This blog is about Hawaii's status as an independent country under prolonged illegal occupation by the United States, and the history, culture, law & politics of the islands.
The Office of Hawaiian Affairs today formally unveiled the Papakilo Database, a new electronic cultural resource. The Papakilo Database is a “database of databases,” or a search engine for Hawaiian cultural information.
The Papakilo Database has been in development since 2007 and is the first to collate more than 225,000 records from dissimilar databases into a single digital resource. It pulls together several databases of land and government records, historic Hawaiian language newspapers and certain historic genealogy indexes.
Previously, people seeking many of these records would have to spend a lot of time visiting various offices and agencies. Papakilo Database makes the records available online and many records and databases can be searched with just a few keystrokes.
The Papakilo Database will be the central repository for Hawaiian knowledge and will serve as a knowledge base for self-determination. Native Hawaiians have a great tradition of sharing information and passing down knowledge. Traditionally, we did this orally by telling stories. With Papakilo we’re doing it with technology.
Maui County Council members gave unanimous support Friday for a move in the state Legislature to convene a panel to probe two executive agreements related to the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy.
Council Member Elle Cochran, who initiated county support of state House Concurrent Resolution 107, said the council action does not commit it to a position on the matter but does support the intent to gather more information.
The resolution was introduced in the state Legislature by state Rep. Mele Carroll, who represents residents of East Maui, Molokai and Lanai. It would establish “a joint legislative committee to investigate the status of executive agreements known as the Lili’uokalani Assignment and the Agreement of Restoration.”
According to the resolution, one document provided for Queen Lili’uokalani, under protest, to temporarily yield her authority to the government of the United States to avoid bloodshed. A second document, or agreement, provided that Lili’uokalani would provide amnesty to those who overthrew her government.
The resolution says that “President Cleveland and his successors in office have violated these agreements by not administering Hawaiian Kingdom law and not restoring the Hawaiian Kingdom government.”
State House members approved the resolution Thursday.
Well my mention of Sarah Vowell’s appearance on The Daily Show to promote her new book “Unfamiliar Fishes” about Hawaii apparently rated a mention in the New York TimesInside the List column…
Sarah Vowell hits No. 5 on the hardcover nonfiction list with “Unfamiliar Fishes,” her wry account of the annexation and Americanization of Hawaii.
[…]
Vowell has gotten some friendly notice in the Hawaiian media, including a plug on the Hawaiian Kingdom Independence Blog, which argues that Hawaii is a sovereign nation under illegal occupation by the United States.
Hopefully get it out there a bit that this is an issue with current relevance, not just historical interest.
Here’s the review of Sarah’s book in the NYT Sunday Book Review.
Against seemingly long odds in both chambers of Congress, U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka renewed his long-standing effort to secure federal recognition for native Hawaiians.
Akaka and Democratic colleague U.S. Sen. Dan Inouye introduced yesterday the latest version of the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act, better known as the Akaka Bill. Democratic U.S. Reps. Mazie Hirono and Colleen Hanabusa introduced the same bill in the House.
[…]
At least one political analyst expects the measure to be dead on arrival in the partisan atmosphere of the nation’s capital. “I don’t think there’s any chance at all it would get passed,” said Neal Milner, a University of Hawaii political scientist.
UPDATE: MARCH 29, 2011 — On March 28, 2011, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia filed Federal Defendants’ Opposition to Plaintiff’s Motion to Reconsider. The Court will determine whether to rescind and/or revise the Order or deny Defendant’s Motion for Reconsideration. Either way it will be appealed by either party to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, known informally as the D.C. Circuit. The U.S. Attorney in its Opposition made no mention of the misapplication by the Court of a 2009 federal lawsuit out of the D.C. Circuit, Lin v. United States, justifying the Court’s assertion of the political question doctrine as expounded in Plaintiff’s Motion to Reconsider. As stated in Plaintiff’s Motion, in Lin v. United States, the D.C. Circuit, stated, “Once the Executive determines Taiwan’s sovereign, we can decide Appellants’ resulting status and concomitant rights expeditiously. (‘[T]he judiciary ordinarily follows the executive as to which nation has sovereignty over disputed territory, once sovereignty over an area is politically determined and declared, courts may examine the resulting status and decide independently whether a statute applies to that area.’)” The difference between Taiwan and the Hawaiian Kingdom is that recognition of Hawaiian sovereignty was afforded by the U.S. President [Executive] on July 6, 1844. Therefore, Plaintiff argues Lin v. United States cannot be used to invoke the political question doctrine in this case and therefore the Court “can decide [Plaintiff’s] resulting status and concomitant rights expeditiously.”
