Hoomanawanui is a word I often heard growing up in my grandmother’s home on Pensacola Street.
Hoomanawanui means patience — the patience that transcends oneself and one’s time and circumstances. It comes from knowing that with perseverance, courage and tenacity, justice will prevail. Truly, the life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.
Princess Abigail Campbell Kawananakoa was born in 1882 and as a young girl of 11 bore witness to the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893. Her father, James Campbell, a staunch royalist, supported Queen Lydia Liliuokalani. Later as the wife and then widow of Prince David Kawananakoa, who was in the line of succession to be king, she was deeply involved in sustaining the Hawaiian people and perpetuating their language, culture and traditions. My grandmother counseled hoomanawanui to those like her as they battled the deliberate and systematic elimination of all things Hawaiian.
Her brother-in-law Prince Jonah Kuhio Kalanianaole came to understand hoomanawanui. At 24 he fought in the counterrevolution, was jailed for a year by the Republic and then left Hawaii vowing never to return. Duty called him home and he served as Hawaii’s delegate to Congress from 1903 until his death in 1922.
Delegates had no vote and Kuhio represented a powerless constituency. As a delegate, he joined the very body that had only five years earlier annexed Hawaii over the nearly unanimous protest of native Hawaiians.
Kuhio worked tirelessly to educate the fair-minded about a people whose very existence and culture were being obliterated. It took 18 years, but he overcame an opposition unconstrained by facts or fairness in securing passage and presidential approval of the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act in 1921. It was imperfect but it was also essential. It gave a land base for housing and agriculture — but more important a place and a means of restoration, rehabilitation and rejuvenation for Kuhio’s people.
Hoomanawanui. Time has passed, but some things have not changed. Today, the opposition to Hawaiian Homes uses the same tone and tactics Kuhio faced.
The federal government never fulfilled its trust obligations. The state of Hawaii assumed them in 1959 as a condition of statehood but was equally neglectful. In 1978, the delegates to our Constitutional Convention sought to force the Legislature to comply with the law. It proposed to amend the Hawaii Constitution to require the Legislature to make sufficient sums available for the administrative and operating budget of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands (DHHL). The voters agreed. While the law changed for the benefit of Hawaiians, the Legislature ignored the constitutional mandate. The funding was never sufficient. Some years it was zero.
In 2012, the Hawaii Supreme Court made it clear beyond any debate that the language of the Constitution meant exactly what it said. The Legislature responded with an appropriation less than half of what was sufficient. In 2015, Judge Jeannette Castagnetti held an eight-day trial resulting in the unsurprising decision that the Legislature was violating the Constitution.
Having lost decisively in court, Attorney General Douglas Chin unfairly criticized Judge Castagnetti’s decision. The Legislature hired former attorney general Mark Bennett to persuade the judge to reconsider.
Legislators also attacked, seeking election of judges and Senate confirmation of judicial reappointments — both of which failed. There was more vindictiveness: Legislators sought to cut new judges’ pensions and add two years to the time it would take a judge to earn a pension. This actually passed the House and was stopped only by a deadlock in the Senate. Sufficient funding for DHHL remains uncertain. Our judges are on notice of the price they could pay for following the laws and not just as they relate to Hawaiians.
The struggle against lawlessness continues but we are resolute.
Hoomanawanui. Justice will prevail. Onipaa.
