Posted by Sam Richards
Here’s one of those issues that we rarely ever heard discussed in this part of the United States. In fact, I’m not even sure how would it might come about that anyone would ever consider reading about the history of Hawaii and the people who lived there long before some guy named “Dole” was given the power to make decisions about their fate. In the event that you end up one day visiting those islands to walk their “pristine” beaches, this might be worth having in the back of your mind.
Read the article: “Native Hawaiian Government May Become Reality”
I feel that the Native Hawaiians do deserve something. This is not because I feel guilty for something, but rather I feel that if rights and self-government are extended to Alaskans and over five hundred other tribes than why not too the Hawaiians also. It seems only fair to me that they are given some kind of power over the land that we took away from them. The stats that were given in this article about the native Hawaiians being less prosperous and less educated than their colonizers seem familiar to me. The Native Americans have also had to endure this fate. It seems to me that it is about time to give these people something for what they have gone through.
[Reply]
That would be really cool if the law passed to make a government run by Native Hawaiians. It is about time for our government to recognize them in a positive way. I just really hope they do not do what they have done in the past and give the natives barren, useless land (if that exists in Hawaii). I hope it is not land without any resources. If they are going to go through the motions and claim that they are returning land that was not theirs in the first place, it should be done the right way or the inequality will continue.
I learned from the article that Obama was born in Hawaii. While I agree that Native Hawaiians should not have been ignored for this long, I believe that having a president who was born there will improve the plight of these natives. I still do not really understand how Native Hawaiians have not received any compensation whereas many other Native American tribes have. I guess it really isn’t that hard considering I did not even realize that they were struggling either.
Seeing these people join together battling these injustices with a successful outlook on the situation is impressive to me. It is a good example of how far we have come as a nation. In my opinion, America does a decent job of dealing with race relations. Watching those videos of the soccer games in Europe demonstrates that at least we acknowledge race issues in America.
This class does a great job of opening my eyes to events going on in the world around me. Just learning and hearing stories makes me want to go out and explore the world myself. I am starting to realize more and more how easy it is to ignore race and other cultural problems as a white middle class American citizen. Growing up, I don’t think I ever heard about how bad Native Americans struggled and continue to struggle in America.
I have thought about Native Hawaiians once in my life until now. That was when I got a cool Hawaiian temporary armband tattoo from a business trip my dad went on. When I put them on, I thought I was so awesome. I put leis around my neck and played with a hula-hoop for hours pretending I was Hawaiian. I thought everyone had the life in Hawaii. The weather was gorgeous; the scenery was beautiful, how could anyone be unhappy on that island? But then I took Sociology 119 and that perfect image changed drastically. Reading this article made me realize how little I do know about global issues and how much more I have to learn about in the future.
[Reply]
This topic raises some important issues about the rights of Native Hawaiians. Sam is right in his description of the typical portrait of Hawaii. White sandy beaches, lush tropical landscapes, and soaring volcanoes all spring to mind when Hawaii is mentioned. The movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall represents this to a T. But no one ever thinks about the thousands of Native Hawaiians that are homeless, or living in poverty, or still facing discrimination a decade into the twenty first century. The parallels between the status of Native Hawaiians and Native Americans are obvious. They had a perfectly capable and functioning government. However, when colonizers arrived, they brought foreign diseases and decimated the structure of the native people’s lives. I think it’s important to afford them the same right as Native Americans to establish their own government and to provide assistance when needed. The issue that needs the most attention is how to provide the Native Hawaiians with the same opportunities in housing, jobs, and education as other people. However, it’s important to work towards these goals by pursuing a course of action that doesn’t prove detrimental to other Hawaiians’ lives. The study that showed the $343 million in lost tax revenue is one unfortunate obstacle. I support the idea of establishing a Native Hawaiian government, but it needs to be accomplished in an efficient manner that doesn’t hurt other citizens of Hawaii.
