This has been simmering for a while....the issue..should we turn back the clock..and return Hawaii to the natives? Entirely? Or...should we grant some sort of legal acknowledgement--that would allow special confederation for Hawaiian natives..while still keeping Hawaii as a state?
Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders have been reeling from a brutal summer of rising Covid-19 cases and a resource-crippling wave of over-tourism. The crisis has brought attention to a contentious decades-old campaign for federal recognition of a Native Hawaiian government that’s gained strong political support in the past year.
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For both supporters and critics of a new Native Hawaiian government, the pandemic has become a platform to build their case for either much-needed economic relief or full separation from the U.S.
In December, after Democrats secured unified control of the White House and Congress, Joe Biden, then the president-elect, backed legislation to re-establish a government-to-government relationship with Native Hawaiians and Alaska Natives — an effort that gained steam during the Obama administration but stalled after former President Donald Trump was elected.
Hawaii’s four-member congressional delegation has expressed support for a federally recognized government. But the issue is more contentious among Native Hawaiian activists, some of whom say the effort will allow them to lobby for more resources while others argue it will thwart the sovereignty movement, a grassroots campaign to establish an independent Hawaiian nation.
“There’s a huge split between those who literally want to have a Native governing entity with limited autonomy that’s subordinate to the U.S. nation-state and those who want the U.S. out of Hawaii,” said J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, an American studies professor at Wesleyan University and author of “Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity.”
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Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders have been reeling from a brutal summer of rising Covid-19 cases and a resource-crippling wave of over-tourism. The crisis has brought attention to a contentious decades-old campaign for federal recognition of a Native Hawaiian government that’s gained strong political support in the past year.
For both supporters and critics of a new Native Hawaiian government, the pandemic has become a platform to build their case for either much-needed economic relief or full separation from the U.S.
In December, after Democrats secured unified control of the White House and Congress, Joe Biden, then the president-elect, backed legislation to re-establish a government-to-government relationship with Native Hawaiians and Alaska Natives — an effort that gained steam during the Obama administration but stalled after former President Donald Trump was elected.
Hawaii’s four-member congressional delegation has expressed support for a federally recognized government. But the issue is more contentious among Native Hawaiian activists, some of whom say the effort will allow them to lobby for more resources while others argue it will thwart the sovereignty movement, a grassroots campaign to establish an independent Hawaiian nation.
“There’s a huge split between those who literally want to have a Native governing entity with limited autonomy that’s subordinate to the U.S. nation-state and those who want the U.S. out of Hawaii,” said J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, an American studies professor at Wesleyan University and author of “Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity.”
