 Welcome back. This is the 20th show in the series, Rehabilitation Coming Soon, in which we've been discussing mass incarceration in Hawaii and throughout the United States. I'm Bob Merson. I'll be sitting in as host today for our regular host, Aaron Wills, who will be returning, I believe, next week. Our very distinguished guest today is Moses Haya, the executive director of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation. Moses was a staff attorney at the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation before he became executive director. And he, as a staff attorney, led the way in some landmark cases involving water rights and Native Hawaiian burial cases. Before joining the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation, Moses was in private practice and he worked with the Hawaiian Advisory Council and litigated a number of water issues, particularly concerning the Waiholi Ditch. He is a graduate of the University of Hawaii and the William Richardson School of Law. And we are very happy and proud to have him with us today. Welcome, Moses. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. Our viewers have probably heard about Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation, but for those who haven't, I wonder if you could tell us a little bit about what it is and what the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation does. Okay, well, you know, just to give a little bit of a background on it, there is a bit of a cultural renaissance that began in the early 70s. And it was centered around land and Hawaiian's way of seeing land as family and wanting to ensure that whatever could be done to protect that land was done. And so the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation actually started off as a referral service in 1974 trying to get people who needed help, for example, with quiet title actions where a lawsuit would be filed and the plaintiff would be seeking to quiet title to the entire property. In other words, to get a court decision saying that title to this property is clear and in your name plaintiff. And a lot of the name defendants were Hawaiians, and then just based upon history, Hawaiians were living on the land, using the land, and so they became, for the most part, the defendants defending those kinds of cases. And so that's how we began and we slowly moved into a Native Hawaiian rights non-profit law firm, a public interest law firm, where today we do anything from access rights to rights for Native Hawaiian prisoners for their religious freedom. We water rights, being able to basically be a Hawaiian in Hawaii. And maybe I should make a disclosure here. I have it down on my notes to do it a little bit earlier, but I'm on the board of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation and want everyone to understand that. And proud to be on the board and a part of what I think is a great organization. You mentioned the prison cases, and I know we can't talk about them specifically because some of them are still pending, and that wouldn't be proper. But in general, what are the issues that the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation sees as being important enough to litigate in the context of the prison setting here in Hawaii? Well, I think it's just a matter of equality when it comes to the right to engage in one's religious beliefs. If you look at the prison system, you'll see that Christians, for the most part, you know, they, Christians who are inmates have a number of opportunities to engage in their Christian practice. And that's not necessarily the case for others. There are other religions that are starting to get to that point. But when we started looking into the issues we saw that Native Hawaiians were probably the least likely to receive opportunities to engage in traditional and customary Hawaiian religious practices. Why is it important for Hawaiians who are incarcerated to have access to cultural practices and be allowed to engage in those practices? You know, the best way for me to approach that topic is to speak from my own experiences. It's fortunate enough to never spend time behind bars, at least prison bars. I created bars of my own. So the only thing that separates me, this is the way that I see it, from Native Hawaiian inmates is that I never got caught for some of the things that clearly would have landed me in prison. I just, I really got lucky in that way. And so that didn't stop me from continuing to get into trouble. And what I started to see was I was going to a school, Kamehameha Schools, and while it wasn't necessarily the message that I was being delivered, the way that I took that message in turned into, it's not such a good thing for me to be Hawaiian because the statistics prove it out. I have a better chance than anyone else of ending up in prison, of being unemployed, homeless. So all the things that people for the most part don't want to be number one in, I saw that as an opportunity because I was a Hawaiian. And so I had a very skewed opinion of what it was to be Hawaiian. And it got to the point where, like in the 70s when that renaissance was happening and there were these activists, Kulave, Kalama Valley, I would look at them and I'd say, please stop it. You're embarrassing me because, you know, we need to become the best Americans we can become. And while that was a surface kind of thing for me, I feel deep down inside is today where I understand the real issue was. And the genesis of all the trouble and heartache that I started to feel because I couldn't buy that deep down inside despite the kinds of, you know, the numbers that were out there that showing what were Hawaiians were socioeconomically. And as a result of that, I fought as hard as I could and ultimately, you know, became that statistic in another way. I had problems with alcohol and drugs. And what happened for