BIDEN ADMINISTRATION REVIVES FEDERAL RECOGNITION FOR HAWAIIANS
Honolulu Civil Beat - January 26, 2021
Democratic control of the White House and Congress may breathe new life into efforts to establish a Native Hawaiian government that is recognized by the United States.
Honolulu City Councilwoman Esther Kia’aina, who spent decades working in Washington, D.C., including at the Department of the Interior, describes President Joe Biden’s administration as empathetic and understanding regarding Indigenous self-determination.
If Native Hawaiians want to pursue what’s commonly referred to as “federal recognition,” she said, now would be a good time.
“I don’t know of a better opportunity where you have the right people in the right places,” she said Monday in a telephone interview. “There’s no guarantee that there will be a Democratic administration in four years....”
...Uahikea Maile, assistant professor of Indigenous studies at the University of Toronto, worries federal recognition would cede U.S. control over Hawaiian lands while providing only symbolic autonomy.Uahikea Maile, assistant professor of Indigenous studies at the University of Toronto, worries federal recognition would cede U.S. control over Hawaiian lands while providing only symbolic autonomy.
Maile believes Hawaiians are already enacting an alternative to federal recognition by asserting sovereignty through actions such as opposing the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mauna Kea, a mountain many Hawaiians consider sacred.
To Maile, U.S. acknowledgment of a Hawaiian government within its borders would be analogous to a thief returning to the scene of the crime, asking for forgiveness but refusing to return what they stole.
“This is the cover-up,” he said.
“Federal recognition is the promise of symbolic self-governance as a way of covering up the original crime, which is the taking away of the government.”
Jonathan Osorio, who leads the Hawaiian Studies department at the University of Hawaii, is worried that establishing a Hawaiian government through the federal process would stymie efforts to achieve actual political separation from America.
The establishment of a nation-within-a-nation may protect current funding streams, Osorio says, but Hawaiians deserve more. Jonathan Osorio is a professor at the University of Hawaii. Jeff DePonte
“I think the practical path forward is to continue nation-building work here that includes all of the residents of this place and to gradually convince them that we would be better off separated from the U.S. as our own country,” he said, citing climate change and American social divisions as key reasons to exit the union.
Hawaiians have for years fought to overcome messages like “you’re too small, you’re too insignificant, the U.S. is too powerful, take what you can get, don’t be foolish,” Osorio said. He sees the sovereignty movement growing over time, and thinks secession could happen within the next century.
“The actual sovereignty movement has been persistent and stubborn and has become more and more informed and productive over time and not less,” he said.
