Hawaiians march to unify a voice
By Tom Lochner
CONTRA COSTA TIMESSAN LEANDRO - About two dozen Hawaiians, joined by a few American Indians and friends of Hawaiian culture from other parts of the world, held an "Aloha March" through downtown Sunday to call for self-determination for their Pacific island group, the nation's 50th state.
The march was nominally for independence for the islands, which the United States annexed in 1898, five years after Americans seized control from Hawaii's Queen Liliuokalani.
But Kai'opua Fyfe, a board member of the Kauai-based Koani Foundation which organized the march, said native Hawaiians' aspirations range anywhere from the current status quo to outright independence.
"The first thing we're striving for is unification," said Fyfe, 62, a construction manager who has devoted most of the past 10 years to the cause of independence. "We've got to be speaking with a single voice."
Soon after Capt. James Cook landed on Kauai in 1778, the islands attracted Western settlers who established whaling ports and sugar plantations, imposed their morality and culture, and also brought disease and alcoholism.
Today Hawaiians, defined as anyone with any Hawaiian blood, constitute the single largest group, at 22 percent, in a land of minorities, Fyfe said.
"As far as we're concerned, a molecule of Hawaiian blood makes you Hawaiian," Fyfe said, "because inside that molecule is the DNA in which reside the ancestors of all of us."
Citizens of an independent Hawaii would include residents who do not have Hawaiian blood.
Sunday's march was inspired by much larger Aloha marches in Washington, D.C., in 1998 and 2000. During the next two years, organizers hope to conduct at least 10 marches in cities across the nation and a large march in Washington, D.C., in 2005.
Sunday's march was a celebration of culture for Fyfe's mother, Kalunaalanui "Ann" Muller Fyfe, 85. She has lived in San Leandro since 1947 when her husband, who was in the Navy, was transferred to the Bay Area. A professional singer of Hawaiian music in the 1930s, she said she is happy enough in San Leandro although, "I miss Hawaiian music."
Carole Henderson of Martinez, a senior paralegal for a Walnut Creek law firm who is of mixed Irish-Hawaiian descent, said it made her happy that a construction worker shouted "Mahalo," -- thank you in Hawaiian.
"Obviously, it (the march) touched someone," Henderson, 56, said, "and for me, that's all right."
Myrissa Lai, a Chinese-American classical pianist from Oakland, marched in solidarity with "Hawaiians and all indigenous people who have been repressed, oppressed, underrepresented -- violated.
"I just want to support the people's desire to keep their culture and have it valued and appreciated," Lai said.
The march, which began at the San Leandro Main Public Library, concluded a joint weekend event with the California Indian Storytelling Festival titled "Bridging the Pacific."
"We (Indians and Hawaiians) have gone through the same things," among them colonization, said Alex Ramirez, 74, an Ohlone originally from Carmel.
"The government took our culture; the government took our land," he said. "They (Hawaiians) sing; we sing. They dance; we dance.
"They have their stories to keep the traditions; we have our stories."
