho a.k.a. Iolani) and Queen Emma (Kaleleonalani) on "A Day at Queen Emma Summer Palace"

On a day like yesterday, $6 bought admission to the palace, the grounds, free parking, and a whole day of live Hawaiian music and hula beginning with the Royal Hawaiian Band.  Additionally there were demonstrations of native Hawaiian art—pounding kalo (taro) into poi, weaving lau hala (pandanus leaves), Hawaiian quilting, and sewing lei hulu (feather lei)—and a fashion show. You could buy native plants, very good quality arts and handcrafts, ono (delicious) food, books about Hawaii and curios. The relaxing time was a well-organized la-di-da affair for the public.

The Hawaiian place name of Queen Emma’s summer home, located in upper Nuuanu Valley, is Hanaiakamalama, meaning “the foster child of the light (or moon).” It was here that a docent recommended to me Hawaii’s Story by Hawaii’s Queen by Liliuokalani as a primer for learning about Hawaiian history.

Soon afterward, in 1993, one hundred years after Queen Liliuokalani and the Hawaiian nation were overthrown by American businessmen and therefore the United States, I became an active citizen of Ka Lahui Hawaii, the grass-roots Native Hawaiian initiative for sovereignty. I started to learn what it was to be Hawaiian through Ka Lahui Hawaii.

Ka Lahui Hawaii was in the news and led the sovereignty movement until about five, maybe seven, years ago. There are many reasons why Ka Lahui Hawaii fell “off the radar,” to quote the words of a fellow citizen. It’s my opinion that activism requires great stamina and wherewithal for success, as well as good organization and support. It can be tiring.

Then some weeks ago I learned that a meeting to reorganize Ka Lahui Hawaii would be held on October 3. Curious about what would transpire, and wanting to support, I went after the Queen Emma gig and unfurled the flag.  I can report first hand the good news:

Ka Lahui Hawaii is alive and well. Twenty loyal citizens who could make it to Oahu—including all the past kiaaina (governors) as well as citizen representatives from Hawaii island, Molokai, and several Oahu districts—attended the meeting. By the time I arrived, they had formed the Ka Lahui Hawaii Working Group (because the nation is already formed) that is scheduled to meet on Oahu at 9 a.m., the first Saturday of every month, place to be announced.

Some of the members of the Ka Lahui Hawaii Working Group with the national flag—the Makalii (Pleiades constellation) on a blue field—at the Oct. 3, 2009, meeting in Honolulu. Mililani Trask (seated second from left), Josiah "Black" Hoohuli (seated fourth from left), and Lehua Kinilau (seated fifth from left) each held the office and served as Kiaaina (governor) in the past.

The group decided its mission would be threefold: 1) to reorganize Ka Lahui Hawaii, 2) to communicate and 3) to represent Ka Lahui Hawaii. The group identified and listed current Native Hawaiian sovereignty issues and agreed to make known the Ka Lahui Hawaii position on these issues. They made committee assignments and plans for communicating on the different islands and among islands.

The sentiment was, perhaps in its prior years Ka Lahui Hawaii was ahead of its time. Yesterday the citizens appeared rested, more learned, more mature, and ready to rally once again. When I first became a citizen, women overwhelmingly outnumbered men. Yesterday there were equal numbers of men and women. Perhaps we as individuals have become more balanced, and that quality is now transmitted to the group. Hoomakaukau. (Prepare and make ready.) I truly hope all Ka Lahui Hawaii citizens and honorary citizens will pitch in and unite for the cause.

Copyright 2009 Rebekah Luke

If you want to know more about Ka Lahui Hawaii, please read FAQ by clicking on this link here.

Contact me if you would like a copy of the October 3, 2009, KLH Working Group meeting notes emailed to you.