Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 26, Number 10, 1 October 2009 — 'Nation Within' steps out again, in slightly different shoes [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

'Nation Within' steps out again, in slightly different shoes

By Liza Simon Public Affairs Specialist Anew and slightly revised Naiion Within is similar to the original 1998 book in seeking to dispel the myth that Native Hawaiians weleomed U.S. poliheal dominion at the tum of the eentury. Explaining the deeision to publish a revised edition, author Tom Coffman said in an e-mail to Ka Wai Oia, "I was mainly motivated by the faet that in the past deeade the debate (on injustiees done to Native Hawaiians) seems to have stagnated when it should have quiekened." Coffman said he ehanged the new edition's subtitle, inserting "oeeupahon" for the original "annexation" in order to underseore the illegality of U.S. aetions against the Hawaiian Kingdom. He also added a foreward by University of Hawai'i at Hilo edueation professor Manulani Aluli Meyer, who was an adult when she diseovered that her kūpuna were among the vast majority of Native Hawaiians who signed the anti-annexation petition. What does it mean for an indigenous person to uneover a true aeeounting of history? Meyer taekles this question in her brief but eompelling foreward and further expounds on this topie with KWO. KWO: Why o you find Naiion Within to be an appealing read? MANULANI MEYER: Tom Coffman, although not Hawaiian, is telling our tale, and that is that

we did not want annexation. This is very different from the sourees of information available when I was a ehild. ... I grew up seeing images of Hawaiian history shaped by people living on the eontinent. Nothing was relevant to my own history and plaee. KWO: In your foreward to Naiion Wkhin, you write about witnessing a torrent of emotion around the suppression of Hawaiian history. Can you elaborate? MM: As a family we would be singing 'O Makaiapua (a song about Queen Lili'uokalani). I would witness the kūpuna sobbing at the end of the song. I was just a ehild, and I would wonder what the songs were about. Only later did I begin to look baek on those years and see that they were sobbing beeause of the loss of nationhood. They themselves or their parents signed the petition against annexation. KWO: University of Hawai'i politieal seienee professor Noenoe Silva diseovered the antiannexation petition in 1996 at the National

Arehives in Washington, D.C. What's the impaet of this diseovery? MM: I have a framed eopy that Noenoe brought over for my graduation party, and there is the signature of my grandfather at age 17. The petition was put on exhibition at the Bishop Museum and at 'Iolani Palaee and there were throngs of people looking for their relatives' names and overjoyed to find them. I went down to the loeal printing shop (in Hilo) and they let me put up a sign saying eome and Xerox the petition, if you like, and a lot of people did. This was a grassroots movement. It gave us the truth. Truth is like a heaeon. It gets us out of the darkness of our anger and disillusion. KWO: As a UH professor, you've ineorporated Naiion Wkhin into your curriculum for its ability to deconstruct authoritative texts that impose their own political agendas. How do students respond? MM: (Famed spiritual philosopher) Krishnamurti onee said it is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. I start here in the classroom by saying it is empowering to understand the hidden assumptions of this society and it should be done with great rigor. We must, for example, uncover hidden ideologies of capitalism. When you make something about money only, you are operating at a lower frequency. That is where we must seek to be liberated. That is what I love about Tom Coffman's book. It highlights this source of tension for the American puhlie to see. It ean be hard for many students to begin to really look at the disparity driven by a capitalist economy, but this gets to a deeper level awareness of where we are today. The truth is that Native Hawaiians are not doing well in this system, but until we look at the harm and sickness of an overall society - the greater truth, we will continue to struggle so hard to fit in. ■

Meyer

Coffman