Youth uprising
Ceded lands case spurs new
generation of Hawaiian leaders

By Lisa Asato / Ka Wai Ola o OHA

Jocelyn Doane vividly remembers attending the 1993 rally at ‘Iolani Palace marking the 100th anniversary of the overthrow of the Hawaiian government. She was 14 at the time, “an age,” she said, “where I actually had the comprehension skills to think about what was happening and the reason all these people were there and the reason all these people were angry.”

“For me, that was the beginning of where I am now, and nowhere near the end of my journey,” said the 29-year-old Doane, who today finds herself at the center of a group of young Native Hawaiians leading a community fight to protect ceded lands. The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the case Feb. 25 after the state appealed a unanimous ruling by the Hawai’i Supreme Court that barred the state from selling or transferring ceded lands until Native Hawaiian claims to those lands are resolved.

For Doane and the other three core members of the Kupu’āina Coalition – Derek Kauanoe, Davis Price and Kaupea Wong – the leadership role in activism is new territory, but Doane and Kauanoe said the issue is so crucial they couldn’t sit back and do nothing.

All four are students or recent graduates of the University of Hawai’i William S. Richardson School of Law, where Kauanoe attributes their emergence to the number of Native Hawaiians entering the law school combined with the knowledge they glean there. “We learn things like constitutional law, state and local government law and we have legal concerns such as this that affect the community,” said Kauanoe, who is 33. “We tend to talk about it – a lot of times it’s just talking – trying to understand the issues and arguments. But when we considered the case and Gov. (Linda) Lingle’s past support of the Native Hawaiian community, we thought trying to urge her to withdraw the case was a reasonable, simple thing. We thought that was the least that we could do.”

With some guidance from a previous generation of Native Hawaiian leaders who came of age during the Hawaiian Renaissance of the 1970s and continue their activism today, like Kaho’onei Panoke and Vicky Holt Takamine of ‘Īlio’ulaokalani Coalition, the group organized a rally at the state Capitol that – through a media campaign in radio and print, news coverage and a then-small but now growing online presence, attracted an estimated 400 to 500 people on a Monday morning to urge Lingle to withdraw her appeal of a ceded lands case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Panoke said he sees the law school students emerging as “the new leaders of tomorrow,” along with students of the university’s Hawaiian Studies Department – a new generation of educated, well-informed talent who are “learning the true history of Hawai’i.”

Panoke’s ‘Īlio’ulaokalani Coalition is organizing a march and rally on Jan. 17 through Waikīkī to further “protest the Lingle administration’s attempt to sell off Hawaiian lands,” he said. “This rally and march is a good example of how we are bringing in Kupu’āina … to work with us so they an learn how to do these things and lead the pack,” said Panoke, who said his main advice to the young leaders is “Know your history, know your community, and know your people.”

Bill Meheula, a lawyer for the four individual plaintiffs in the ceded lands case, to which OHA is also a plaintiff, said the young leaders with their legal backgrounds are developing the skills to assert legal claims and develop and administer a future recognized Hawaiian government. “So it’s something that needed to be done and it is happening in a big way, and it’s very encouraging,” he said, citing a “big movement” in the 1970s, when local lawyers banded to help Native Hawaiian causes. “And it led to the 1978 Constitutional Convention,” which created and provided funding for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, recognized gathering rights and, in his mind eventually led to the 1993 Apology Resolution, which, signed by then-President Bill Clinton, apologized for the United States’ role in the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian government.

It is that Apology Resolution upon which the Hawai’i Supreme Court based its unanimous January ruling. Lingle has said she continues to support Hawaiians but as governor has to provide for all the beneficiaries described in the Admission Act. The betterment of Native Hawaiians is one of five purposes named to receive funding from 1.2 million acres of ceded lands – former Hawaiian government lands – which the state holds in trust.

William Ailā Jr., who ran for governor in 2006 and who has fought for more than three decades for issues ranging from the military’s use of Mākua Valley to restoring watersheds on the Wai’anae Coast, said the new movement fills him with hope. “I’m enthusiastic for the future of Native Hawaiians when we have such articulate, intelligent, well-spoken youth that are coming up,” he said.

Davianna McGregor, who was among those who successfully fought for the return of Kaho’olawe in the 1970s, said the group shows know-how of combining research with advocacy. “One of our mantras from George Helm was ‘Follow your na’au, but do your homework,’ ” she said, referring to the late leader of the effort to regain control of the island. In other words, she said, “It’s your responsibility to take a stand, but also you need to do the homework that makes it all so credible. And a lot of times in many cases the advocacy part comes easier than the tedious research behind an issue, and I think in this case the individuals combine both.”
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