 Yes, Think Tech Hawaii, our middle name is Tech. The name of this series is Research in Manoa because actually Manoa is, they do research there and one of their research organizations is IFA, the Institute for Astronomy, which is very interested, sometimes shy, but always interested in what happens on Mauna Kea. And Mauna Kea is a very important subject for us to cover. Emilia Martin is here. She's one of the founders, I want to say the organizer and founder, yeah, okay, of IMUAA, IMUAA TMT movement, yeah, am I right? Yes. Okay, thank you for coming on the show, Emilia. Great to have you, great to talk to you. You're welcome. Yeah. Why? Why are you doing this? Why are you, you know, countering the protest on the top of Mauna Kea by advancing science through TMT? I can't not do this. If I were to stand by and think, oh, this is okay with the protest, then I would do that. But a few years ago when things started getting heated up and there were the first protests against the construction of Mauna Kea, I started looking into it and thinking, like, what is this really bad? Like, these Hawaiians are saying, like, this is bad for us. So what's going on here? What's going on with these telescopes? I'm not a scientist. I'm not someone who particularly is fond of, like, finding things in outer space. A little bit more I am now. But it was the first time after growing up here in Hawaii that I ever went out of my way to find out about what are those things up on Mauna Kea. I had been to Imiloa Astronomy Center in Hilo just for fun. That's a beautiful place. Right, right. That's amazing. Like, that's the heart with science and culture that we should be focusing on. Everybody should be, everyone should visit there, like how people think of, you know, Bishop Museum. Everybody should have gone there or should be going there. But I've been to the planetarium at Bishop Museum, but that's about it. So what's going on with these telescopes at Mauna Kea? There was a science cafe that was going on, and it happened to have a doctor, Alan Tokunaga, and it said something about telescopes. And I thought, oh, maybe I'll go and find out, you know, are telescopes like, you know, like with the pirate? Like, is that what they do? Is it a big room full of those? Is that how ground telescopes work? And it wasn't. And just finding out how they work, why there's so many up there, you know, telescopes, the ground telescopes. It was neat how he said that they work kind of in concert. Like you don't go to a concert and just have, like, you know, two instruments, or you don't have, you know, only two violins, that's it. No, we don't have any more violins, only two. There's different sounds and different things that happen. So understanding how they work together and the ones here at Mauna Kea work in concert with the weather ones on the southern, other hemispheres on the planet and different areas. I was kind of sad that I was like 40-something years old growing up in Hawaii, and this was the first time that was explained to me only because I went out of my way to get pastries at night and hear this talk because I was free. Right, right. And I thought, and so during this whole time, I've thought, wow, how much more people, local people don't have time to find out something that's literally foreign to us, especially, I mean, a lot of us, a lot of us live on Oahu, but even if you live on the big island, it's like, what are those things up there? They're far away and your opinion is, oh, that's what, that's up there, that's astronomers. They do a thing up there and then they leave. And that's what I had thought all my life, like astronomy is something that astronomers come in and do in Hawaii and they do their, get their data and they leave. And so where are astronomers from, well, not Hawaii, you know, where do scientists come from? Part of why I'm staying in this is in the long run, I would like my takey, my, you know, their children to grow up thinking STEM, field, science, tech, engineering and math, those are normal things to do, like to normalize high-tech things. Like it's normal to think, oh, I'm gonna go grow up and work in the hotel or drive a tour bus or, you know, join one of these, you know, or the military or something or one of these forces, but I want there to be another option so that it won't be like, oh, scientists, yeah, they're from the mainland or you can't be Hawaiian, you have to be Asian or you have to be Hali to be in science and even more that you don't, I want it to be different so that you don't have to go away. I think that's why I'm still in it, imagining in the future, this is 60 years in the future unless something really cool happens with technology, I probably won't be here, but I know, right? But like astronomy has been in Hawaii for about 60 years and this is where we're at now with really poor planning and mismanagement, but there's still been a lot of ground-breaking discoveries on Mauna Kea, important things found that are because of astronomy on Mauna Kea and 60 years from now what would what could happen in the future if this was, if the TMT was the first of the telescopes, if they had started at the beginning in the late 1960s and said, hey, we want to build a telescope on top of sacred Mauna Kea, but we want to give a lot back to the