 Aloha and welcome back to Talk Story with John Waihe. We've got another interesting show for you today discussing an important subject for the people of Hawaii. We are going to be talking about Hawaiian nationalism. And whether or not being a Hawaiian nationalist entitles you to equal treatment. I happen to believe it does. And as my guest this afternoon, I have Pocca Laila. This is my classmate. I knew him when he was just Pocca. Anyway, welcome to our show. Thank you, John. Pocca is an author, among other things, a commentator, political commentator, and a lawyer, and an old friend. Well, I shouldn't use the word rim, but a long time friend. A long time friend, not an old friend, but a long time friend and a classmate. So welcome to the show. Thank you, John. And you've become very much a part of the Hawaiian activist movement in the state of Hawaii. And one of the things that I have personally recognized about your activities, and actually really supportable, you seem to be a unifier. I mean, whenever I hear you talk about any of these issues, you seem to start from the position that the enemy of the native Hawaiian community is not really all these other institutions. It is our left to unify. Is that a correct? I think that would summarize it well. And what I do is I follow from two kupuna. Okay, one guy's name is none other than Abraham Lincoln. Wow. Okay. He said a nation divided against itself cannot stand. Well, that was the most important statement. Right. What a wonderful idea of Abraham Lincoln, father of the Hawaiian nation. Well, I don't know if he might be a mother. But you see, thoughts are important. And they go through racial lines. They go through national lines. The wisdom that comes down from ancestors or from any place, from even children has to be seen for the weight of the wisdom itself. So Abraham Lincoln said something very important that we should take heed to. Right. There's another kupuna who also said something, and that was Kuyo. Okay. When he said, we cannot continue to act like crabs. We got to kick the bucket over so that we all can get out. Well, I think that's such a powerful message, you know, and a lot of the obstacles that sometimes we face, in a sense, self-imposed. Self-imposed. N.T.P. Lahi, another kupuna, would instruct, she would say, you know, what you need to do is distinguish between reality in fact and reality by agreement. I got it. Oh man, that is a very heavy statement. I mean, that is a really heavy statement. Yeah. And so, for me, I'm throwing it in you. No, no, no, no. So I asked her, explain. And she said, Hawaiian. What is a Hawaiian? And I said, oh, a Hawaiian is a person who descends from ancestors who were in Hawaii prior to 1778, the arrival of James Cook. Right. And she says, that's reality by agreement. Now, tell me about the Hawaiian in reality in fact. I said, well, what do you mean? She says, does a Hawaiian cry? Does he laugh? Does he love? Does he hate? Does he hunger? Who is he really? Yeah. So you look into the essence, the reality in fact, not by the agreement of how we choose to define a Hawaiian by his religion or his geography or his racial ancestry. So that ability to always pierce through, do that analysis, pierce through and get down to the reality in fact. That's really good advice for everybody. Yeah. I mean, much of how we operate in life is and much of what we call fact is really based on all of us agreeing that that is so, you know, as opposed to what may in truth be there. Because at times, if you don't come to an agreement as to what is a subject matter, you're arguing more about definition without really understanding that it's definitional, which is a problem that divides. So let's say you and I will go out to Makua Beach nighttime, but there's a moon up there. And I say, John, look at the moon. You look at my finger. You think the finger the moon? No. I got it. I got it. I got it. Well, I wanted to tell the audience that poker actually was a radio host. And I'm paying you back, by the way, for inviting me to your show and putting me under the gun. So and here I have classmates from the university. You know what I have this afternoon? I happen to have the I don't know what you call these things. But these were the this was our idea of the yearbook back in 1976. No, 73. We are the class of 1973. The first graduating class. And I don't know if you can see this, but if you ever get a hold of that, this is our guess. And I'm going to block me out. I don't I don't want anybody to see what I was. I actually had hair back there. Me too. And by the way, you're the first person. And I tell this in the speeches and various things that I remember back then when you invited a bunch of us all native Hawaiian students by agreement. And we came together and we sat down and you talked to us about Hawaiian sovereignty and Hawaiian nationalism. And we had to do this in the meeting late at night. I mean, today, it's so bad say everybody talking about it one way or the other. But back then, it was just the germination of things to come. And you kept working on it. In fact, tell us a little bit about your activities at the United Nations. Well, I went to the United Nations because I found that the system within Hawaii was so blocked that you could not get them to even pay attention to the kind of historical facts that we were talking about. We graduated in 1976. I ended up representing Nappy Pulava in 1977. He was the reputed underworld leader for Hawaii. And at that time, I raised the subject of jurisdiction whether or not the United States had