The fundamental question for the Court to determine is whether or not sovereignty of a country [state] can be withdrawn arbitrarily by the U.S. President [Executive] after it was previously afforded by his predecessor in office, namely President John Tyler. In the Motion to Reconsider, Plaintiff argues “Once recognition of the Hawaiian Kingdom as an independent State was granted by the Executive, see Amend. Compl. para. 11, Professor Oppenheim asserts that it ‘is incapable of withdrawal’ by the recognizing State. See Lassa Oppenheim, International Law: A Treatise, vol. I (3d. 1920), at 137. Professor Schwarzenberger also asserts, that ‘recognition estops the State which has recognized the title from contesting its validity at any future time.’ See Georg Schwarzenberger, Title to Territory: Response to a Challenge, Am. J. Int’l L., 51, no. 2 (1957): 308-324, at 316. Professor Craven opines, that Hawaiian sovereignty ‘may be refuted only by reference to a valid demonstration of legal title, or sovereignty, on the part of the United States.’ See Matthew Craven, Continuity of the Hawaiian Kingdom, 1 Hawn. J.L. & Politics 508-544, 512 (Summer 2004).” Website for the lawsuit is at http://hawaiiankingdom.org/sai-obama.shtml.
Star-Advertiser‘s Burl Burlingame interviews author Sarah Vowell as she “explores the ‘eccentric corners’ of history to tell the story of the Americanization of Hawaii” in Unfamiliar Fishes.
Resolution on recasting the document in the hand of the McKinley statue (McKinley holds a ‘Treaty of Annexation’ which historically does not exist) is being heard in Rep. Faye Hanohano’s Hawaiian Affairs Committee on Wednesday, March 30, 8:30 am, Room 329. Please submit testimony in support of this reso HCR293.
HCR293 EXPRESSING LEGISLATIVE SUPPORT FOR AND REQUESTING THE REMOVAL OF THE TERM “TREATY OF ANNEXATION” CAST IN BRONZE ON THE STATUE OF PRESIDENT MCKINLEY ON THE GROUNDS OF MCKINLEY HIGH SCHOOL. HAW
HCR 107 “Establishing a joint legislative investigating committee to investigate the status of two executive agreements entered into in 1893 between United States President Grover Cleveland and Queen Lili’uokalani of the Hawaiian Kingdom, called the Lili’uokalani Assignment and the Agreement of Restoration” has passed the House Committee on Hawaiian Affairs. It will now move to the floor of the House of Representatives for debate, and then move on to the House Judiciary Committee.
Here’s a video on youtube that was posted by a person who was present at the hearing. Yesterday evening Representative Mele Carroll video taped her show at the capital with Dr. Keanu Sai, Willy Kauai, Ph.D. candidate and Assistant Professor Lynette Cruz as guests. Great dialogue and engagement of the executive agreements should be airing soon on cable access on all islands.
Update: Here’s Rep. Carroll’s show on HCR 107 done the evening of the day the resolution passed the Hawaiian Affairs Committee.
This is absolute must watch. We’ve seen Sarah Vowell on The Daily Show before, and enjoy how she shares history with her dry wit and puts things in ways you can easily relate to. As Jon says, “I laugh, but I learn.”
Well, now she’s written a book on Hawai’i, Unfamiliar Fishes. She describes the “orgy of imperialism” of the summer of 1898. And she nails it. Kekula said when it was over, “that was one of the most comprehensive statements on Hawaii ever presented in such a broad media.” A whole lot of very well-informed, engaged people watch Jon Stewart. And the way she explained it was a truth that many people probably heard for the first time. A lot of people will read her book. She explains the context of the Spanish-American War, the role for Hawaii as “a naval base for our forthcoming invasions,” the missionary family children who “overthrew the Hawaiian queen so as to hand the Hawaiian Islands over to the United States,” mentions the anti-annexation petitions, and compares the joint resolution as “the sort of law New Jersey would use to declare a day Jon Bon Jovi Day.”
By Sarah Vowell
(Riverhead Hardcover, Hardcover, 9781594487873, 256pp.)
Publication Date: March 22, 2011
Description
From the bestselling author of The Wordy Shipmates, an examination of Hawaii, the place where Manifest Destiny got a sunburn.
Many think of 1776 as the defining year of American history, when we became a nation devoted to the pursuit of happiness through self- government. In Unfamiliar Fishes, Sarah Vowell argues that 1898 might be a year just as defining, when, in an orgy of imperialism, the United States annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and invaded first Cuba, then the Philippines, becoming an international superpower practically overnight.
Among the developments in these outposts of 1898, Vowell considers the Americanization of Hawaii the most intriguing. From the arrival of New England missionaries in 1820, their goal to Christianize the local heathen, to the coup d’état of the missionaries’ sons in 1893, which overthrew the Hawaiian queen, the events leading up to American annexation feature a cast of beguiling, and often appealing or tragic, characters: whalers who fired cannons at the Bible-thumpers denying them their God-given right to whores, an incestuous princess pulled between her new god and her brother-husband, sugar barons, lepers, con men, Theodore Roosevelt, and the last Hawaiian queen, a songwriter whose sentimental ode “Aloha ‘Oe” serenaded the first Hawaiian president of the United States during his 2009 inaugural parade.
With her trademark smart-alecky insights and reporting, Vowell lights out to discover the off, emblematic, and exceptional history of the fiftieth state, and in so doing finds America, warts and all.
