HERE'S HOW NATIVE HAWAIIANS FEEL ABOUT FEDERAL RECOGNITION AND THE OVERTHROW OF THEIR COUNTRY -
Let's pretend I visit your house. You offer me food and rest. I decide to stay.
Then, I order you and your family around, use your things and rearrange the rooms. I take down your photos and religious symbols, replace them with my own and make you speak my language.
One day, I dig up your garden and replace it with crops that I can sell. You and your family must now buy all of your food from me.
Later, I invite my father and his buddies over. They bring guns. We take your keys. I forge a deed and declare my father to be the owner of your house. I bring more people. Some work for me. Some pay me to stay in your house. I seize your savings and spend it on my friends. You and your family now sleep on the porch.
Finally you protest. Being reasonable, I let you stay in a corner of the house and give you a small allowance, but only if you behave. I tell you, "Sorry, I was wrong for taking the house." But when you demand your house back, I tell you to be realistic.
"You are part of this family now, whether you like it or not," I say. "Besides, this is for your own good. For all that I have done for you, why aren't you grateful?"
"Mai maka'u, e kupa'a ma ke aloha i ka 'aina,a e lokahi ma ka mana'o. E ku'e loa aku i ka ho'ohui ia o Hawai'i me Amerika a hiki i ke aloha 'aina hope loa."
"Do not be afraid, be steadfast in aloha for your land and be united in thought. Protest forever the annexation of Hawai'i until the very last patriot."
- James Keauiluna Kaulia, President, Hui Aloha 'Aina in 1897
