 Aloha and welcome to Talk Story with John Waihei. We got another great show for you today. 2018 is the year when the people of Hawaii get once again, get the opportunity to decide whether or not they want to have a constitutional convention. The last convention that we had in Hawaii was in 1978. Now that I think is like 40 years ago, 30 years ago, whatever, it's a long time ago. And we haven't had one since. What I'm going to introduce you to today is a series of events that will be held at various places across the islands where we will have an opportunity to talk about the San 1878 Constitutional Convention, and also decide or discuss whether or not we should have another one these many years later. And I was fortunate enough to be a participant in the last convention, and so I've been sort of dragged out, you see, that's what they do to us senior type politicians. And being used as a speaker in this series of events. Behind the scenes, there are a lot of people working to make this possible. And we happen to have such a young man with us today from the School of Hawaiian Knowledge. We have a kaika hasi. Aloha, coming in. Aloha. You know, it's really great to have somebody like you on the show, because you actually are doing the nuts and bolts of this whole thing. I mean, you're going around, you're talking to speakers, you're lining them up and the like. So the logistics of all of this fall right on your shoulder. You're right. There's a lot of people who are working on this important project. And I think it gets back to the really important question, which I think we're going to talk about over the next, you know, several minutes on the show, but over the next several months with your speaking series is, should we be having another con con? Should we be having, and specifically this particular series is specifically targeted to Native Hawaiian issues, right? That's right, yes. Now, before we begin though, tell us a little bit about yourself. Well, let's see. I was born in 1978. Oh, that's a good beginning. You're a total product of all of this. Well, I'm not sure what the causality is necessarily in this whole situation, but I would definitely say that myself and my generation have been an incredible beneficiary of the work that yourself and the other delegates did in 1978. Oh, thank you. Because we get to live in a world where, you know, we take it as a given that a little Hawaii should be co-equal with the English language and all these other innovations. We really got to get into that. We could talk about that. It's a little timely right now. Yeah, a little timely, but I still want to know more about you. So you were born in 1978, right about the time we were creating a new constitution and when did you grow up, go to school, a whole bit of it? I grew up on the Winward side. My wife and I and our family live in Kalehi Valley. I went to Iolani and UH Manoa. And how do you end up with this assignment? Well, you know, I work a bit with John Osorio at the School of Hawaiian Knowledge at Hawaii Nuiakea and this is one of many projects that we're working on at the School of Hawaiian Knowledge. Oh, thank you. You know, okay, let's get started. So this is a series of events. The first will be this coming Thursday, February 1st, and it'll be at the law school. That's right. Okay. Who are the people, besides myself, who are the people participating in that event? By the way, folks, I think we can get this up on the monitor. So there is an online registration form for individuals who want to attend. He is a little limited at the law school. We have experts in Hawaiian rights, Hawaiian law, who will be following yourself, Governor. And they're going to be responding to, you know, to the issues that you bring up in your discourse. Okay, as I understand it, because I was part of the 7-8 con con, and you weren't even born, I get a chance. Maybe just recently born. I get a chance to, like, tell people about what it was like. But I'm not the only person that was there. We're also going to have Walter Reddy who's going to be on. Right. And also, Malia Kutagawa, I believe, will also be speaking, and a few other folks. And one other person from the law school. But except for Walter, neither of the other two people were really around in 7-8 either. Right. So the format of all of this is to talk about what we were trying to do in 7-8, Walter and myself, and then have your generation sort of react to how what we did affected their lives. Yes. And I think also, in addition to that, I think we're also going to be asking for the speakers to do a little bit of prognostication, looking forward and looking at, you know, what are the future trends that we need to be aware of, that we need to be cognizant of. And based on that, you know, whether or not we should be... Whether we should at least... And so the first, February 1st, the topic will be, the name of the event is Ina. Right. And I expect that what we will be doing is discussing the impact that the 1978 Constitution