local Big Island community. We want to give it back to a lot of the students who live here, a lot of students who are Hawaiian, a lot of people who aren't students. We want the community that we're into thrive. We want to learn about the community. That would have probably been a better idea, but that didn't happen, so here we are now trying to make up for 50, 60 years of really bad, or not really bad, but not good PR. You said the IFA, they're kind of shy, and it's unfortunate that this whole time, you know, when people think of the University of Hawaii, like, oh, what are your football or the culinary school, it would be great if this whole time, or a few, we've lost the generation that's been able to say, oh, yeah, we have these cool telescopes. We do these things for the whole planet, and so maybe we can try to catch up with that, if it doesn't work out. Let me synchronize my thinking with you. You know, I've paid a lot of attention in my life to the Big Island. Most of my life has been here, and I never knew that Mauna Kea was a sacred mountain. I have walked up there, and Mauna Loa, I've camped in Mauna Loa a number of times, and it's a fabulous place to be, but I never knew it was sacred. Nobody ever indicated that. Now, if there was somebody out there that was making claims of sacredness, I never knew it, and I think a lot of people never knew it, until now. And so you have to ask, why now? Why does this come up after we have 10, 15 years of process in the regulatory system, in the courts, arbitration, mediation, all that? All of a sudden, now we have a claim of sacredness, not only a claim of sacredness, but a claim that wants to stop the whole affair. And I have trouble swallowing that as legitimate, it's just me. I remember I had a conversation with one of our think-tech people, and I asked her, I said, why the native Hawaiians opposing TMT, what is it? What makes this such a lightning rod that you care so much that you want to go to such degree, such length? Is it about the mountain, really? Is it about sovereignty? Maybe it's about sovereignty. Is it about the feeling that the people who came to Hawai'i in the 19th century stole the land, that sort of thing, it's a version of the sovereignty argument. What is it that makes the native Hawaiians want to stop all progress on the top of monarchy? What is it? And her answer was, it's not about the men. She's a native Hawaiian. It's not about the mountain. It's not about any sacred, characteristic, real or imagined of monarchy. It's not about that at all. Nor is it specifically about sovereignty. Nor is it about this claim that the Hawaiians stole our land back in the 19th century. It's an attempt to bring people together. It's kind of a proof of concept. And the concept that we're trying to prove here, she's involved, I believe she's involved in this whole protest movement. We're trying to bring the native Hawaiian people together to demonstrate that we can do stuff, that we can have an effect, that we can come together, we can be on the same page about something, anything. And monarchy just happens to be the anything that attracts most people. But the argument is not really about monarchy. It's about our failure to come together, really, up to this point. We've been limiting ourselves, and this is our big breakout kind of thing. And that makes sense to me. I really think that's what it is. The problem is, as you say, and you made the point very well, is that this has a huge negative effect on our state, the future of our state, our keiki, our industry, our resilience as a place, our attempts to avoid becoming a backwater. And this is so important for every man, woman, and child in the state. I don't think we fully appreciate the secondary effect of it. If I stop a tech project of this magnitude, $1.5 to $2 billion, if I stop that, I'm stopping all kinds of other income to the state, I'm stopping investment to the state, I'm stopping scientific grants to the state, I'm shooting a hole in my foot. That's how I synchronize my thoughts with you. You know, back when I was going to tell you the story before the show, you know, Think Tech was very closely following the development of Kaka Ako. The dean of the medical school, the medical school is a great project back in the early-ought years. And Ed Cadman, who came from Yale to build it, and he was very successful in navigating the channels of the legislature and doing that, he built the medical school, yeah? And what he wanted was a tech community around the medical school. He wanted farmer companies, for example, research, tech research companies to come here, you know, in Kaka Ako, Makai. So it was a shock to all of us to find that A and B wanted to build a bunch of condos at Point Panic. There was a lot of resistance. And one of the leading resisting organizations was something called SOS, Save Our Surf, okay, Save Our Surf. And, you know, they made a lot of who-who about it. And ultimately, A and B, right here on our show, announced that they were withdrawing the project. And that was the end of the project, you know, when A and B drew, and that was really, that was a scoop, okay? So then I go walking with my dog, which I used to do on the walkway there in Kaka Ako. And there's a fellow who's got a bullhorn, and he's trying to teach