The Hawaiian petitions protesting annexation

23 02 2011

In 1897 more than 38,000 Hawaiian nationals (the total population was 40,000) signed petitions, that were delivered to and acknowledged in Washington, D.C., protesting annexation by the United States. A hundred years later in 1997 Noenoe K. Silva, a Hawaiian, educated present-day Native Hawaiians when she found the documents in the U.S. Archives and brought them back to the Islands.

I was reminded of this last night over dinner with two woman warrior friends, Karen and Pat, who told me of the demonstration this past Monday at the statue of President William McKinley in Honolulu, where he is holding a so-called “Treaty of Annexation.” The point was, there is no annexation treaty.

Karen and Pat also alerted me to a controversial bill, relating to government, in the current Hawaii State legislature that is already set to be heard in the Ways and Means committee on Friday, Feb. 25. Hawaiian sovereignty activists, take note.

You may head on over to http://kalahuihawaii.wordpress.com for my Feb. 23 accounts and links to details of each. One is “Kue petition revisited” and the other is “Akaka bill: now what.” Noenoe Silva’s article is most sobering. http://libweb.hawaii.edu/digicoll/annexation/pet-intro.html

Copyright 2011 Rebekah Luke

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Categories : Hawaiian

Master plan for Hawaiian sovereignty

1 02 2010

A master plan for Hawaiian sovereignty exists. It is entitled “Hookupu a Ka Lahui Hawaii,” and I just installed it on http://kalahuihawaii.wordpress.com/. It was first published in 1995, 15 years ago. If you are interested in the manao (ideas) of Native Hawaiians concerning their homeland, do take a look.  Mahalo!


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A Native Hawaiian initiative

5 12 2009

Some of my friends may know that I am a citizen of Ka Lahui Hawaii. I attended a working group meeting today to give a progress report on the new website http://kalahuihawaii.wordpress.com/ that I manage. It is even newer than Rebekah’s Studio.

For weeks we’ve been figuring how best to install certain documents for the public, and from the response of citizens at today’s meeting we uploaded the “Constitution of Ka Lahui Hawaii.” I am so happy! And there will be more information to come.

Looking back, quite a lot of nation building occurred in the 1990s. The citizens and honorary citizens were very active on all islands and on Moku Honu (North America). I remember attending legislative sessions throughout the islands: Kauai, Oahu, Molokai, Maui and Hawaii. There was an extensive sovereignty education program and citizens took stands on issues often.

Many of our kupuna (Hawaiian elders) who guided the nation in the early years have passed over. Remembering the legacy they left us, we are now continuing to pick up the pieces and press onward.

I think people who are unaware or, and I say this kindly, ignorant of the Native Hawaiian situation—whether they are sympathetic to Native initiatives or not—will be surprised at how much work Ka Lahui Hawaii accomplished:

The Constitution, Master Plan, resolutions, work at the United Nations level, treaties with other nations, educational and economic programs, research—all done at a grassroots level. We met in churches, in parking lots, in parks, at community centers, at each others’ homes.

If you have an interest, please visit

kalahuihawaii.wordpress.com

Through the power of the internet, the Ka Lahui Hawaii working group is recording the nation’s efforts in cyberspace for current and future generations.

Copyright 2009 Rebekah Luke

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Categories : About me, Hawaiian

Keeping up on sovereignty issues

23 10 2009

Three live panel discussions on the status of Hawaiian sovereignty will be held tomorrow, Saturday, Oct.  24, at the UH Kamakakuokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies, 2645 Dole Street, in Honolulu, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. They’re free to the public. For those interested, this will be a good opportunity to catch up and become more informed. As filmmaker Anne Keala Kelly noted (see my 10/9/09 post “Wrongful occupation of Hawaii”), the Hawaiian activists are on the map, but they are all over the map.  I’m planning to attend some of the talks so I can make some informed decisions for myself. The Hawaiian Studies center is a safe environment, and all are welcome. Some details about the speakers and the topics are on the Calendar of Events page of the following website:

kalahuihawaii.wordpress.com

A hui hou! Malama pono!


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Wrongful occupation of Hawaii

9 10 2009

Anne Keala Kelly has made a very disturbing documentary film entitled “Noho Hewa: The Wrongful Occupation of Hawai‘i” that all Hawaiians and Hawaiians at heart should see. It is so disturbing that at the end of last night’s screening, when the house lights came up and Keala asked the audience for questions, there was dead silence in the Paliku Theatre of Windward Community College.

“Noho Hewa: The Wrongful Occupation of Hawai‘i” is so disturbing that it won the Best Documentary 2008 Award of the Hawaii International Film Festival. That was last October. Now, ten more minutes have been added, and the DVD is now available for $20 to help the filmmaker recoup her expenses.

Our family bought two copies. You may go to nohohewa.com for information about future screenings or to purchase the DVD. Keala will take her guerrilla film to the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque on October 12, 2009, and to Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma on October 15, 2009. Admission is free.

For more information by the filmmaker, visit nohohewa.com

For more information by the filmmaker, visit nohohewa.com

Quoting the DVD cover notes of “Noho Hewa”:

Hawai‘i, thought of by most as the 50th state, is, according to international law, an independent country under an illegal and prolonged occupation by the United States. Through this occupation, Hawai‘i has become home to the largest military command on earth. It also has more endangered species’ habitats per square mile and is the location of more open field tests of genetically modified organisms than anywhere else in the world.

Beyond the illegitimacy of the U.S. presence in Hawai‘i, “Noho Hewa” looks at the methodical removal of Hawaiians from their homeland. The film considers how the erasure of Hawaiian people and history through government sponsored acts of desecration is central to an ongoing agenda to ethnically cleanse Hawai‘i of the Kanaka ‘Oiwi, the indigenous population of Hawai‘i.

If you are alive at all, “Noho Hewa” will shock you. I am Hawaiian. I consider myself an activist. My Hawaiian friends, neighbors, citizens of Ka Lahui Hawaii, and my extended family are in this film. This piece of journalism—it’s excellent—has woken me up even more to the truth about Hawaii, my beloved home. If you can, share this information with others and decide what you will do. It will take all the courage you have. Mahalo to Anne Keala Kelly for hers.

Copyright 2009 Rebekah Luke

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Categories : Fine Art, Friends & Family, Hawaiian, Travel


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