Everyone’s familiar with Hawaiians, their history, their culture — or are they?
The Council for Native Hawaiian Advancement, among other entities in the islands, is clearly moving to see that people across the nation and worldwide get a much clearer and authentic understanding of Hawaiians and their concerns, in their own voice.
Most recently, the nonprofit organization became much more involved in influencing Hawaii’s most powerful economic engine, tourism.
It is not the first such group to make a foray into the industry: The Native Hawaiian Hospitality Association, to name just one, has a stated goal to “shape the future of Hawaii’s visitor industry by utilizing Hawaiian cultural values as the foundation for professional development and business leadership,” according to its website.
Broadly there has been a welcome expansion of Native Hawaiian engagement in socioeconomic concerns, including efforts to secure intellectual property rights over a culture that to some extent has been overtaken and commercialized.
More specifically, CNHA currently has a standout role, largely because it has secured a multiyear, $27 million contract stewardship- services contract from the Hawaii Tourism Authority. Its part of the mission is to direct the stewardship of Hawaiian resources, both natural and cultural, in the tourism realm.
This award was achieved only after a tumultuous legal and political battle that culminated finally in a division of labor between CNHA and the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau, the latter organization to handle the branding and destination management work. Both formerly contentious groups now are charged with working together — which is a good thing, given that the work will overlap.
Now CNHA sees another role for itself in tourism as well, a more active one. Its CEO, Kuhio Lewis, said the council is in talks seeking a management contract for Native Hawaiians to run a hotel in Waikiki or Kaanapali.
And why shouldn’t they occupy such a space in the industry? It could provide a model for providing a visitor experience, at the resort level, that is more distinctly Hawaiian. This is in contrast to creating a setting that is generically tropical — something tourists could get in any number of places.
There are other ideas Lewis has floated: bringing back the legacy hula show at the Waikiki Shell, farm and fishpond tours, illuminating Diamond Head in color. Whatever one thinks of those ideas — folks may want to see those colored lights first — a willingness to think big is an encouraging impulse to witness.
Beyond tourism, there are myriad ways to engage in modern Hawaii, and Native Hawaiian groups are doing so.
The Office of Hawaiian Affairs, sometimes seen as a surrogate for a sovereign native government agency, has become a player on the development front. That hasn’t been without controversy — the Kakaako Makai mixed-use development proposal sparked a fierce debate in the Legislature last session — but the agency has argued vigorously for the rights of Native Hawaiians to have a place at this table.
Although there remains a strong counterargument against high-rises on that site, on the general point of Native Hawaiians belonging in the realm of development and land management, OHA officials are right.
And there has been some innovation in this area. Within the prescribed homesteading mission of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands, for instance, that agency has found ways of addressing beneficiary housing needs by venturing into rental programs. Of course, DHHL also has the challenge of implementing a $600 million development program.
The indigenous rights movement of recent years also has played out in the changed regulatory scheme governing the Mauna Kea summit, with a strong Native Hawaiian presence in decision-making over the astronomy complex there.
Again, whatever one thinks of projects such as the Thirty Meter Telescope, which the Honolulu Star-Advertiser Editorial Board has favored, the influence over the process Native Hawaiians now hold is firmly in place.
Without a doubt, that influence was won through political activism, long a feature of Hawaiian engagement, but that has evolved as well. The long campaign for sovereignty, whether through federal recognition or other means, has not ended, but it has produced some real results.
The U.S. Department of the Interior under the Biden administration announced it will require a formal consultation process with the Native Hawaiian community on any actions it proposes that would have a substantial effect on the community.
This is a significant step forward in recognition that native rights apply to Hawaii’s indigenous people as well.
The hoped-for, ultimate result of this is a benefit that all Hawaii’s people could share. A host culture that is more vividly present can revive some of the unique character that sets the islands apart from any other place.