I think this issue has definitely benefited from Barack Obama in office. It is interesting because this topic definitely would not be receiving as much attention had he not been born in Hawaii. I think this is an important facet of democracy. I believe it is not so much about the color of your skin as where and how you were raised demographically. Because he was born there and probably saw a lot of the devastated native people described in the article, it became an important issue for Obama. It is a shocking statistic that twenty eight percent of the state’s homeless are Native Hawaiian even though Native Hawaiians comprise only twenty percent of the state’s total population. The quote from Bert Beaman, a Hawaiian from Keaau Beach Park, really illustrated the desperation felt by most Hawaiians. Beaman said, "It's been far too long for the Hawaiian people to be suffering. Whatever Hawaiians can get, get it and be grateful." It is extremely sad that ethnic groups like the Native Hawaiians and the Native Americans are still so dispossessed in twenty first century America. Hopefully this new legislation and media coverage will draw attention to the rampant inequality that is still pervasive in modern America. Like the whole tampon discussion in lecture, the important thing is to engage in dialogue about it, not push it to the back of your mind.
[Reply]
I find it hard to believe why this issue was never addressed until now. It just doesn’t make sense. Why would native Hawaiians not get their own government just like every other Native American in the continental states? When the US government was going through all of the tribes and granting them certain rights, did they just pass over the Hawaiians? Or was there some kind of deeper prejudice since they were located a couple hundred miles out at sea? Either way it’s about time. I don’t have a lot of strong feelings toward government policy most of the time, but the blatant disregard for the people that were here first is one thing that irks me the most.
[Reply]
I had never thought about Native Hawaiians in this way but their situation is very similar to that of Native Americans. It is nice to see that the government is trying to "right some wrongs" from the past by providing them with money and land but will this really help out their situation? Giving money to the poor does not help future generations and they usually do not become more productive. The way to get a society out of poverty is through education. Native Americans have received similar help from the government and some are allowed to govern themselves as it is mentioned in the article, but it has not seemed to help them. At the same time though I definitely feel that Native Hawaiians should govern themselves because their kingdom was broken up by the United States.
[Reply]
This article really caught me by surprise, I never really gave any thought to the Native Hawaiians. Whenever I think of Native Americans I just think of the Apaches, Sioux, or Susquehannocks, etc. The part of the article where Jamie Story says " its not the role of the government to make up for past wrongs" is very disturbing. If we have the opportunity to help people then why not do it. And don't give me that crap about it will cost to much money, there's always more money to go around, taxes should be higher in this country anyway. A society should be judged by the way we treat our most in need.
[Reply]
I think that this is a good thing if at least just a start for the native Hawaiians to be the last indigenous group to finally be recognized and at least start to get back what is rightfully theirs. Once everything is finalized I think that I will be a good thing for the children to learn more about their history and culture. Also this could eventually bring more tourism dollars to these people that will still travel to the islands and I think that the tourists will be more interested in learning about the native people of the islands.
[Reply]
Native Hawaiians do deserve to be treated as the other native peoples of the Americas. But even then, I think more should be done fore theses people considering even when Native American tribes have the rights to self government and they still cannot prosper in life, mainly because they are oppressed by the U.S government. I think these people are put in a corner because the government doesn't want the citizens of the U.S to see how badly these people are treated. I think that if people did see this, they would actrually try to help somehow and this would cause a revolt on the U. S government.
[Reply]
For some reason it seems to me as if Native Hawaiians are left out of the conversations when considering United States Native Americans. I know most people don't think of them as far as I know. When I hear Hawaii, I think beautiful beaches, the sunshine, palm trees, volcanoes. I pretty much think of a place of paradise all around. No one thinks of whose land it used to be and who we stole it from, just like the rest of the native Americans. It is just unfair to them. Especially the Hawaiians, why do they get overlooked?
I hope this gets passed. They should have this opportunity to have a say for themselves. We raided and stole their land. The least we can do is give them a little say on what is theirs. We can at least give them the opportunity to succeed and get their community revived from shambles. It is absolutely absurd that these men and women are left unnoticed living on the streets of our country.