young people out there at Point Panic how to surf, okay? So he's got the bullhorn, and he's, you know, he's giving them instructions on how to handle the waves at Point Panic. It was nice. And so I was standing with him, him and me and my dog on a Sunday, beautiful Sunday afternoon. And I'm a friendly guy, and I started talking to him about Kaka Ako and about the A and B project and all this stuff. And he says, yeah, and I found that he was a member of Save Our Surf, SOS. He was one of the guys surfing, right? So I said to him, you know, well, it's over now. The A and B project is gone. So, you know, we got to think of something constructive to do with Kaka Ako. We got to think of a way that Kaka Ako can serve all the people, everybody, and tech, just as Cadman had envisioned. He died a few years ago, Cadman, and there's a loss. We got to find a way to make Kaka Ako serve everyone. What about tech, I said, to this leader, really, of at least some people in the native Hawaiian community? What about tech? Why don't we do tech? You know, middle name tech, OK? And he said, he said. What did he say? It was a loose statement, and it means more than what he said. But he said, tech? Tech. Tech is for the Haldies. I don't think he meant Haldies. I think he meant everybody who was not native Hawaiian. There's a lot of Asian people in tech that always will be. But, you know, my concern at that point is I realized, you know, that tech had a bad name, and that people were rejecting tech. They weren't supporting it politically. They weren't supporting it socially. They weren't supporting it in terms of, you know, their activist causes. And we were losing ground, and we did lose ground in the odd years of, you know, between 2000 and 2010. Lost a lot of ground in tech. And by 2010, it was clear that Hawaii was not going to be the tech place that so many people, including Burns, Ariyoshi, John Wahey, Ben Kaitano, had all seen it to be. And that you see it to be. So I just wanted to tell you that story, Malia. That's funny. And do you think if there wasn't a problem, do you think Hawaii could be a tech hub of the Pacific? I still think that. I still think not only do I think that, but I think it's very important that we do that. You know, if you want to be a hub for folding hospital corners, you know, in hotels. Other countries do it better and cheaper. That's kind of the problem, too. We need to figure out something we can do. We have to have an industry here. We have to have multiple industries. And one of the things we could have, for example, this came up in a PBS panel program I was involved in. We had to find a way to keep people here. We had to find a way not to lose our kids. We had to find a way to have a robust economy. One of the ways is to capitalize on culture. I mean, really capitalize. I mean, we have to do more about culture. We have to sell culture, export culture. You know, not just send a singer to Beijing to sing a little bit. We have to export music, for example, and art. We have to show the world our great resources and skills and talents. And one of those things really is tech. So all the navigational things that we learned at Hokulea and all the agricultural and environmental things that we learned in the period before Captain Cook came around, all those things are valuable. We have to pursue that instead of rejecting those things. One of those things is astronomy. It's stargazing, right. I mean, I think people are mistaken when they make the argument, oh, our ancestors is native Hawaiians. They didn't need no telescopes. They didn't use any instruments. Why should we need an instrument now? But that's not true. You can ask anybody who has navigated on the Hokulea the instruments that they used weren't telescopes, weren't Western tech. But it was like things in nature. They still used tools like in water currents and in the clouds and in the wind patterns and in the waves and in the birds. And so they weren't just magically going out there and Jedi mind-tricking themselves around the planet and then waiting at night for the stars to come out. There were tools being used. When Hokulea did Malama Honua around the planet, we used tools and they weren't GPS, but Hiki Analia followed behind with GPS and everything to help keep on track. So it's not like we don't need those things at all, like as if Nainoa Thompson doesn't have a cell phone or something like that. But the real instrument is the innovation of the Hawaiian mind then and now. And so when people say Hawaiians don't need telescopes, like we don't need, I don't need GPS, but I mean, to come down here today, I had to figure out what floor and everything and which, you know, this and that, how to get here. And with instruments, what can we do as innovators throughout history? Like with Kamehameha, you know, he wasn't like, oh, you know, we're gonna fight. I'm gonna take over. We have this many spears. So I just need twice as many. He went, hey, look at those guys. They have that. I wanna find out what that is. They don't have any spears. How did they do that? But it was still, if he still wasn't a leader, he could have gotten a whole bunch of spears or guns and not done really well at all. But you still have to be a leader with the instruments that you have. And I think this opens it