jurisdiction over Hawaiian national. So when they charged him with double murder, double kidnap, I responded as his attorney. And I said, we refuse to dignify the court. But even entering a plea, we asked instead, who are your foreigners who come into Hawaii, judge us by your foreign laws? All right. And I remember back then that made headlines all over the state of Hawaii. And what we needed was to get the attention of the Hawaii community. And you know, I just barely graduated from law school, almost went broke, and then had no money, had to open on small shop out in Waianae, and just try to do law practice. In the meantime, my client was in jail for a couple of years. We broke. There was no way we could advertise about the history of the overthrow, the illegalities without doing something without calling attention directly to the jurisdiction. Yeah. So it's like a jujitsu move as the newspapers and television was coming in after this native Hawaiian who finally organized the underworld to make him a big crook. Well, we wanted to pose a question, who's the bigger crook? Right. I got it. I got it. And as a result of that, you also got attention at the United Nations, right? Well, as a result of that, then there were a number of cases like when Sam King told me that he would pull my license because I said I was not a U.S. citizen. No, I want to get real clear with people. You said you were a citizen of Hawaii. That's right. So you are Hawaiian nationalists. Right. You know, it's not just I'm not a U.S. citizen. It's not like you're some immigrant through Hawaii. What you were reestablishing was standing on the history for yourself. And it was a costly declaration. So judge after judge after judge. And there were many others. They represented a lot of the homeless. And we went in and we challenged, for example, the San Island cases and the Waimanalo and Waianae, the homeless cases. And we always came in challenging jurisdiction. The judges always refused to look at that history. The history was undeniable. One judge, a district court judge, came off the bench afterwards and told me, why are you wasting the court's time with these motions? We admit we cannot challenge your historical facts. But if I find in your favor, they're going to appeal my decision. And the Supreme Court going overturn me. Right. So why waste my time? Yeah. And I said, Hey, once you put on the road, look, I'm crying on my shoulders because you cannot look at the facts because it was it was still in a legitimate. It was well, at least a legitimate stand. The stand was not legitimate. What was was legitimate? But the United States Congress didn't recognize it until 1993, the apology. Apology resolution. Great confession. Right. Well, yeah, it was the but it was also within the Hawaiian community. Well, maybe I should say that within the Hawaiian community and the Hawaii community, this idea of Hawaiian nationalism was, you know, was being awakened. Yeah, that's that's a very good term. So part of that was doing things like you had just suggested in order to get people thinking about the issue to call attention to educate. But you see the powers of Hawaii, the judges of the courts refuse to recognize it. So I had to find a different venue. And that was the international and that's where you took the history too. Yes. And what how successful? I mean, what what happened as a result of it's a matter of building the case. I had to go through the doorway of indigenous people's rights because we were so far behind in terms of Hawaiian nationalism that people simply wouldn't consider the idea that Hawaii was an independent nation or is an independent nation. But we went through the doorway of indigenous peoples and the discrimination against indigenous peoples. So I eventually became elected as a well, even even the United Nations in those days, the United Nations itself didn't really have didn't hadn't really dealt with that issue. So you were in a sense on the ground floor of actually that whole awareness. You see, the United Nations had been dealing with that issue in a different part of the United Nations. Okay. Under the decolonization work of the United Nations, but we couldn't get inside that door because the United States continues to block us in that door. Yeah. So Hawaii is not a colony. So therefore, right. And the statehood act and that we are now a state of the United States. So they kept blocking that. So what I had to do was go through the indigenous peoples avenue. And as I raise the indigenous issue, I also tag on to it the Hawaiian sovereignty issues, the illegality of the presence of the United States here in Hawaii. And which by the way is pretty basic history today. I mean, you know, elementary schools across the state now teach the history that you were trying to get people to recognize. And yet in 1977, 78, the Pulava case, right, the judge of the circuit court, John Lanham, after I present the address that was at Cleveland addresses to the joint houses of Congress, and I'm reading his address into the record, because I'm telling him I have the right to make my record to appeal to the Supreme Court. Right. So there's nothing he can do but allow me to read it in. So I read it in and then he interrupts me. He says, Mr. Burgess, this is the most fantastic story I have ever heard. I never heard that story. Yeah, a lot of people hadn't heard that story. The whole movement was built on bits and pieces of learning. Yeah. And in songs and colon and all that stuff. But so even many of our Hawaiian people had lost the national consciousness or