Promise of land
brightens for a few

A state commission considers
a settlement of a suit over
acreage guaranteed in the '50s

In 1952, 23-year-old Coast Guardsman Jimmy Akiona was awarded 300 acres of Hawaiian Homes ranch land.

"I guarantee you're going to have a lot," an official told him.

But the guarantee was canceled and Akiona got nothing.

Today, at 78, Akiona and a handful of other so-called "aged Hawaiians" on the Big Island should receive a new guarantee of the land they were promised more than 50 years ago.

The Hawaiian Homes Commission is set to consider and vote on a settlement of the Aged Hawaiians lawsuit pending for more than a decade. Actual distribution of the land will come later.

At one time there were about 15 Hawaiians party to the lawsuit. Now there are about six, Akiona said.

The settlement gives the surviving members of the group a common interest in Hawaiian Homes pasture land at a tract called Honokaia, between Honokaa and Waimea on the Big Island, said the Native Hawaiian Legal Corp., which obtained the agreement for them.

"The arrangement recognizes the fact that many of the Aged Hawaiians applicants are frail or too old to pursue their dreams of commercial ranching as they first intended 50 years ago, and that more time will lapse before the lands are ready to be issued as individual leases," the legal group said.

Since the land recipients are old, the agreement allows them to pass on their rights to the land to qualified successors.

One family to receive such a benefit are the survivors of Irene Torrey, who applied for a lease in 1955. On Feb. 4, a little more than a week before today's expected approval of the agreement, she died at the age of 78.

"She was a beautiful woman, hard-working, a big heart," Akiona said.

Although she never got the several hundred acres she was promised, she was awarded about 10 acres by the Hawaiian homes department a few years ago.

She hauled water to her cattle in 55-gallon drums in the back of her pickup truck, Akiona said. When she got to the pasture, she would siphon it from the drums into the cattle's drinking troughs.

In the end, "her body was just getting down to frail and weak," Akiona said.

In 1952, Akiona was strong, and so were his father and mother, who shut down their farm on Maui at Keanae and shipped their cattle to Hilo in preparation for working the 300 acres that Akiona had been guaranteed.

But later, Akiona was told someone else was more qualified and that he would not receive the land he was promised.

"Hoomanawanui," he told himself. "Have patience."

Without their knowledge, the Hawaiian Homes Commission canceled the 1952 waiting list and another list from 1955.

Akiona had been No. 2 on the 1952 list. As time went by, he was puzzled to see others get land while he did not.

"It's just like they were putting a frustration program for us," he said.

In 1974, retired Pearl Harbor worker Sonny Kaniho began protesting the leasing of Hawaiian Homes land to non-Hawaiians, such as giant Parker Ranch.

"My concern was aging the Hawaiians to death," he said.

He found a copy of the 1952 list in the state archives and succeeded in getting it reinstated in 1983. But being on the list did not mean receiving land.

In 1995 the state Supreme Court ordered the Hawaiian Homes Commission to consider leases for the Aged Hawaiians, but a settlement dragged on.

Some justice was done. While Torrey got 10 acres, Akiona got 100 acres in 1991. "I was supposed to get 300 acres," he said. "I still fought back for 200 more acres."

The land had no water, so Akiona put in more than a mile of pipe. He now has 21 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. "They're my working mechanism," he said.

Still, the cost of driving from his home in Kona has cut visits to his ranch from three times a week to once a week. He has 33 cattle where he once had 75.

But a ranch is a good economic undertaking, he said. "The price of cattle now is good," he said.

Another Aged Hawaiian, Joseph Papalimu of Hilo, wants large acreage for a viable operation.

He says implementation of the settlement still has to be worked out. "I'll believe it when I see it. It's all not copacetic," he said.