had on land issues, especially as it relates to Native Hawaiians in the state of Hawaii. Yes. But there's some fun things, though. And one of them is the fact that, see, Walter really was not a delegate. This is...most people don't know this, but Walter was not really a delegate. What he was was...he was probably one of the leading activists of that decade in the 1970s. And he had gone to Kahuaulavi. And he had occupied Kahuaulavi with some other people, both Kupuna or elders and young people. When he comes through the Kan Kan, and all of a sudden, he is a clerk. He worked for the Hawaiian Affairs Committee. So... There was French Disoto? Cerro. French Disoto was the chairman. So I'm actually looking forward to Walter's experiences, because he's the guy that took the proposals that were in the committee being discussed and got people to sign off on them. Okay. And I'd love to hear what he told some of those delegates that we were doing with respect to land issues. Governor, can I ask you a question? Sure. So given that Uncle Walter was not himself a delegate, but came from Kahuaulavi and brought...that's the story of the bomb that stopped in Hawaii. What is the relationship that you see between the on-the-ground struggle, the activism, etc., and the Kan Kan? How do those two things interrelate? You know, I told...I was at a meeting recently when I said that for many people like yourself don't realize that prior to 1980, most of the constitutional, state constitutional rights that we all take for granted and exercise, dealing with seeded lands, dealing with access, dealing with language, did not exist. And the Kan Kan was a chance to put it all down. What's interesting in terms of the discussion, obviously, is how that got done, what got done, how it got done. And just as important, I think, what...how is it now being used and interpreted? Is it your sense, Governor, that if not for Piquel, Hokulea... Oh, no, none of this, none of this. In fact, I don't want to give away our whole program. Just a teaser. But there's not a single...every provision in the Constitution that relates to the Native Hawaiians actually spun off of a grassroots movement. Okay. And there was somebody or some group that were out there, you know, working very hard to secure this. Now, I don't know if people like in your generation, and maybe that's what I'd like to know, actually realize that. They didn't realize that, for example, it was the protect Kaho'olavi Ohana that put together the proposal on access rights, because they wanted to go into this military zone or seated land revenues being talked about by the Aloha movement. Okay. So these... That was Mrs. Rice. Mrs. Rice. And so many more, so many more, and folks, if you really want to know these things, come Thursday. Yeah, yeah. That's right. No, but come Thursday to February 1st at the law school, and it's Classroom 2, I think. I believe so. And we will have a great time, we're going to discuss. Now, it doesn't all end on Thursday. Actually the following month on March 8th, we are going to be on the Winworth Community College, and it's going to be dealing with, I forgot the... The word that we're using for this event is mo'amehau, or culture, and sort of our language tradition. Language, let's chat about language a little bit. Okay. Okay, because there was a lot of, and in this instance, I think let's get a little bit out there. But in my memory, the language, there were a couple of things that were driving the need to recognize the Hawaiian language. It wasn't simply something like, wouldn't it be cool for Hawaii to be the only state with a native language as their official language? That would have been cool enough. Yes. It would have voted for it just on that basis, but there was something more important going on. And number one, we were in the middle of a renaissance, and people were, for the first time in years, learning their language. And so people like my cousin Larry Kimura on the Big Island and Kupuna were talking about it. You're related to everybody, right? Not everybody, but... Isn't Walter ready, your cousin too? Yes. Yes. Yeah, it's all family. It's a kind of a Hawaiian thing. That's right. And if you're not related, you should be, you know, it's just a matter of... But who are you? If you're not related to me. Yeah. Well, but even that has an important, sad story, because we're all related mainly because the Hawaiian population shrunk so, you know, shrunk down tremendously. That's true by 90% or so. 90% of the people that were here when Captain Cook arrived disappeared. I mean, the population went from a million or so down to 40,000 in 100 years. Yeah, we are related. And today, one of the good things about it is we can talk about it, and it's an important part of living here. But it was a tragedy that caused it, unfortunately. That's true. But anyway, I know that we're going to, we really, I'd like to really get into this language thing a little bit. Yeah. Okay. And so what one of the driving forces for