me, fortunately, was I was at a meeting and this older Hawaiian gentleman shared and said that he was proud to be Hawaiian. And that struck a chord in me because I couldn't understand that. So I went up to him and we talked for a little bit. And although he never explained what he meant by that, he just said, you know, hang around. And so from that point on, I started to look at what I had taken on and defined me as a Hawaiian. And I started to see that it wasn't truly what defined me as a Hawaiian. And the kind of person that I am being very apologetic for being Hawaiian, I am now going to be on the other end of the spectrum about being really proud to be Hawaiian and shouting from the mountain tops. And I've learned through Hawaiian culture and other ways of seeing that the Hawaiian that I am needs to get to a point of balance. And for me, that's what will define me, how balanced I can be in my views and not giving up who I am as a Hawaiian. But the example is, doing the work of a native Hawaiian legal corporation, there are a lot of people out there that look at us as anti-development. And that's clearly not the case. Okay, you can say we're pro-culture, but ultimately we're about balance. And when it comes to that, what we're saying is, what I see is people come here and they want to be in Hawaii because of all the special things about this place. What makes this place special? A lot of that is aloha, Hawaiian values. A lot of that gets sold, you know, in the tourism industry. And I don't want to see what provides the specialness about this place lost because we don't see it for its true value. And that makes us who we are. So I work to ensure that anything that is going to impact Hawaiian culture does it in a way that it doesn't get rid of it, that it pays respect to it. And I can only see that continuing to have those special things about Hawaii provide, even if you're looking at it from a capitalist point of view, continues to provide that value you need. And if you continue to waste away at it, you start to lose that, and then we're just any old place. So kind of got off the track, we're talking about rehabilitation. Well, and so I take it from what you're saying is that as you form this view of yourself as a Hawaiian and what it means to be Hawaiian, and if you're unable to be Hawaiian in prison, then you start to have all the problems that you were having. Particularly I guess if you're in Arizona, one of the 1400 prisoners in Arizona where you're basically in the middle of a Native American desert, and kind of hard to practice Hawaiian values there, unless somebody is going out of their way to help you. I don't see any difference, despite the change in location of our mental, where we are mentally, about what it is for me to be a Hawaiian. And unless and until I start to deal with that, and start to get to a point where I can form a foundation of what it means for me to be Hawaiian. And I think that culture, a way of being Hawaiian through cultural practices has allowed me to get a different perspective on what it is for me to be Hawaiian, and to start to be able like that gentleman who shared said being proud to be a Hawaiian. And so when it comes to opportunities, especially in prison, for one to engage in practices that provide that foundation of what a Hawaiian is in terms of his or her relationship to land, to water, to sky, to the world, I think we start to get on the way of having a firm foundation and finding out who we are, so that there's a greater possibility to begin to act in different ways, think in different ways. We'll come to a point where we need to take a break, so we're going to leave for a moment. This is Rehabilitation Coming Soon. I'm Bob Merse here with the Moses Haya of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation, and we'll be back in just a minute. Aloha. My name is John Wahee. And I actually had a small part to do with what's happening today. Served actually in public office. But if you don't already know that, here's a chance to learn more about what's happening in our state by joining me for a talk story with John Wahee every other Monday. Thank you, and I look forward to your seeing us in the future. Aloha. I'm Kaui Lucas, host of Hawaii Is My Mainland, here on Think Tech Hawaii every Friday afternoon at 3 p.m. Start your Pau Hano weekend off with the show where I talk to people about issues pertinent to Hawaii. You can see my previous shows at my blog, kauilukas.com, and also on Think Techs. Welcome back. Again, Bob Merse. We're here with Moses Haya of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation, and we've been talking about Hawaiians in prison. And before we go on, you mentioned that you were not in prison, but you were lucky, and that was the main reason that you weren't. And I'm glad you weren't, because Hawaiians, just a few statistics that I've come across recently, make up about 26 percent of the general population in Hawaii. But they're close to 40 percent of the prison population. And a few years ago, the Office of Hawaiian Affairs issued a study that showed clearly that Hawaiians were overrepresented in every segment of the criminal justice system. They were found guilty more often than other groups. They went to prison more often. They get longer sentences. They get longer parole periods, and there's a complete inequity with regard to the Hawaiians who are in prison. And that's clearly one of the issues that has to be addressed at some point. But getting back, what kinds of things would you think would be important within the correctional system that would support Native Hawaiians in their belief and that they are Hawaiian and in their pride in being Hawaiian and their ability to really practice? What would you like to see the Department of Public Safety doing for Hawaiian inmates, given that they are overrepresented and constitute probably the largest single