Two Native Hawaiians, Keone Nakoa and Summer Lee Haunani Sylva, appointed to the U.S. Dept. of the Interior

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Two Native Hawaiians were appointed to the U.S. Department of the Interior Wednesday, garnering praise from local leaders who say their experiences and backgrounds will strengthen the Biden-Harris administration’s pledge to better serve and support indigenous communities.

Keone Nakoa, who worked as the Office of Hawaiian Affairs’ Washington, D.C. bureau chief, is the new deputy assistant secretary for Insular and International Affairs. Nakoa, who was born and raised in Honolulu, also served as speechwriter for the late U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, clerk for the chef judge of the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals and a private practice lawyer in Honolulu.

He earned J.D. and MBA degrees from the University of Hawaii at Manoa and a bachelor’s degree in biological anthropology from Harvard University.

Summer Lee Haunani Sylva will serve as the Interior Department’s senior advisor for Native Hawaiian Affairs. Sylva previously worked as the executive director of the Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation, where she led litigation on water rights, public trust and historic native land claims. She also has more than a decade of legal experience in Hawaii, New York and New Jersey.

Sylva, who is from Waimanalo, earned a J.D. from Cornell Law School and a bachelor’s degree in political science from Barnard College-Columbia University.

Nakoa and Sylva’s appointments also follow the selection by the Biden- Harris administration of Deb Haaland, the first Native American to serve as a cabinet secretary, to lead the U.S. Dept. of the Interior earlier this year.

“We are confident that Native Hawaiian voices will be well heard and considered by this White House with the country’s first Native American Secretary of the Interior being directly counseled on Native Hawaiian issues by a Native Hawaiian,” said Kuhio Lewis, president and CEO of the Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement, in a statement. Last month, Lewis was part of a group of Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander leaders who were invited to the White House to speak with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris about issues affecting their communities. “We extend a warm mahalo to President Biden for ensuring that, with (Wednesday’s) appointments, Native Hawaiians will not be invisible in his administration.”