This whole thing makes me think even more about our relationship with the Native americans and the largest genocide in human history that no one knows about or talks about. It is incredibly interesting about how much we do not talk about what happened to our Native americans on the mainland, yet they were still able to muster together 564 different governmental tribes. This just puts into perspective exactly how overlooked the native Hawaiians seem to be.
However, this interesting because how much they are overlooked they are also praised and right in the limelight at the same time. With things that tourists like to do like luaus, hula dances, etc. It is interesting how much these things are looked at as fun things to go and see while they are on their vacation. So, there is a bit of a double standard here. Their culture is praised and looked at as being interested and part of the Hawaiian vacation experience except credit doesn't seem to be given where credit is due.
These people are living in horrible conditions. Many are homeless. Others are struggling financially. The large chain hotels are making big money off of these scheduled luaus and cookouts where americans from the main land learn about the culture about the native hawaiian culture while these people can not even have the opportunity to have a say with a government until now possibly. It really is a shame that these people have to be treated like this. This is just another injustice in our nation that is left somewhat unnoticed. This should be dealt will easily and immediately and non one should be criticizing their opportunity to do this.
[Reply]
We often hear about how Native Americans were treated horribly during our expansion across the United States. Many people think we do should give Native Americans more rights, and should give them reparations for the inhumane treatment of them three hundred years ago. The treatment of Native Americans was horrid, but most people living in the United States at least know something about the events that occurred between settlers and Native Americans. In contrast, very few Americans know much if anything about the settlement of Hawaii. The treatment was not as violent as it was with the Native Americans, but we still just took the land they had been living on for generations and made it our own.
I completely disagree with Jamie Story saying that the government’s role is not to make up for past wrongs. Not only should that be an objective of the government, but to actually say something like that to a group of clearly wronged people is ridiculous. The government should aim for fairness is all situations, and just because he wasn’t around when the land was actually taken, that does not mean we have no obligation to try to help these people.
It sometimes scares me to see politicians say things like this because if they are comfortable saying things like that in public, what are they doing behind closed doors? I know a government cannot operate by trying to be nice all the time, but when possible I think we should try to simply be fair even if it means giving up a couple things. Giving Native Hawaiians some of their land back would certainly be an inconvenience for the State government of Hawaii as well as cost them significant tax earnings, but we really should never have had the land in the first place, and never should have received taxes from them.
I really hope Hawaiians get some of their land back and are someday able to govern themselves at least to some extent. It’s impossible to say, but I’m sure they would still want to be a productive and successful part of the United States. Not only do they deserve to have their land back, it is just the right thing to do. The United States is one of the most powerful nations in the world and yet we still can’t manage the thought of losing a small piece of land to those who rightly deserve it. I’m sure sharing or redistributing the land would be much more complicated than just drawing a line in the sand, no pun intended, but we have to start somewhere. It’s unacceptable how we treated both Native Americans and Native Hawaiians, and I hope that someday we can begin to repay them for all the wrongs we have done to them.
[Reply]
I knew very little about Hawaii's acquisition before reading this article but I did know that the U.S. effectively stole the islands from the native people and overthrew their government. so when reading this article I was pleased to read that we could be giving back the land stolen as a good faith gesture. I support such initiatives not just out of guilt for what our countries past generations did but also in order to help preserve the culture that could very well be extinct simply because we hampered the culture for our own financial benefit. I realize that the financial hit the state will inevitably see is considerable. but I think we should look more to the benefit of the people who need it the most, the native Hawaiians. if the numbers are correct the Native Hawaiians might not see the benefit immediately but given time they could find their lives vastly improved, the idea that these people are down trodden is evident so giving them the right to live as they want as a separate nation is the best way to give them something to fight for. returning their sense of self and of their people, a cultural identity revitalization as it were. look at the Native Indian tribes who run their own casinos they make money and sustain themselves in their own way this is all the Hawaiians will be getting a sense of being who they are again.