up for in the future. I mean, before people couldn't, wouldn't have thought of leading native Hawaiian or indigenous scientists in Western tech. But also before, not even that many generations ago, people wouldn't think of female scientists. So that's different. And so this opens the door a lot more to like, how you were saying, like, oh, tech, that's for Hollies, you know, science doesn't have to be for just white males anymore. And I think that would be important. So it is everybody. Right. So I wanted to add this thought to it. I've been sort of watching, studying, you know, how the state has come together since just after statehood, that's my life. And, you know, I remember the time in the 60s where people here were so friendly. I mean, people would meet you and two minutes later, they were inviting you home for a beer. I'm not kidding. And that happened all the time. And, you know, I loved that. I loved that about Hawaii. It was this giving thing. It was this open-minded thing. It was, I want to learn more. Indeed, Kalakaua did that. He traveled all over the world. He learned as much as he could possibly learn. And that made Hawaii great. Right up to the overthrow, you know, Hawaii was a globally conscious place. The monarchy just loved that stuff. And they adopted things early and they gave us a special cultural point. And in recent years, I'm afraid to say, I don't think we've maintained that. We've lost track of that. We've become isolationists. You know, keep away from me. We've become like Trump. We've become nationalistic. And sovereignty has taken on a very nationalistic, you know, a color to it, a tone that is isolationist and, you know, not open to new ideas, not open to new connections around the world, not open to charity and kindness and connection with Hither and Jan. I think that the true native Hawaiian value here, which we, I think we, I think it isn't like it was, I'm sorry to say, is to be a world player, like Kalakaua, to travel and think and connect and give and be kind and be part of the global community, right? And that's exactly the way the astronomy, you know, community has been. The astronomy, which met here a couple of years ago, the global community, I think it called the Astronomical Union, a big, big meeting at a convention center. It came from everywhere. They came because they love Hawaii. They love the whole idea about astronomy in Hawaii. And there were a lot of people, there were a lot of protesters there who shouted them down, which I thought was really unfair and tacky. But bottom line is that we ought to bond up with those people. We become part of a global community that values astronomy and science in general and that welcomes them, that gives them and that has a relationship with them. That's the true value, isn't it? I think so. I think there's the other side that some of the protesters, I think some of the protesters would like to build a wall around Mauna Kea if they could and around the information that could help the rest of the world, like, no, we're going to keep you out and keep us in. But some people would say that, everyone, when you said, oh, we could give to the rest of the world, some people say, well, they've been taking and taking from Hawaii, astronomers, they just come and tourists just come and the military just comes and takes things, what we're tired of them taking. And I think with, and I'm just gonna go this way, with the heck is for howlies and we're tired of colonists or colonists' mindset coming in and taking, it's so easy when you say, why now? Why are they protesting the telescopes now when they've been up here for a whole generation and suddenly now, oh, it's sacred, get out of here, oh, they're bad, get them out. Well, first is social media because people were, maybe a few people were thinking that before because they misunderstood, like you see, what is this, the idea of this big fat white, holly, round things sitting up there all entitled, like they belong on Mount Akan to have that resource, yeah, like who is that? Oh, it must be a colonizer, but it's not, it's a telescope. And it's so easy to fight against this like neutral thing, this telescope and think we're fighting colonized mindset, it's like, oh yeah, we're against you, we want you out of here, I'm gonna go eat Spam and Rice, which is not from, like you should be eating hollow, you should be eating not these things that were introduced after World War II and that diabetes is the real killer, not telescopes. We need to do more med tech for Hawaii, that's specifically for us and so in people's minds, it's easier to think we're fighting colonization because we're fighting like big white things that aren't from Hawaii that are on the Mauna, so it's symbolic and it's kind of cathartic. I understand, there's the sticky to the man kind of feeling you get when you go, hey, beat it and the authorities go, I mean, that's something nice, like we can't avoid that for so many years with Hawaiians, however you feel about becoming a state legally or if it's good for Hawaii or not, this is an opportunity where anger can be taken out at a thing, like you can't keep taking anger out at federal things like the H3 Freeway or at a military base because you get in trouble, but we can take it out against a bunch of scientists who