This is an excerpt from testimony offered by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs on a bill related to geothermal energy. I’ve pulled out this short excerpt along with the relevant footnotes. It offers quite a disturbing picture of the status of Hawaiians in their home islands and beyond.
RELATING TO GEOTHERMAL ROYALTIES
Senate Committee on Energy, Economic Development, and Tourism
Senate Committee on Public Safety and Intergovernmental and Military Affairs
Senate Committee on Higher Education
The majority of Native Hawaiian families, in Hawaii, are unable to makes ends meet,7 with 63% of Native Hawaiians reporting that they are finding it difficult to get by.8
Native Hawaiians have the lowest household income. Native Hawaiians have the highest poverty rates for individuals and families.10 Native Hawaiians make less money,11 with lower average earnings for both men and women.12 Native Hawaiians have the highest rate of using public assistance and homeless services.13 Native Hawaiians are overrepresented among the homeless in Hawaii.14
OHA is deeply concerned with Native Hawaiians being driven out of Hawai‘i by economic instability stemming from socio-political-economic upheaval, which has largely disconnected Native Hawaiians from their ‘aina for more than a century. Today, more Native Hawaiians live outside of the Hawaiian Islands, far beyond the boundaries of their own homeland.15
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
Footnotes:
7 Aloha United Way / United for ALICE, ALICE in Hawai ‘i: 2022 Facts and Figures, Nob. 2022, p.6.
8 Id. at 9.
9 Dept. of Business, Economic Development and Tourism, Demographic, Social, Economic, and Housing Characteristics for Selected Race Groups in Hawaii, Mar. 2018, p.3.
10 Id. at 13.
11 OHA Report, Affordable Housing for Hawai ‘i and Native Hawaiians: Exploring Ideas and Innovation, Aug. 2020, p.10.
12 Dept. of Native Hawaiian Health, John A. Burns School of Medicine, Assessment and Priorities for the Health and Well-Being in Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, 2020, p.12.
13 Id.
14 Partners In Care, 2022 Point In Time Count, p.7.
15 “Estimates from the American Community Survey showed that in 2011, there were about 296,400 Native Hawaiians in Hawaii and about 221,600 on the continental U.S. Just a decade later, those numbers flipped. In 2021, there were about 309,800 Native Hawaiians in Hawaii and about 370,000 in other states,” Hawaii Public Radio, More Native Hawaiians Flock to mainland cities and leave Hawai‘i, Jan. 23, 2023, citing high costs, citing the US Census Bureau’s American Community Survey 2021.
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Very sad. I have a friend who, by my reading, is half Hawaiian. His wife was also half Hawaiian. They worked hard doing manual labor but could never qualify for the Hawaiian homelands benefit for housing so they pay Bishop for a lease where their home stands. Having to pay for the house and the lease made a difference between a good life and a struggle to stay ahead. The upkeep of the home suffers as well. The definition of Hawaiian probably needs to change somewhat. A percentage evaluation of “Hawaiianness”should be coupled with the reality of their past and their culture.
Many Native Hawaiians certainly have it tough. That being said, these numbers and characteristics should be taken with a big grain of salt, especially coming from such a perennially truth-challenged and agenda-driven agency as OHA, which has proven for decades that its raison detre is to constantly demand more money from state government, engage in costly litigation, and then demand more even after agreeing to terms that settle litigation.
Self-reporting regarding vague concepts like “unable to get by” and “difficult to make ends meet,” are basically meaningless. If an overpaid bureaucrat at OHA says he or she is unable to get by, does that make it true?
Then there’s the whole question about how to define “Native Hawaiian” for statistical purposes to begin with. Full Hawaiian? Half Hawaiian? Any Hawaiian? It’s a touchy issue, but it often renders statistics grossly misleading or totally unreliable.
What does it “prove” to say more Hawaiians are on the mainland? Does it “prove” that they all were priced out of Hawaii and desperately wish they were back? Or does it “prove” that many found greater opportunity and better housing on the mainland and were able to afford larger families and a better standard of living? Does it prove anything at all, since reasons can be so diverse and nuanced? What does it say when other people in general flee stressful and crime-ridden cities to rejuvenate small towns and growing cities that are so much more affordable?
The highest rate of using public assistance and homeless services? It could be argued that this “proves” that OHA is obviously failing to do its job, and has for years, though that would of course be a gross oversimplification. It could also be argued that since the total number of Native Hawaiians in Hawaii has increased, OHA is doing a wonderful job. Or that since the number of Native Hawaiians everywhere has increased, Native Hawaiians are thriving.
By the way, how much is OHA spending on its grossly misleading and offensive TV ads touting as racial justice its hugely controversial plans to overdevelop Kakaako with luxury housing that won’t actually be for Native Hawaiians any more than it will be for wealthy overseas Chinese investors or, gasp, rich mainland transplants?