doing this was the fact that all of us, or myself included, many of us in the con con, all the native Hawaiians in the con con, had family stories of their parents or others being punished for speaking the language. Right. Being punished for speaking the language. And we want to come back right after this short break and discuss why that influenced the 1978 Constitution and lead you, tease you a little bit about the kind of discussion that should be happening on March 8th at the Windward Community College. Hey, Aloha, Stan Energyman here on Think Tech, Hawaii, where community matters. This is the place to come to think about all things energy. We talk about energy for the grid, energy for vehicles, energy and transportation, energy and maritime, energy and aviation. We have all kinds of things on our show, but we always focus on hydrogen here in Hawaii, because it's my favorite thing. That's what I like to do. But we talk about things that make a difference here in Hawaii, things that should be a big changer for Hawaii. And we hope that you'll join us every Friday at noon on Stan Energyman and take a look with us at new technologies and new thoughts on how we can get clean and green in Hawaii. Aloha. Hi, I'm Ethan Allen, host of Eligible Science on Think Tech, Hawaii. Every Friday afternoon at 2 p.m., I hope you'll join me for likable science, where we'll dig into science, dig into the meat of science, dig into the joy and delight of science. We'll discover why science is indeed fun, why science is interesting, why people should care about science, and care about the research that's being done out there. It's all great, it's all entertaining, it's all educational, so I hope to join you for likable science. Welcome back to Talk Story with John Waihe and our special guest, Te Kaika Hase, from the School of Hawaiian Knowledge. And don't worry, folks, this happens occasionally and I take care of it. It's some politician trying to call me. It's somebody. It's always somebody. Okay, we'll do that. Where was it? Oh, where were we? Folks, if you want to call in, the number is 808-374-2014, and we welcome phone calls. So all of us, my parents grew up being forbidden to speak Hawaiian, and in fact we had an episode in the beginning of the century, right after annexation, when the legislature, when the legislature of the New Territory of Hawaii refused to conduct business in anything but Hawaiian, and the United States then refused to accept anything that they passed because it was written in a foreign language, you see. So this is kind of our cultural history. Now all of a sudden in the 70s it's coming back, you know? So the idea was to make it, to make sure that that never happened again, that that never happened again, that our people would never be punished for speaking their language. Which by the way, just as a diversion, was very upsetting to see what happened to Calicoa, you know, who is a well-known activist, but also a professor. That's right. This is not somebody to try to act up, I mean this was a professor who actually is very articulate in the native tongue, and he was recently issued a bench warrant for wanting to speak his native tongue in court. Which the judge subsequently reversed. Well yeah, he did, but nevertheless what was shocking about all of that is how could this happen in 2018? After all these years when, you know, specifically done, now what is kind of interesting to me and was the fact that the legal analysis that the court used to see whether he was entitled to a interpreter was based on a civil rights statute, which basically says if you can't speak English, you can have an interpreter. I mean, why did we go there? I mean where we should have gone was through the Hawaii Constitution, and said boom, it's right there, you need to speak. So that was a major driving force, so that something like what happened wouldn't happen ever again, and then it popped up. The other one, which I think a lot of people is a little bit more subtle, the other objective was the fact that all of the original documents dealing with land title in Hawaii are written in Hawaiian. And one of the, and it was without the change of making Hawaiian the state language, what was happening was that these original documents were then being interpreted by court interpreters who were generally biased to the government. And the interpretation became the controlling document instead of the original language. So there was something a lot more than just being cool. And so that will take up hopefully, well we can take up any of these issues at any time, but that will be March 8th at the Windward Community College, right? And then when's the next one? April 12th, and that's going to be at the Judiciary History Center. And do you know what the topics are generally? So the topic for that event is OLA, or health, and I'm not sure if the panel has been finalized, but can you give us maybe a, your thoughts on the aspects of the Constitution and what to do with that? You know, Hawaiian