are just hanging out and haven't talked to the community and tried to make contact and interact as much as people do like with tourism or like this different hotel chains, like they try to integrate the community because it's different, it's specialized. So I mean, it's harder, so it's easier to attack the telescopes and feel good about it, but say we don't build them, then as Hawaiians, we say yay, we don't like the Avatar movie, do we go yay and everyone goes home and now everybody has their job doing the same thing we've had and that's not good, so I think there's just been a lot of drama and emotion when there doesn't need to be and it's good, yeah. The implications are huge. It's not just a matter of stopping people, it's not just a matter of facing down the police or the governor or Harry Kim. It's much more than that. If we don't do this, we get a reputation. We already have a reputation. We're gonna be finished with the Astronomical Union and the community of astronomers around the world. Then I can invest any more money, so forget that. But think of all the other things that come, all the other scientific grants and investments. If I was a granting organization in Washington, New York or Los Angeles or San Francisco and I saw this happening, I would think twice before I invested one more dime in Hawaii because I would say, gee, the bigger the project, the more trouble we have. This is, they don't want us there. If they don't want us there, we're not gonna go there. That's the logical and even responsible thing for a granting organization to do, given this, so we have a big problem now. I just want to mention and I want to raise this subject for you as the last discussion point. A few years ago, Think Tech did a panel program down in Laniakaya, women's wide there, and it was my favorite one of all time, actually. A lot of people showed up. It was called Managing Offshore Investment in Hawaii, and the operative word was managing. So you have a lot of people who, it's like some people are paranoid about any investment, keep away from me, and some people are foolish because they allow all investment without even thinking about what it's doing to Hawaii. So the answer is in the middle. The answer is managing the investment. You want to come to these shores, you want to do a project, talk to us, and we will be reasonable. We will negotiate. Think of Singapore that has all this offshore capital coming, they manage. And that's what we should have been doing. That's what we should be doing now. And then we can get the capital investment. We can develop a better reputation for being reasonable business people, and we can have it both ways. All we have to do is manage. It's easy, but we don't do it. Right, I think a lot of people who are upset are upset about the management or mismanagement of things that have to do with the Hawaiian people which are legitimate. And it's good that this lightning rod topic has put the focus on, hey, look at this problem, but it's too bad that the unifying thing is a really awesome opportunity for Hawaii that should be embraced. I mean, it's nice that everyone is together. It's nice that, you know, since the hundred year anniversary of the overthrow and everything, since the 90s, which is like around the time the telescopes were being built, also the sovereignty movement was beefing up. And this is the moment. Today everybody is all together, and maybe we can solve some of those issues of mismanagement with the state, mismanagement with the Mauna, or not the best management with the Mauna in, you know. But, yeah, it's about management, yeah. But just saying, beat it, everyone, get off the mountain. Without offering any alternative, saying no without proposing offer, counter-offer, sit down in a room, you know, that's not going to take us anywhere. It's going to damage us. It is damaging us. So what has to happen, see if you agree or not, is somebody has to say, I'm a reasonable business person. I have the authority, if you will, of the support of the native Hawaiian community, such as it is, it's very fragmented, but such as it is, I'm going to sit with you. We're going to talk, we're going to be reasonable. We're going to come to a solution that satisfies everybody, at least, you know, in reasonable terms. And I'm not going to just shut you out and send you away and get all mad at you and refuse to even deal with you. This is the problem. Right. I think we have to look at that and have people answer and dialogue. There's not enough dialogue. Like, I've been involved with different rallies. One of the most meaningful things that happened was actually dialoguing with the protester and I learned something new. They learned something new. We still had our own beliefs, but we both realized who is and who's not the enemy or what is and what isn't the problem. And there's obviously a problem where there wouldn't be thousands of people doing something there, but there's still good. It's not all bad because why would people like, I consider myself a pretty reasonable person. Like, why would people still be thinking, no, we really need to explore this industry for Hawaii in the future. Okay, Melia, so there they are. They're out on camera one there and you have a chance to talk to them. Who is they? They are the people