 Welcome to Prospectors on Global Justice think-tok Hawaii program. This is your host Beatrice Cantelmo. Today, guest Marsha Joyner will tell us all about the Thap of the Nation. A re-enacted dramatic play that she co-created with all the marvelous individuals in this community. This work was based on the book Nation Within from author Tal Kofman. The Thap of the Nation premiered this year on July 4, 2017, in front of the Iolani Palace in Honolulu, Hawaii. There, several actors re-enacted the events that led to the proclamation of the existence of the Republic of Hawaii on July 4, 1894, right in front of the Iolani Palace. In the name of American liberty, the liberty of people of the Hawaiian kingdom was destroyed. And today, we have the owner of Talking More about that. Let's dive right in. Marsha, welcome to our program. Aloha. Thank you so much. Aloha. Thank you. What an honor to have you here. Okay. You know, like, you always hear, you know, a host under you do a fabulous job. It feels different to sit on this side. Yes. I just forget about, are you nervous? It would be all good. Come on, two Brazilians in a house. Yes, Brazil with a Z. Brazil with a Z and a Brazil with an X. So you are from Brazil, Indiana. Yeah. Yes. And I'm from Brazil, the country of Brazil. So, you know, I think most people, without saying, you know, they all know about you, but for our viewers, you know, who are new prospectors on global justice, would you mind giving us a little blurb about your background? You know, how did you end up here? Well, first of all, you can't do seventy-nine years in a little bit. It takes seventy-nine years to do seventy-nine years. We'll do several series. That doesn't have to show. It's like the one minute biography. You can't do that. Yeah. Brazil, Indiana is a postage size, a stamp size, a little place on Route 40. And most people say, yes, I know where Brazil is, and yes, I know where Indiana is, but the two of them just doesn't make sense. No. But many, many years ago, all of the red bricks that you see on the mainland, the buildings made of red brick, came from Brazil, Indiana, because it was clay, clay county, and all the bricks were made of the red clay. So that's how it got to be on the map. That's amazing. Have you ever had any problems or a funny story, like with a situation where you might have been mistaken as a Brazilian national? Oh, yes. I went to school, you know, elementary school in lots of places, and they send your transcript with you wherever you go. And so finally, 1956, May of 1956, to be exact, and I was getting ready to graduate from high school, and the principal called me and said, well, don't you expect to graduate? Of course I do. Did I do something wrong? Yeah. And she says, oh, no, no, no. Lovely, lovely lady. That beautiful Republican look, you know, with the pink suit and the white hair, just lovely. And she says, well, no, my dear. However, it says here that you were born in Brazil, and we don't have nationalization papers for you. Oh, dear. I'm an American, I'm not an American. Wow, amazing. They dropped Indiana. Yeah, you know, when you change so many schools in so many different countries and so many different states, there's no telling what happened. And so I'm sure somebody looked at it and said, that can't be right, can't be Indiana, and they just dropped it. And they got it corrected that way. Well, what I, you know, did you call it a year? It's an interesting story, you know, how you almost got into trouble for something so minor and, you know, unbelievable. But here we are. So two Brazilians in a house, two activists. I hear you've been doing political activism as numbers can walk. Yeah, definitely. I think part of the fact of a nation is perhaps, you know, a big way to do political activism in a very special manner. Well, the story of the Hawaiians is no different than the story of any indigenous people anywhere in the world. The colonizer's the same. So the music is the same, the words are different. And so it's easy to take up the cause of, and where you live. This is where I live. These are the people I live with. And their cause is as valid as anybody else's cause. And when you're an activist, that's what you do. What inspired you to say, you know, I'm going to write the story. I'm going to collaborate with older people to be able to tell this like it really was? Well, in 1987, I began this trip with the Hawaiians, never knowing where it was going to lead. We took on a fight with the American government for trans-shipping chemical weapons to Johnson Island. And that was the beginning. I was upset when I heard about it and I went to the governor's office because I had a friend in the governor's office. You've got to do something, you've got to do something. You can't let them trans-ship chemical weapons to Johnson Island. You just can't do it. And he said, well, Marsha, you're two years too late? I said, what? What do you mean, two years too late? Oh, the deal is done. He said, however, if it'll make you feel better, I know an attorney, a Hawaiian attorney who loves these kinds of things. So he gave me Hayden Burgess. He said, here, call this guy. And so I did. And so we took on this cause of trans-shipping the chemical weapons. And then with him, he introduced me to a lot of people, of course, who came on board for this issue. And so what happened is this organization started sacred times and sacred places. And we were all learning. And we went to different places that are sacred in Hawaii and to the Hawaiian people. And so it was really about this whole learning process. So it didn't just start two weeks ago. It started in all those years of learning, of being a part of what was going on, of growing with the issue. So when Lynette called two weeks before the event, said, we got to do it. So we did. So let's talk about what was the re-enactment like? How did this all play together on the 4th of July? I think for most of our viewers, they get it here, but from on the mainland or abroad. I think that there is a big disconnect between how 4th of July is celebrated on the mainland. And what has happened here? Well, of course not. And what happened here is while the Americans were celebrating the 4th of