Hawaiians showed up by the hundreds at a recent federal hearing to show support for a proposal to establish a Native Hawaiian government, West Hawaii Today reported.
The hearing last Wednesday at an elementary school in the Keaukaha community was packed with locals calling for the federal government to recognize the Hawaiian Kingdom and its independent government. It was the 10th meeting out of a series of public hearings held by the U.S. Department of the Interior to determine how residents feel about the proposal.
"This does not mean we are proposing an actual formal policy," Rhea Suh, the department's assistant secretary for policy, management and budget, told the Associated Press in June. "We are simply announcing that we'll begin to have conversations with all relevant parties to help determine whether we should move forward with the process and if so, how we should do it.
But many Native Hawaiians don't want the U.S. federal government involved. Some fear the U.S. is trying to dismiss Native Hawaiians as the same as Native American tribes.
Others are questioning the legality of America's annexation of Hawaii in 1898, an issue the Office of Hawaiian Affairs believes that Secretary of State John Kerry can resolve.
"Take it back to John Kerry and get John Kerry out here," Kale Gumpac, CEO of the OHA, said according to West Hawaii Today.
"It's not your kuleana. Get the people whose kuleana it is to come here," Gumpac said using the Hawaiian term for responsibility.
Hawaii was a kingdom until it was overthrown, with some help from Americans, in 1893. It remained an independent republic until 1898 when it was annexed and eventually made a state in 1959, according to the AP.
One official, however, believes the federal government already recognizes the Hawaiian nation through the 1920 Hawaiian Homes Commission Act. According to Patrick Kahawaiolaa, president of the Keaukaha Community Association, all the DOI needs to do is enforce the law.
"I will be asking the DOI/DOJ to do their job and enforce the federal law," against anyone who during the last 90 years has "abused, used, leased the lands having that status of Hawaiian Home Lands," Kahawaiolaa said according to West Hawaii Today.
In the meantime, the federal panel will continue to hold meetings.
