by Trustee Peter Apo

After decades of flitting about in the shadows of ignominious irrelevance, the political and cultural rebirth of Hawaiians was dramatically launched around 1975 with the Kaho‘olawe issue. At the same time, the bar on Hawaiian cultural pride and intellectual achievement was raised to unprecedented heights with Hawaiians surging forward from every corner of the state to, in some way, lend themselves to further both causes. Mainstream media went bananas for a number of years with front page coverage. From this push of the re-start button great political and cultural strides were made. In 1978 OHA was created by state constitution and in the same state constitutional convention native rights became the law of the land. The U.S. Congress blessed the return of Kaho‘olawe and a cessation to the bombing. The beleaguered Department of Hawaiian Home Lands finally got moved to the political front burner for attention. A School of Hawaiian Studies was born at UH-Mānoa. A College of Hawaiian Language was established at UH-Hilo. Hawaiians everywhere burst forth with expressions of every form of our culture – hula, visual arts, language, literature, botany, traditional arts, voyaging. Essentially, we dusted ourselves off, got up off the ground, and began a long stride toward the turn of the century. The cultural awakening was matched by a resurgence of political activity that revolved around self-determination, sovereignty, seeking a return to nationhood, and some form of a political governing entity that would give Hawaiians our own government. Much of the new-found empowerment of the Hawaiian people came through an aggressive pursuit of entitlement programs by Hawai‘i’s congressional delegation. Thus, millions of dollars have been put on the table to fund a plethora of federal programs dealing with health care, education, housing, employment, entrepreneurship, social services, and economic development.

It’s been 37 years since those first days of the Renaissance. The early years saw a lot of support from the general public and politicians for Hawaiian causes. But we are now two generations removed from those initial years. Many non-Hawaiians today have little emotional connection to the Renaissance years and to the Hawaiian agenda. Times have changed. The average Hawai‘i family is struggling to stay afloat. They are not receptive, in their struggles, to hear about how bad off we are. Partly this may be because they don’t see Hawaiians struggling any more than they are. They see Hawaiians going to college in unprecedented numbers. They see us achieving prominence in executive and professional positions. They see Hawaiian companies thriving. They also see the great wealth of the ali‘i trusts, OHA and DHHL, and the range of government programs that help only Hawaiians achieve greater income, more housing stability, better health outcomes, and higher education. At the same time, they hear Hawaiian demands for more entitlement programs, and for our own nation.

Many non-Hawaiians have lost patience with us and our demands. I don’t have polls or surveys to tell me this but I sense it. I sense it from my neighbors and I sense it in speaking to community leaders in casual conversation. I sensed it from more than a few state legislators while lobbying during the last session. What can we do to turn this around? No question, we need the support of non-Hawaiian family members, friends and allies if we are to succeed. The first thing we can do is point out how when Hawaiians thrive, everyone in Hawai‘i thrives. Every time a Hawaiian organization spends a dollar in the state—for salaries, services, supplies, consultants, labor—that dollar touches all of the people of Hawai‘i. Hawaiian money is color-blind.