July, Wednesday, July 4, 1894, the people who had been public safety, who declared themselves after the overthrow. And so they decided this was the time to declare the Republic. Now they had been working on this since 1884. This wasn't something that happened overnight. They had been getting ready for this. And so it seems that while all of the Americans were celebrating the 4th of July, that they could then, they had a constitutional convention done in secret, of course. And then they decided that exactly at 8.30 a.m., the same time that the ships in the harbor would blow their whistles, their horns, to celebrate the 4th of July, they would declare themselves the Republic of Hawaii. You know, that is how it went. Now of course it took all of those years from 1843. And who knows? I probably looked before that because the British and the Portuguese and all of the people that were sailing around the world and the British especially looking for perfect harbors, cities, islands, places with these wonderful harbors. Hawaii is a prime harbour. Yes, perfect. And if you're sailing around the world, you need these places to refuel, to get food, to do all these things. So many of the ironwood trees that you see here were planted by sailors because that was wood when they would come in and they could use to refuel. So it was all about this location, this fuel. And then when you get to 1898, at the time of the annexation, this is a couple of years later, when they were fighting the Spanish-American War, which is a misnomer, but we know that's the name. From Cuba to the Philippines meant that you would go all the way around the horn, right? You know that down the coast. Yes, come all the way around and back up to Hawaii. That's a long trip. And then to the Philippines, if you can imagine that. So it became necessary to have Hawaii as a fueling station, a refueling station. So it's not a very symbiotic necessity because in the name of American independence, the Kingdom of Hawaii and the people's freedom were completely destroyed and sacrificed. Oh, of course. There was no flood given to that. So how does the re-enactment of that day shaped up the life? And I'm very curious to hear your feedback on that, but also the audience, how did they react? Tell us about the actors and actresses that were there. Well, let me tell you, let me see if I have a... The actors were wonderful, including our own Jay. Yes, by all the days. We had Jay Fidel, Keone Dudley, Stuart Feinberg, Henry Curtis, Peter Carlisle, Jeff Pompadour, Thomas Baldwin, Roger Epstein, and Scott Foster. All of them were prominent in the community. He was in the community, yes. And they were all willing to take on the role as the bad guys. Oh, my goodness. And did they give you a feedback as they were saying their lines or seeing the reaction of the audience afterwards? A couple of them said that they were humbled. They were honored. And probably for the first time, they really understood what happened. I'm sorry that we can't see the pictures, but you can see them as they were leaving the steps and the audience is booing and hissing and whatnot. And you can see it in their body language, the trepidation with which they moved through. And the audience was, as you may suspect, 90% Hawaiian. And it was their feeling of watching their nation being taken. And they honestly were so much a part of the action when Thomas Tom Kaufman introduced the honorable Jay Fidel. Somebody says, he's not honorable, he took my land. Somebody else would yell and whatnot. He would introduce the honorable. He was quite interactive. The audience was totally into the drama. Right. So let's take a quick break and we're going to get back to that point, just a quick minute. Aloha. My name is Raya Salter and I'm the host of Power Up Hawaii which you can see live from 1 to 130 every Tuesday at thinktechhawaii.com and then later on YouTube. I am an energy attorney, clean energy advocate and community outreach specialist and on Power Up Hawaii we come together to talk about how can Hawaii walk towards a clean, renewable and just energy future? To do that, we talk to stakeholders all over the spectrum from clean energy technology folks to community groups to politicians, to regulators, to the utility. So please join us Tuesdays at one o'clock for Power Up Hawaii. I just walked by and I said, what's happening, guys? They told me they were making music. Welcome back to Perspectives on Global Justice Think Tech Hawaii program. This is Beatrice Contelmo and we are back with Dia Masha. As we were just getting into Doug in the gold of this reenactment where 90% of the audience were of Native Hawaiian descent. This was very personal for them. Very personal. Very personal for them. Very personal. And we stayed as close to the actual documents as in the book. They left documents, all their letters, all their thoughts, absolutely intact. Oh my goodness. I didn't know that. So we didn't have to make up anything. Everything was in the archives. Tom Kaufman spent months reading all of this. They left it in perfect condition so that we could take their words, their real words, and didn't have to rewrite, didn't have to make up anything. There it was. And one of the things at the end of this wearing in one of our, who is the bad guy? How many bad guys is that? Lauren Thurston steps from behind Sanford Dole. Sanford Dole is now president. Lauren Thurston, who has really been manipulating this whole thing, steps from behind Sanford Dole. He takes down the Hawaiian flag and then they begin to cut it and they cut it in strips and they gave it to all of the guys for their families as keepsakes. Oh my goodness. How disrespectful and cruel. Yes. So I'm a drama queen. So I thought, okay, now how am I going to get the flag down and cut the flag? So the director who is a super, super guy. Who is the director? And his name is Monte Perez. And so what we had to do was create a life-size paper Hawaiian flag and then stash it so that nobody could see it. So this is a complete surprise. So we bring down the flag and then take out the paper flag so the audience doesn't see the sleight of hand. So they don't realize that it's even a paper flag? No. They were transported back to that time. And Peter