New rule will help Native Hawaiians achieve political self-determination

Until now, Native Hawaiians were the only major indigenous group in the 50 states who lacked a process for a government-to-government relationship with the United States.

I commend Hawaii’s keiki o ka aina, President Barack Obama, for providing a pathway that was previously closed to us. This meaningful development matters, and it is important to understand why.

The new federal rule announced recently by the U.S. Department of the Interior is a tool now available to the Native Hawaiian people. Should we pursue it, a government-to-government relationship can also be a tool for Native Hawaiians to protect what we have and pursue what we deserve.

It is my hope that we will take up that tool with our hands and learn to use it in ways that will create a brighter future for our Hawaii and all of its people.

We deserve that choice, and now we have it.

First, some background:

The state of Hawaii, the United States of America, and the United Nations all recognize that indigenous people have certain rights.

These rights, including the right to self-determination, are based on indigenous peoples’ political status — not race.

In the U.S., the main mechanism for respecting these rights is the government-to-government relationship. With this, indigenous people exercise their right to govern themselves and their resources and the United States engages them as sovereign nations.

Today, indigenous people use their rights and government status to perpetuate their cultures, create jobs for Natives and non-Natives, and protect what is sacred to them, while improving an imperfect system.

Back in 1978, the Hawaii State Constitutional Convention delegates envisioned an Office of Hawaiian Affairs, for Native Hawaiians to “govern themselves and their assets” and “to better their condition.”

Since the Rice v. Cayetano decision in 2000, Native Hawaiians have not been able to govern their assets in the way that the Constitutional Convention envisioned.

With this new federal rule, Native Hawaiians can once again pursue the self-governance that was envisioned in 1978, in a manner consistent with today’s growing global recognition of indigenous rights.

An important but overlooked aspect of this federal rule is that by simply being on the books, it affirms the legal standing of Native Hawaiian rights and Native Hawaiian-serving institutions.

The federal government has acknowledged, with the force of law, that Native Hawaiians have a right to self-determination.

The federal rule also recognizes the Native Hawaiian people’s special political and trust relationship with the United States.

Affirming Native Hawaiians’ indigenous status strengthens Hawaiian rights and protects Hawaiian resources. This is what OHA was created to do.

At each step of this process, a majority of the public who actually weighed in, commented in support of the rulemaking.

While many people objected at the public meetings in 2014 (and I defend their right to do so), oral testimony was just one way interested people shared their opinion.

OHA reviewed every oral testimony, letter, email and hand-written comment that the U.S. Department of the Interior included in its record.

We found that a clear majority of people believed that Native Hawaiians deserve the choice of a government-to- government relationship.

Now that choice is here.