health was very important, I mean once again, and in this area it was mostly indirect. We didn't do like the Hawaiian language where you took it in and so, but it was really health and the healthy environment and the need for agricultural lands and the rest, you know? And so we will be doing that on April 12th. The last event on May 10th will be at the, it's going to be at the Center for Hawaiian Studies. Okay. So it's going to be, oh, that's going to be fun. It will be exciting. Yeah, because first of all, the Kan Kan, I don't think anybody realizes, but it was the kind of the, happening the same time that the whole idea of self-governance, sovereignty actually, was being discussed in the Hawaiian community, and it didn't really originate with the Hawaiian community. I mean it was being discussed all over. For example, the war on poverty was very, very heavy on, on the management of their own resources of beneficiaries resources and everything. So folks, this is going to be a great opportunity. I mean we got four, we're going to go into depth on how these provisions that are currently in the Constitution, I'm trying my best not to give away any stories and make any, make any predictions, but we are, at each of these events, they will be my, I will be given a chance to tell a little bit about my story in the Kan Kan. There is, we will have people who were there in 1978, as well as people like yourselves, of self, who, you know, wasn't born about the time that we were talking about all of this. Yeah. It was an exciting time. Yes, absolutely. And what else? You want to know anything about it? I'm going to let you be the host for a few minutes. Okay. I wanted to ask you, if you could share. I know one of the documents that came out of the Kan Kan was this idea of Pulaka Power. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah. You know, it was interesting. Well, first of all, given the context of the Kan Kan, I think most people don't realize because the native Hawaiian issues became subsequently following the Kan Kan very prominent that actually when the Kan Kan started, it really, native Hawaiian issues were not even on the agenda. It really was a kind of a establishment versus, it was the two establishment. There's this press, you know, and I know they don't like to be called the establishment, but the advertiser had decided that they needed to, we need to have a Kan Kan. These are the issues that would be discussed, and they list them out there. And Star Bulletin jumped in it, and they were on one side trying to look like or be the reformers. And then the other side of the Kan Kan was the political establishment, the unions, the big business people, and they had an agenda, which was exactly opposite. And how native Hawaiians were out here somewhere protesting conditions. Sounds familiar. And they decided when after we got the Kan Kan started that their issues, this was an opportunity for their issues to be heard. How many delegates were there in the 78 Kan Kan? There was 101, and maybe about 10 at the most, I think, or something very close to that, we're native Hawaiians. Really? Yes, less than 10%. But thanks to people like Anti-Frenchy Di Soto and others, Hawaiians got to be very, very significant. And one of the reasons was Anti-Frenchy or Frenchy hired, she hired the protesters. That's why Walter Riddie is so interesting, because he went from being an activist on the island to a committee clerk actually talking people into their signatures was something that went into a document. So I think that that whole transformation would be interesting. Now, on my part, what became apparent once we started the Kan Kan was that there was a third way. There was a third way that hadn't been discussed in public, hadn't been, and it generally had these aspects. It was environmentally oriented, and as you know, the Kan Kan came out with things like the water commission with a great deal about the environment. It came with the right to sue for a clean environment. It had Hawaiian rights as one of its major issues, and everybody talked about that. They tried to make the state more fiscally responsible, and there was a lot about that. So they were these other issues, and they needed to be a cohesive way of expressing it. I mean, how do you express a political philosophy that's different than the prevailing views? And so what we did was we created a counter philosophy, and the counter philosophy was called Palakka Power, and if people want to know more about it, it gets to come on over and we'll get started February 1st at the Richardson School of Law with the issue of Aina, but also with some of the process, and March 8th and Wynward Community College and April 12th at the judiciary, and May 10th, we had the UH Hawaiian study. So yeah, Palakka Power was a chance for us to define a vision that looked at institutions differently than the other people who were participating in the counter. Thank you very much, and thank you for joining me. Thank you, Governor.