Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 21, Number 1, 1 January 2004 — Protect native rights [ARTICLE]

Protect native rights

Only the Akaka bill ean protect Hawaiians. Hawaiians are indigenous to these islands, just as Inuits are to Alaska, and Amerindian tribes are to the mainland. They have federal recognition, so why not Hawaiians? What provokes wannabes who are not Hawaiian to take legal action against Kamehameha Schools? Or to cry out for abolishment of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands? It's jealousy in the case of Kamehameha Schools, a private, well-endowed educational system that gives Hawaiian children the best ehanee they will ever get to become academically and culturally equipped to function equally in the business, education and service industries of a Westernized society that decimated their culture. It's fear, in the case of doing away with OHA and DHHL, two groups that protect what's left of Hawaiian rights and lands. I'm a haole who feels "lucky to live Hawai'i" because of the Hawaiian culture and the people who live it. Please, speak to your representatives and senators. If the Akaka bill doesn't pass, all of us in every minority stand to lose paradise forever. Marjorie Scott Kailua