Carlyle was standing there with the scissors and he kept looking at me like, I can't do this. I can't do this. And I kept saying, go, go. And he cut and he cut and then pretty soon he was into it and he and Jay were, you know, people were horrified. The audience was horrified. They couldn't just, it was just too much. Watching them cut the flag. Even though it's paper. And even me, I cried and I knew it was coming. You know? And those tears are very necessary and so are the emotions that they evoked as a part of this act, a barbaric act because there are so many things. And the Queen says, 1500 people are giving away my country. The people in my country do not want to be annexed to the United States, nor do the people of the United States want us. It was the work of 1500 people, mostly Americans, who have settled in Hawaii. Of this number, those who are not native born or American parentage, none of my people want the islands annexed. The population of the islands is 109,000. Of this number, 40,000 are native Hawaiians. The rest are Americans, Germans, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, English, and a small portion of other countries. The 1500 Americans who are responsible for this were done and ruining our islands forever. And at that point, the chanters, these beautiful, beautiful women, began to wail and cry and chant, and they lay prostrate on the ground in front of the Queen and the palace. And they cried, and I cried, and the audience was just horrified. The audience was stunned while they did that. Men, we began to sing Hawaii aloha, and the crowd was just mesmerized. It was so... I mean, I had visions, but not that, you know, I knew the audience would do whatever the audience did, but it was fabulous just watching, watching the emotions, watching, and the bad guys eased down off the steps of the palace, and then they were in the crowd watching, just sort of standing there mesmerized, you know, watching what was going on. That's very powerful. You know, being raised in Brazil, most of my formative years, that always been a history path. However, this type of information was not accessible to us. I only knew so much, like maybe part of the British, times in Hawaii, but not really what happened when the Americans took over in the next to the United States and Hawaii. So, unless you're here and you live here, you don't really understand the brutality in which this land was stripped over, you know, from its people. It was a kingdom. This was a kingdom with princesses and a king and the people. It was a prosperous, progressive, abundant place. King David Kalakaua spoke seven languages. He was an attorney. He wore dress suits like any other, all other men, and they treated him like he was some kind of, in the Queen's book, she says, what they did to my brother is just brutal. And that all saddens me. And I think, I'm a bit part, you know, think of Hawaii program is the gift that we are providing to our viewers to expose problems, but also to link and make a bridge to potential solutions. And I think one of the things that's very valuable about history, not only the knowledge, but also the re-enactment is that people can start creating a more accurate sentiment and a different shift, a different kind of awareness about what has happened then because we're talking 1894, but this is 2017, we still got issues. We do. And the people of Hawaii and the native Hawaii especially and the Pacific Islanders still are struggling. And so my question for you, this is an amazing gift, not only to all of us who live here, but for the world, what are the plans that you may have moving forward to continue to shed this information has to be disseminated? Everybody that was in the re-enactment has said, let's do it again. And warts and all, all the mistakes, everything, let's just do it again. I called on what I call my crew and these are the people I call on for everything. And they just went right to work and made it happen. There's no way to say thank you to all the people that, like I said, I call on regardless of what it is. You know, I call them. And they are just wonderful about making things happen. And when we got there at 6.30, 7 o'clock in the morning and everybody went to work like, okay, let's do this, this, this, this. I had drawn a diagram and everybody, we did nine versions of the script. And everybody did do it. But how do we, I mean, that's the part of the intention. Do you have, I know that the intention is there to do it again. December 28th is the next date. But that one is in 19, I mean 1891 and it is all Hawaiian because there was an election in 1892, February 1892. And this was part of the getting ready to take the land, right? And all of this getting or putting pieces. So there was this election because the crown at that time, the kingdom was like Britain with the parliamentary. So the piece on 1891 is the Hawaiians who understand what is going on and it is their meeting to talk about their plans and how to deal with what they can see is going to happen. So that's December 28th, 1891. So I can't believe how quickly this program came to an end. I could hear you for us. Thank you so much for sharing such an important, difficult and yet wonderful gift, not only for our community but for the world too. I think that Indigenous people's rights, I so misunderstood and there has not been any indication and no spirit of reconciliation. We cannot reconcile without recognizing the damages and creating spaces also for local people to thrive as well. Having the proper funding allocated for education access to services, housing, but also their pride and I don't know what is it that you need in terms of support in order to get this re-enactment are playing in schools, universities and around the country. So I will in six months I'm going to invite you again my challenge for you for my invitation and to those who are part of this either as crew but also in the cast but the audience is to get a fundraising and to get a system in place to be able to get the re-enactment happening on a more regular basis. Thank you so much. Aloha my dear. That concludes today's program and thank you so much for listening and wonderful, wonderful happy Aloha Friday and we hope