group of people in the prison system? Yeah. So this is our home. It certainly doesn't feel like it. I think you're well aware that there are two official languages in Hawaii, one being Hawaiian. And that language is almost lost. And that language holds a significant tie to what it means to be a Hawaiian. You learn the language you start to think as a Hawaiian. You start to act as a Hawaiian. So I think if we're really trying to rehabilitate or provide opportunities to return Hawaiians back to society, then we're obligated to give them those opportunities that are going to provide them with the tools that will let them become the Hawaiian that they should be in Hawaii. And it's a constitutional requirement that certain practices be allowed, religious practices. And that was a long-flat battle in the 1978 Hawaii Constitution which changed to provide constitutional protection to Native Hawaiian tradition and customary practices for culture, for religious purposes. What do that constitutional provision say? I mean, not quoting it, but what's the heart of it? It's basically to say that this state has an obligation to ensure that Native Hawaiian tradition and customary practices for religious, cultural, and other purposes are protected, they're allowed to be engaged in. And the underlying, I believe the underlying basis for that is what's happened through the years with respect to just the overall loss to the point of almost totally gone under the culture of Hawaiians. And it's no wonder when you have Hawaiians who have lost who they are because they don't have their cultural foundation and underpinnings, that they're going to be without a rudder or foundation and working from a point of a center of knowing who they are as a Hawaiian. Obviously, Native Hawaiian legal corporation has had to litigate some of these issues. Do you think they're doing enough to bring these constitutional protections into the prison system? When you say they... Department of Public Safety or the other state generally? Well, you know, I obviously am not the most objective person when it comes to that, especially given my personal and professional background. But if we really want to see change or offer change for these overrepresented individuals in prison, there's no doubt in my mind that offering these kinds of programs and the ability to engage in practices is the one most important way of getting to a point where you're allowing a Hawaiian to get past what I believe has been the stumbling block for them and why they're in the situation they find themselves in. So my answer is no. Much more needs to be done. Hawaiians, well, most of the people in prison, no matter who they are, end up coming out, unfortunately about 40% of them end up going back in within three years, which is a horrible cycle that we don't seem to be able to break. And in my thinking, you know, one reason that we can't break this cycle of recidivism is that we don't treat people appropriately in prison. We don't really do anything to change behavior in prison. But I think the other reason is that we don't do enough in the community to put people on the right track to begin with. And by the time they come into the prison system at age, whatever, 18, 19, 22, most of these are young men. It's kind of late, you know, you've got a big job on your hands. What kinds of things do you think about in the community that you would like to see change, not just in the prison system, but in the communities where we have a lot of Native Hawaiians, whether it's access to places where they can engage in Native Hawaiian practices, cultural practices, access to water, access to land. One of the key elements that the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation wants to focus on to, build a better culture generally so that we don't end up with these people in the prison system. So what we have is we have rights, and those rights are codified in Hawai'i's law. Some of those rights have constitutional protection. And what we don't have is those rights actually being transformed into the social fabric of a community, such that they become commonplace in communities, that it's not, oh wow, we're going to do this program, but this is what's happening, and this is going to become a part of our community. Engaging in traditional and customary practices, i.e. tarot growing, kapa, all kinds of ways of being Hawaiian become a part of the social and moral fabric of our island, of our state. I think there are those laws, but to actually get them into practice is a completely different set of issues. Sometimes it's because of resources. Resources are really precious and are sometimes used by large corporations. You know, while, for example, large agribusiness has had a tight hold on water for generations, and the fact that water hasn't been able to flow through streams has prevented Hawai'ians, Hawai'ian individuals, Hawai'ian families, Hawai'ian communities from acting as Hawai'ians with respect to the way that you as a Hawaiian view and treat water. We're down to about the last 30 seconds of our show already today, Moses, and hopefully we can have you back again in the near future to talk about some of these issues. When you're talking about changing the community, I was just thinking about the Native Hawaiian Justice Task Force that was formed. They came up with like 38 recommendations, and nobody seems to be listening to the things that you were saying and that others, particularly Native Hawai'ians in the community are saying, and hopefully we can do something to change those. But thank you very much for being our guest here today. I look forward to perhaps having you back in the near future, and we appreciate your coming on and sharing your views with us. This is Rehabilitation Coming Soon. I'm Bob Merse. That's our show for today. Stay tuned for Sustainable Hawai'i with Kristen Turner coming up next.