failed to continue to maintain that national consciousness. And so what we need to do is is reawaken it and continue the national consciousness. You see, a nation never dies. Right. National consciousness is dead. I got it. We're going to be taking a short break right now. And when we come back, what I want to follow up on is the present day, which is we find ourselves going from a time when you had to actually raise this in the federal court to today, when we actually have a lot of people. And as I understand it, a lot of them obviously are native Hawaiian, but also non native Hawaiian by our definition, who are claiming them who are claiming to be Hawaiian nationalists. And so today, it's not a matter of selling the idea. It's a matter of, I guess, implementing something about it. So we'll be right back. And thank you very much. We'll be right back. Aloha. I'm Wendy Lo and I'm coming to you every other Tuesday at two o'clock, live from Think Tech Hawaii. And on our show, we talk about taking your health back. And what does that mean? It means mind, body and soul. Anything you can do that makes your body healthier and happier is what we're going to be talking about, whether it's spiritual health, mental health, fascia health, beautiful smile health, whatever it means. Let's take healthy back. Aloha. Hi, I'm Rusty Komori, host of Beyond the Lines on Think Tech Hawaii. My show is based on my book also titled Beyond the Lines. And it's about creating a superior culture of excellence, leadership, and finding greatness. I interview guests who are successful in business, sports, and life, which is sure to inspire you in finding your greatness. Join me every Monday as we go beyond the lines at 11 a.m. Aloha. Welcome back to Talk Story with John Wahee and our guests, Mr. Polka La Nui. And by the way, if you want to call us, if you have any questions and we definitely are interested in what you have to say on this subject, would you please, you can call us at 808-374-2014, 808-374-2014. And there is a way which I don't know how to tell you that you can actually do all of this on your computer as well. But anyway, here we are, we're back. So as a result of all these efforts, you know, we'll go from those days to now. So right now, what seems to be happening in Hawaii is that there are a lot of people who are claiming to be Hawaiian nationalists. Now, what does that mean? A Hawaiian nationalist is a person who defines himself by his nationality. Okay, let's make that distinction. What's the difference between Native Hawaiian and Native Hawaiian or Hawaiian nationality? Because a lot of us seem to think it's the same thing. Yeah, and it's not. Okay. We go back to 1893 at a time where there was no question about the existence of the Hawaiian nation. Who were the nationals of that nation? And they were people whose loyalty and allegiance was to the Hawaiian nation. Was that nationalism then as you're defining it the same as citizenship? Almost, but not necessarily so. Let me define it this way. A national is a definition that the international community attributes to people of that entity, of that nation. Citizenship is defined by the nation itself as to who's a citizen and who's not a citizen. They may still be recognized as part of us as our nationals. Take, for example, some of the Samoans, the U.S. nationals, but they're not given citizenship. So citizenship is an internal discussion within the nation. Nationals is a general international attribution to who should be attributed to that nation. And the other, okay, let's say Japanese living in Hawaii. They would be citizens of the United States if they were born here, right? They were not necessarily. Let's say they had been Hawaiian citizens, their ancestors were. No, I mean, I'm just trying to get the distinctions between racial, national, and whatever, and citizen. Yeah. If they can trace their ancestry back to the Hawaiian nation, Japanese, Filipinos, Hawaiian, Portuguese, anybody, and they say my loyalty and allegiance is still with the Hawaiian nation, then they would be a national. They're Hawaiian nationals. Okay. But until the nation itself is restored, there is actually no criteria for citizenship. Well, yes, don't change the terms to citizenship. No, I'm just trying to make the difference. Yeah. Okay. You say until the nation is restored. Many people say we have the nation over here which is occupied. Yeah. So somebody defined citizenship, but citizenship is a different, it's a different category. It is a different category. No, when you get into that, you have the word citizen and you have the word subject. Yes. And some people get confused about that. Yeah, I'm trying not to get confused. Okay, so we are the nationals of those who believe that they and who can. Whose loyalty and allegiance is to the Hawaiian nation. All right. Now, suppose a person spent, it was born in Hawaii, but cannot trace an ancestry all the way back to 1893. Yeah, in Hawaii. Or just arrive here 10 years ago and end up teaching Hawaiian language to our Hawaiian kids, which has happened. You'd be surprised. There are people who the funds are mine who can actually write and whose loyalty is to Hawaii, not to the United States. And if Hawaii when when Hawaii gets recognized by the Americans as being a nation, they will of course change their changes citizenship or the nationality immediately to Hawaiian. How do you define who is a Hawaiian national? Okay, so this is actually in a way it's it's it's a it's a political choice. Right? Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to distinguish it from a racial. Yeah, it's not a racial good point. You know, I'm trying to make that this is not a racial classification. It may be that people of a particular racial group, that's right, find themselves, you know, in that category. But it's not racial. Racial would be the third classification. Political allegiance, not one's race, not one's religion, not one's language that they speak or any other category. When we talk about this subject, we are talking about a political subject, a political status, and that's the dictionary you pull out a political dictionary. Right. So, you know, the idea of Hawaiian culture, Hawaiian language, and so forth, that is still an important classification. But it is not the classification from which nationalism necessarily close. I mean, it's great. It happens to be. Okay, we got that. I think people, you know, pretty cleared up. But the point is that a lot of people today, at least, well enough to make a difference, it's a growing number of people today, have come forward and taken that as their choice, made a political choice. And as said, as a matter of their political stand, really, that I consider myself or she considers herself to be a Hawaiian national, right? That's right. It's even more than political, it's a moral choice for many of us. Okay. Our loyalty and allegiance is to Hawaii. It's not to the occupier of Hawaii. Okay. Okay. I got it. Now, what does it mean? It means as to be a Hawaiian national in Hawaii today. On one hand, it gives a person an identity. On the other hand, it also allows a society that now controls the system to discriminate against the person. For example, I, a Hawaiian national, cannot vote in the Hawaii elections. Because? Because I'm not a US citizen. Now, can you be both? Some people can. Other people say it's a contradiction. How can I be a citizen and volunteer to call myself a citizen of the occupying nation? Yeah. I can see, if you say it that way, then I can see the morality of the choice. But if I say, for example, that this occupation is immoral anyway, so what, you know, if they want to play like that, I'll play like that. Then I can see what you're saying there. There is this moral aspect. If you're just doing it as a matter of politics, then maybe you might be able to do both. But some people believe that the choice is not only political, it is moral. Yeah. And there's no right or wrong answer. It's the idea of learning to walk the crooked path straight. Some people. That's another good phrase. You see, you keep passing these things. I wish I had a pen. Shingon friend who told me that. They sent you up in Karee. Oh, you mean Roshi? Yeah, Roshi. Yeah, even something else. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, when, well, anyway, he says the quest is not to walk the straight path, but to learn to walk the crooked path straight. So I can be an attorney in the American judicial system. And yet, I can also meander to be true to myself and my moral standards. But there's enough variation. Other people don't have the abilities such as you and I to walk in both worlds. They are stuck and they are well choose them. They may not they may have very be like yourself, you may be really able to do both worlds. But as a matter of choice, I like that I like that aspect of that choice that I'm not going to participate in immorality. And the act of the illegal occupation may in fact be an immoral act. And under anybody's universal law, you know, so I'm like, you know, this that's a choice. And that is a choice that by the way, that's the same choice that thousands of young Americans made regarding the Vietnam War. Absolutely right. You know, I mean, it was a moral choice, because the obligation of citizenship was to be drafted. Mm hmm. And they said, No, I can't do that. Although I could play the game. Because I have this is a moral stand. So I understand that. So now we come down to that core group of people. That is continually growing and growing, but they are being discriminated as they live in Hawaii. Boy, you know, we gotta move discriminated again because they took that stand. What is the solution? Have you got something that state of Hawaii, not the federal government leader feds out the state of Hawaii should pass a resolution and then following that with a law saying that there should be no discrimination against Hawaiian nationals. You see, I understand that from your historic and Hawaiian, the from the perspective of somebody making the moral choice. I also think that if you really think about it, the American thing to do would be to do what you suggested to say to these people who are morally and politically committed to being Hawaiian nationals that we are not going to treat you any differently because you took this stand. And yeah, I don't know why anybody as a matter of public policy. Now, I noticed that the legislature is passing a bill to protect immigrants to Hawaii. People who in fact are choosing to be here and they seem to be getting a lot of support. Well, this group and I'm pontificating a little bit because of time, but this particular group you're describing actually have no other place to go. This is their home. And oftentimes we never move. We have been here all the time and have no place to go. Well, I want to invite people to comment and to talk to the people who call themselves nationals and to hopefully the state of Hawaii and to the members of the legislature. I think this is a very important issue and I want to thank you very much for being on my show this afternoon. It's my pleasure. Aloha.