Category Archives: Hawaiian issues

Applying for a Certificate of Hawaiian Birth

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When my Hawaiian grandmother and her sister were born, in the last years of the Hawaiian kingdom, they did not receive birth certificates. At that time, there were many births at home, or at the homes of family friends serving as midwives, where the formalities such as birth certificates were not part of the process.

So some 60 years later, in mid-1948, the two women each submitted an application for a Certificate of Hawaiian Birth. This involved providing testimony about their parents and siblings, with supporting testimony by family friends who could verify they had been born in Hawaii.

My grandmother, Heleualani Eva Cathcart Yonge, was the older sister. Helen Mary Kahooilimoku Cathcart McPherson was two years younger. Their father, Robert William Cathcart, was Irish. Their mother, Kina, was Hawaiian.

The records show their applications were supported by Jennie Wilson, who was married to then-Honolulu mayor and one of the founders of Hawaii’s Democratic Party, John H. Wilson.

Wilson testified she was a “schoolmate” of the girls’ mother, Kina.

Further support also came from Harriett Baker, who I know little about. Baker testified that Helen was born at her family home, near the corner of Punchbowl and Vineyard, with her mother assisting in the birth.

In any case, I found portions of their applications, with some of the supporting testimony, in my sister’s papers. These were duplicated from copies made in 1979 and filed in the Mormon’s genealogical library.

–> View portions of the Applications for Certificate of Hawaiian Birth filed by my grandmother and her sister in 1948.

Hawaii Supreme Court narrows definition of “disorderly conduct” in case of Hawaiian activist

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My column in Civil Beat this week tries to explain a recent Hawaii Supreme Court decision overturning the conviction of Hawaiian activist who had been charged with disorderly conduct after trying repeatedly to speak with then-Mayor Peter Carlisle at the city’s 2012 Lei Day Festival (“Ian Lind: Hawaiian Activist Was Right All Along, Supreme Court Rules“).

The case involved the arrest and conviction of Laulani Teale, a Hawaiian cultural practitioner, homeless advocate, peacemaker and musician.

Her “crime,” according to court records, was to make repeated attempts to speak with then-Mayor Peter Carlisle when he appeared at the city’s annual Lei Day Festival at Kapiolani Park and, for a time, was seen shaking hands and speaking with members of the audience. Police blocked Teale from approaching the mayor and, when she repeatedly tried to walk past them, arrested her and led her away in handcuffs.

The court’s decision narrows the application of the “disorderly conduct” law and will make it more difficult in the future to use “disorderly conduct” as a catch-all charge to control situations in which the authority of the police is questioned or challenged.

I admit that the column is too long. I got into reading the case documents, including transcripts of testimony during the original trial, and ran out of time I would normally use to edit and polish. My fault.

But I came away with several impressions.

First, police officers testified they were there to protect the mayor, one adding, “at all costs.” But it appears that while they said they had to protect him from being attacked, they were at least equally interested in protecting him from confrontations with unhappy constituents.

A case can certainly be made that there’s a First Amendment right to personally speak with the mayor at such a public event, or at least a good case against using police powers to screen those who are allowed to get close to the mayor based on their personal beliefs or on the likelihood they will raise critical questions (rather than simply fawning comments).

And the court decision deals directly with when a protest that interrupts or inconveniences becomes “disorderly” in a legal sense. And the courts answer is that “disorderly conduct” isn’t as broad a category as police and prosecutors have tried to stake out.

Second, reading the transcripts, district court was not a friendly place for a protester, civil in demeanor or not. Although this was a criminal trial, and of course we know that one has to be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, the court seemed to allow little time for the defendant, who was representing herself, to create that reasonable doubt. When a key police witness dodged and weaved to avoid answer direct questions during cross examination, the judge appeared put out with the questions, not the deliberate avoidance of answers.

Third, some of that police testimony led the attorney who handled the appeals in the case to allege that at least one officer gave false and misleading testimony. That was never resolved, but it doesn’t give the public a lot of confidence in the way the system works, especially at the lower levels.

Then there’s the official hypocrisy about things Hawaiian. The city is eager to appropriate Hawaiian culture and arts as tourist bait, but not at all eager to deal with the much harder issues Hawaiians face, from homelessness to health care to education to discrimination.

In any case, the column is there for your reading since Civil Beat is no longer behind a paywall.

Check da kine story!

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Here’s one for your Friday reading, from Atlas Obscura: “‘Da Kine,’ Hawaii’s Fantastically Flexible All-Purpose Noun/It means everything and nothing at the same time“.

The author, Dan Nosowitz, write:

After I wrote about “jawn,” the all-purpose noun that’s embedded in the culture of Philadelphia, I started getting emails telling me about a similar, and maybe even wilder, term native to a small group of isolated islands nearly 5,000 miles away. Hawaii’s “da kine” is not only an all-purpose noun, capable of standing in for objects, events, and people: it’s also a verb, an adjective, an adverb, and a symbol of Hawaiian people and the unique way they speak.

Then he goes over the top: “It may be the most versatile phrase on the planet.”

It’s really an essay on Hawaiian Pidgin, and quite interesting. Check it out.

Storm raises charter school question

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Wednesday’s storm caused damage at a small, Hawaiian-language immersion school in Haiku Valley on the windward side of Oahu, according to a story broadcast by Hawaii News Now.

HNN reported:

The wind shredded a 20-foot-by-60-foot tarpaulin, twisting most of the metal poles that held it up.

The structure served as the school’s outdoor multi-purpose area.

“It’s our everything for our kids. It’s our cafeteria. This is where they meet. This is where they have their singing. Everything happens here,” Wise said.

There are 157 students at the school across all grade levels, from pre-K through high school. Lessons are taught in Hawaiian.

My question is whether a large tarp covering an open area is appropriate for what is apparently a primary structure central to the activities of this school.

When we lived in Kaaawa, city building inspectors would periodically come through the neighborhood and cite residents who were using these temporary kind of tarps as permanent carports.

I believe the tarps are flammable as well as subject to wind damage, as occurred yesterday.

What if students had been in the area when that gust of wind hit and took down the tarp and its supporting structure? A potentially dangerous situation?

Are there standards for the facilities used by this and other charter schools? Should there be? If standards are in place, should they be enforced?