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Hawaii’s World

By A.A. Smyser

Tuesday, August 8, 2000

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Could Fiji coup
occur in Hawaii?

I assume the question also has occurred to others following events in Fiji: Could it happen here?

Until the May overthrow of a duly elected government, Fiji seemed on its way to being a successful multiracial society.

It was like Hawaii on that score. The differences, however, are enormous.

Fiji has just two major ethnic groups -- Fijians, 51 percent, and Indians, 46 percent, with many leaving when they can. The remaining residents are lumped together as "Europeans" who are Caucasians, some locally born, others from elsewhere, principally Australia and New Zealand.

Fijians and Indians are educated in separate schools. They rarely intermarry.

Hawaii, by contrast:

Has no majority ethnic group. There are significant numbers of at least six groups -- Caucasians, Japanese, Hawaiians, Filipinos, Chinese and Koreans.

Intermarriage in Hawaii is commonplace and divorces have declined to the same rate as same-race marriages.

Our schools are integrated, both public and private.

Social life may cluster around same-race friends and family because of cultural preferences. However, it also branches out broadly.

In politics, people are quite conscious of race but it is near-impossible to get elected to major office with the support of just one group. We have had a rainbow of elected governors -- Caucasian, Japanese, Hawaiian-Chinese, Filipino.

The Hawaiian activist movement has developed since about 1970, demanding restitution for wrongs laid to the 1893 overthrow of the monarchy.

Its wishes for a status somewhat like that of other indigenous American peoples -- Indians and Eskimos -- are focusing on a bill now before Congress. It includes this recognition and sets up a process for creating a Hawaiian voter roll that can form a government and attain a status recognized by the U.S. government, as are Indian tribes.

We will have a better count of Hawaiians after the Year 2000 census is reported.

Estimates have been that there are only 50,000 to 60,000 persons -- about 5 percent of the total population -- who qualify for the federally chartered Hawaiian Homes program, limited to persons with 50 percent or more of the blood of people who inhabited Hawaii prior to the 1778 arrival of Westerners.

Possibly three times this many -- 150,000 or more -- may have at least some Hawaiian blood. All of these, however, have less Hawaiian blood in their veins than they do of groups often accused being exploiters of Hawaiians.

LAND is a big question. Already set aside for Hawaiians are 200,000 acres of Hawaiian Homes land plus the island of Kahoolawe, now mainly a symbolic site.

More than 350,000 more acres belong to the Kamehameha Schools and are dedicated to educating Hawaiians. The Queen Emma Estate, which operates the Queen's Medical System, also has a duty to help Hawaiians, though not to the exclusion of others. Other significant land holdings, most particularly the James K. Campbell Estate, benefit heirs who must be part-Hawaiian.

The term "stolen lands" sometimes is applied to the approximately 1,300,000 acres (nearly one third of all the land in the state) that belonged to the monarchy prior to 1893. These lands remained in the hands of successor governments and now are under the state of Hawaii or the federal government.

It is hard to foresee a total resolution -- at least not for many years -- of the Hawaiian question. But it is near impossible to see our U.S. and state governments displaced except by democratic means.

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A.A. Smyser is the contributing editor
and former editor of the the Star-Bulletin
His column runs Tuesday and Thursday.