And isn’t geothermal energy some kind of outrageous desecration anyway? It sure used to be, according to many loud voices. But then something changed…
If OHA gets a big cut of TMT when the lease is up, will telescopes no longer be evil and OHA funds no longer be spent to facilitate illegal blockades?
And so the solution is to drive up the cost of electricity by funneling ratepayer money to OHA.
Native Hawaiian victimhood — malpractice in the gathering and statistical analysis of data allegedly showing disproportionate Native Hawaiian victimhood for disease and social dysfunction. How and why the Hawaiian grievance industry uses bogus statistics to scam government and philanthropic organizations, politicians, and public opinion.
Who counts as Native Hawaiian or Caucasian? How data analysis comparing ethnic groups in Hawaii is outrageously skewed by failure to take account of fractional blood quantum and age. How bogus statistical analysis is used to assert unfounded claims of disparate impact or victimhood. How the Native Hawaiian victimhood scam is wielded as a political weapon to shape public policy regarding racial entitlement programs, healthcare, education, the criminal justice system, and demands for race-based political sovereignty.
https://big11a.angelfire.com/NatHwnVictimhoodStatScam.html
So what is OHA actually advocating in its testimony that invokes the plight of Native Hawaiians?
The bill would award OHA 20% of royalties received by the state from geothermal resources. OHA’s testimony pushes to nearly double that, to 38%, by arguing that if all Native Hawaiians living outside Hawaii were living in Hawaii, Native Hawaiians would constitute 38% of the state’s population.
So, to justify this argument, has OHA likewise extended its plethora of benefits to Native Hawaiians living on the continent, or is it planning to do so? Could a Hawaiian living in Texas now receive a business start-up grant from OHA? Providing benefits to Hawaiians outside Hawaii clearly dilutes the pool of resources that remain available to the population in Hawaii. Has OHA surveyed how Native Hawaiians in Hawaii feel, or would feel, about that?
Even if OHA were to receive the 20% now offered by the bill, who else’s share would be cut to provide that 20%? It appears that Hawaii County would take that hit. Don’t a lot of Hawaiians live there?
These are serious questions.
Do Hawaiians, however defined, have the same issues on the mainland as they do here? If they don’t, then this suggests that there may be something in local Hawaiian culture that is dysfunctional, whatever that might be. Another explanation is that the Hawaiians leaving Hawaii are those most adventuresome and entrepreneurial so they are better able to thrive.
Yes we leave the Islands and thrive away from organizations like OHA. If OHA truly cared about us they would have supported TMT and astronomy in Hawaii. But instead they listen to the loudest voices who left tarps and trash all over Maunakea. It’s odd that OHA doesn’t care for the K?naka in astronomy, who work at the observatories, who help their communities with STEM education. OHA was caught spending funds for personal reasons, they resist auditing. That’s money for us & from us. OHA just makes an observation that’s no secret. And in fact their past makes clear they are part of the problem.
We should be doing better but tourism is all we have. Who owns the land in Waikiki and collects lease money? Why doesn’t Bishop take leadership with this issue. Singing and dancing for visitors is all they think we can manage?
We got road blocks, that’s for sure, the very people that are supposed to support us. That’s why we leave. It’s easy to get a good job and buy a home outside of Hawaii. We can’t depend on anyone, only ourselves.
OHA etc. have us chasing that Sovereignty and that took everyone off track. Now everything is a land grab and everything is sacred. That means only certain people can use it?
Ian, you write about land titles often enough. We can’t own land we don’t have a title too. And having ancestors that go back to the first canoe won’t change that. Maybe Bishop Estate can share Waikiki and build homes for us. But I doubt they will.
This comment thread is filled with incredibly insensitive, tone deaf, and down right racist comments.
Native Hawaiians are suffering in statistics and in the world in front of us. They are suffering at rates higher than any other group in Hawaii and this is their only place they ever called home. It is incredibly sad.
Thank you for pointing out the obvious… yes, we who love the Aina call Hawai’i are beaten down or run over by the entitled upper class… that includes the not do native hawaiian who wants to be classified as a native American so that the reservation rules will apply here… owyee!
I have been trying to make sense of recent Census numbers. Which are also disturbibg. And reflects also how tricky these numbers are when it comes to ethnicity. Hawaiian Pacific Islander in 2020 was 10.5 percent of the population. Latino 11.5 percent. White population 21 percent. Asian 35 percent. And this seems to be a decline from previous census. Native Hawaiian was 20 percent, white above 30 percent. In the census we self identify so I have thought that self identifying Hawaiian was actually a measure of sovereignty consciousness. Then there are ethnicities who dont seem to be counted anymore like Phillipinos. When they were counted there median household income was always the lowest.
https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/HI#qf-headnote-a
Is it racist and tone deaf to want Hawaiians to thrive but sincerely believe that OHA is ineffective, divisive, wasteful, outdated, unconstitutional, frequently tone deaf, and by its very definition racially exclusive and therefore inherently racist, and that it was a well-intended idea that turned out terrible and should be abolished for the good of all?