[Reply]
I was in basic training with a few native Hawaiians. They were a pretty interesting bunch of individuals, but one in particular sticks out in my mind: Weir. I am not entirely sure how he got the European sounding surname, but regardless, he opened my eyes to native Hawaiians. Before my chats with Weir, I had not even realized that there was even a population of indigenous peoples living in Hawaii! In my defense, I was just out of high school, which was made up of about 98 percent white people, and was just beginning to be thrust in the world of cultural and ethnic diversity. Before talking with Weir, I only thought of Hawaii in the magazine cover kind of way: sandy beaches, blue waters, surfers, hula dancers, leis, and volcanoes. I was aware of Pearl Harbor and the events that unfolded there propelling the United States into World War II. Other than that, Hawaii was just a big resort in the Pacific Ocean that somehow became a state. I guess the United States needed its own little tropical vacation area. Weir began to tell me about his personal experiences as a native Hawaiian. He pointed out that the native Hawaiians did not care too much about the laws and regulations of the United States’ Government. He told me about the marijuana plants that his family grew behind their house. I did not know what to think. I tried to picture my own mother growing marijuana plants in her garden in the backyard, and the uproar it would cause if they were discovered. Weir pointed out to me that it really wasn’t a big deal to the native Hawaiians. He told me that it wasn’t that Native Hawaiians are potheads; in fact, he told me many of them do not even smoke dope. He said that growing marijuana wasn’t any different than growing tomatoes or corn. Some people grow peppers and eat peppers; some people grow marijuana and smoke it. Weir told me about his house. It wasn’t extravagant or anything like what I would have pictured a Hawaiian home to look like. Before I had only pictured resorts and beach cabanas, but Weir pointed out that he lived in a little house about the size of a trailer. He was out of sight of the big resorts with all the beautiful American tourist women. He told me about how he would ride his bicycle or walk into the resort area to watch the beautiful white women. I began to get a different picture of Hawaii. But here was Weir, in basic training for the United States Army. He told me he wasn’t there for the United States of America, but for the opportunity and the money that joining the military would bring him and his family. I remember getting somewhat pissed off when he said this, but later I realized I was taking the comment far too personally. It wasn’t Weir’s fault that Americans came to Hawaii and placed native Hawaiians under the authority of the U.S. Government. But, to Weir, it was what it was and he was certainly going to take advantage of the opportunity afforded to him by Uncle Sam.
[Reply]
Hawaii is a clear example of ‘Red Land.’ As we learned from the class, it sounds little bit weird they have not been granted their status as indigenous group. Even though Alaska was purchased by United States, those natives are indigenous groups. On the other hand, Hawaii was taken with power; these people are still not protected under indigenous. As United Nations’ Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples emphasizes, indigenous groups have right to culture and self-determinations which mean they can live in their traditional lifestyles with their own government.
“By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.” (Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Article 3)
As the author pointed out, the disproportionate ratios of distributed wealth caused the situation where “Native Hawaiians make up 28 percent of the state's homeless who received outreach services” (Niesse)
On this “Red Land,” it is reasonable for them to have their own government. Definitely, there will be changes that will be faced with reality. Making this area as preserved area cannot be done since so much development had been made, and, therefore, letting them have their own political system is something the government that can be done at least.
Applying the concept of free-will and determination perspectives to this case, these people did not make the decision to be poor but it was only a consequence of their ancestry’s decision to survive from the Western power. If they were treated fairly at that time, then would they still be suffered this much? Nobody can be sure about it since they might make some mistakes or, technically, wrong ‘decisions.’ However, they could have the opportunity to make a decision at least. I think it is the government’s responsibility letting them have the opportunity and, since it was not given, they have to provide some kinds of compensation in terms of politics. But, Jamie Story seems disagreeing with this idea “"It is not the role of government to try and make up for past wrongs," said Jamie Story, president of the Grassroot Institute of Hawaii, which promotes free markets and small government.” (Niesse) Well, then who should be responsible? If it was regarding individual levels, I would agree with him. For example, the idea all races other than African-Americans should be apologizing and trying to make compensations for the past wrongs seems kind of unreasonable because it is individual level – we are not sure whether their ancestry owned or freed slaves. However, if it comes with government level, it must be dealt seriously. Same thing stands here. If the government cannot, then who could? In United States I mean. The United States we believe to be the nation that respect culture.
[Reply]