Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 23, Number 5, 1 May 2006 — Congress must acknowledge our existence as indigenous people [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Congress must acknowledge our existence as indigenous people

Būyd P. Mūssman TrustEE, Maui

Aloha kākou. As we approach another promised hearing on the U.S. Senate floor, I retlect upon the reason we are seeking to be heard there and wonder how Congress ean continue to approve diversity in our nation yet deny the Hawaiian people their identity and existence. Some senators argue that we are discriminating against everyone else and must cease doing so in our own homeland by assimilating with those who have moved here instead.

It is not only unfair but shameful for anyone to pursue the ehmination of a native people in order to gain benefits directed to this people from the government. Hawaiians greeted the first foreigners and welcomed them into their society that was soon to undergo major changes with the inclusion of these foreigners into the government, business, religious, and all other facets of the Hawaiian society. We have not and do not as a people discriminate, but are proud of our heritage and our ancestry whieh is the host culture and whieh has intermarried with every nationality imaginable. We have no where else to eall home, whereas all others do. I am 7/16 Hawaiian and a graduate of the Kamehameha Schools. I was fortunate enough to be one of those whose parents were good to me and who sacrificed for my success in school

and after. Both were part Hawaiian, and our ancestors were never immigrants to the United States but were either native to Hawai'i or were immigrants to the Kingdom of Hawai'i. We have a unique position as citizens of the United States and as descendants of Hawaiians both native and non-native. All we ask today is for recognition by Congress that would distinguish and acknowledge our existence as an indigenous people whose home, culture, language, and origin is Hawai'i. I recognize that to those whose eyes are blinded by bias orignorance, Hawaiians' semirecognition by government resulting in funding for programs to help us survive as a people may appear to violate the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution; however, passage of the Akaka bill will be a significant step in proving otherwise onee and for all. No longer will Hawaiians be threatened by lawsuits ad nauseum. No longer will Kamehameha Schools be deprived of the option to adopt the security of a recognized entity and itself

avoid continued attacks on its good works. Hawaiians will be able to address the many problems they have had and have today, and will surely not only preserve a people but better our nation. As more and more immigrants settle in the land of our ancestors, and as Hawaiians are either compelled to move or forced to adjust down, we need to eome together now or be reduced to a mere memory. Can we agree on federal recognition and secure at least a foothold for the future for Hawaiians? Or do we deny reahty, accept defeat, and whither away into oblivion? We ean provide for our posterity by establishing a governing entity, and, onee recognized by Congress, we ean help ourselves. With a voice in our state and federal governmental decisions we ean provide rehef in housing, education, heahh, business, culture, etc. We ean then hopefully keep our people home despite headhnes that say "Average Piiee of Home $970,000." ^