who are running the protest. They are the people who are generating the social media mail. They are the people that say, don't negotiate. Stand in the road, stop everything. Do malicious mischief on the cars, you know about that, about on the mountain. Just try to just make a mess. And then we will make our point and it will be clear that we are together and everybody is afraid and intimidated of us. And I'm not sure what point there is to make of that, what benefit there is, but those are the people you can talk to. Talk to them right now. What is your message, Melia Martin, to those people who are running this protest? Okay, well, brothers and sisters, auntie, uncle, whether we like it or not, whether you like it or not, you're in the United States of America, which gives you the right to protest with civil disobedience, which comes with consequences. People believe in their rights to the point that they're okay if the consequences are going to jail. I know from being at the end of the contested case hearings in 2015 that one of your leaders was set on seeing us out the mountain and going to jail for that. So if that is the price you want to pay, please pay that price on behalf of the rest of the, of the rest of the people who want to be law abiding. It's the law that protects you and allows you to demonstrate your freedom of speech. And if that is the consequences that you choose to be there, we could still talk even if you're not out in the open. In the meantime, if you go behind bars, we'll try to do the best that we can to make Hawaii better for our children and grandchildren. It's really honorable that you're standing up for what you believe, but you're holding my children, my grandchildren and their grandchildren hostage, their future hostage. That's not very couple, Aloha. I want to add a point which I think is implicit in what you say. In this case, for this telescope, we've had 10 to be 15 years of legal process. And if people didn't like the idea, they had innumerable opportunities to express themselves and to raise objection in that process. So then it goes back and forth and it winds up in the Supreme Court for I don't know how many times and it's now over, the Supreme Court issues a final order saying you may go do construction. That's when we get everybody up in the top of the mountain. That's when the protest flowers out. Wouldn't it be better if people read up on the process, respected the process, participated in the process and they might win their point but within the legal process, not, you know, I mean to respect the law, the rule of law, so to speak, not after the rule is decided then go try to throw the whole thing out, baby and bath all together. Would you agree with me on that? I think that a lot of people who are there don't really care about the rule of law in the first place. But I think they would care about just knowing more about what is there. Like I said from the beginning, I didn't know what's there on the mountain, what do telescopes do, what does that have to do with related to being Polynesian and our ancestors that were stargazers and it's all at Imi Lua, I mean everybody should go there but just taking the mystery out of what people are, what people are protesting against, I have not met somebody in person who's protesting that I didn't tell something new about that they didn't know about the telescopes just like how I didn't know about the telescopes that's just mysterious, they need to inform themselves maybe not just on the legal process that allows them to be there but on the actual industry and what they really do and I'm still not a fan of like space things or whatever and nobody has to be like we're not probably gonna be scientists or astronomers, not everyone can be an astronomer. I don't know, okay maybe, right, that would be really neat if I'm proven wrong but just to understand what it does like you don't have to just to know what happens in your neighborhood like renewable energy or how industries happen or how things happen in your neighborhood this is what happens in your neighborhood and I don't think enough of us know about that so not only to educate people on the legal process that let them be there but on the actual, what is the TMT, what are ground telescopes? Why is it that if TMT isn't built in Hawaii, why does that affect all astronomy in Hawaii? Like astronomy in Hawaii is astronomy on Mauna Kea and Haleakala. This is some of the best astronomy on the planet because of where we're located and it is going to show a sign to the world we don't care if you're here or not. Why should any astronomy program continue to thrive here and it's gonna be really bad for us and a big loss? Well what I hear you saying and I think this is the last point of the show is that inherent in Imua and the TMT and your view of things is this notion of yeah moving forward but also respecting what your neighbor is doing especially if your neighbor is doing it for altruistic reasons this is university stuff. Why not support that? Why not care about your neighbor? Why not care about the greater good of the whole state? Wouldn't that be better? That would be. It's caring for each other which is an old Hawaiian value. Thank you so much Malia Martin. You're welcome. Wonderful to have you here. Thank you too.