Noe Noe Wong-Wilson
Mililani Trask was born into the world of politics and struggle for
Native Hawaiian and human rights. Her grandfather, David Trask, was
an early member of the Hawai‘i Democratic Party, the first Hawaiian sher-
iff in Honolulu, and a member of the Territorial Legislature for twenty-six
years. Her maternal grandmother, Maui-born Iwalani Haia, was one of
the first women to organize the Benevolent Societies on Maui and played
a key role in the movement to inform Hawaiians of the events surround-
ing the overthrow of Queen Lili‘uokalani in 1893. Mililani is the niece
of Arthur Trask, well-known orator, lawyer, and politician, and David
Trask, Jr, a politician and a key player in labor organizing and collective
bargaining for higher wages and better working conditions for public
workers. Mililani is descended from the Pi‘ilani line of Maui and the Kaha-
kumakaliua line of Kaua‘i.
Born and raised on O‘ahu, the fourth of five children of Bernard and
Haunani Trask, Mililani was educated at the Kamehameha Schools. Fol-
lowing her graduation in 1969, she attended the University of Redlands
and San Jose State University in California. In 1977, Mililani returned
home with a law degree from Santa Clara University.
In 1990, Mililani became the first elected kia‘äina or governor of Ka
Lähui Hawai‘i, a Hawaiian nation formed in response to the United
States’ colonial dominance. She was a prominent figure in the Hawaiian
political spotlight for over eight years during her leadership of Ka Lähui
Hawai‘i. In 1993, she served on the prestigious Indigenous Initiative for
Peace under the direction of Nobel Laureate Rigoberta Menchu-Tum, the
United Nations’ Goodwill Ambassador to the UN Decade on Indigenous
Peoples. And, in 1995, Mililani became the second vice-chair of the Gen-
eral Assembly of Nations of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Orga-
The Contemporary Pacific, Volume 17, Number 1, 142–156
© 2005 by University of Hawai‘i Press
142
dialogue • wong-wilson 143
nizations, founded in 1991 by his holiness, the Dalai Lama, as an alterna-
tive forum to the United Nations. Then, in 1998, Mililani won a coveted
seat on the Board of Trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA ), the
quasi-governmental organization formed in the 1978 Hawai‘i Constitu-
tional Convention. She was elected by the largest number of Hawaiian
votes cast in any election since OHA’s inception. The Office of Hawaiian
Affairs is an organization that has been the object of attack by indepen-
dence-minded Hawaiian nationalists since its creation. In 2000, after the
Rice decision forced the mass resignation of the OHA board members and
opened the election process to non-Hawaiians,1 Mililani lost her bid for
reelection. She is an advocate of peace and has studied and worked with
Mother Theresa of Calcutta for seven years. She founded the Native
Hawaiian nongovernmental organization Nä Koa Ikaika o Ka Lähui
Hawai‘i, which worked in the international arena on the Draft Declara-
tion for Indigenous Peoples and the World Conference on Racism for the
last fifteen years. Today, she has a reputation as an expert on international
and human rights law and is a much sought after speaker on native
issues. She is currently serving as the Pacific representative on the UN Per-
manent Forum on Indigenous Issues, based in New York. Mililani and
her sister, University of Hawai‘i at Mänoa Professor Haunani-Kay Trask,
are outspoken critics of the current movement for the establishment of
US federal recognition for Native Hawaiians, symbolized by the “Akaka
Bill.” 2
The original interview took place on 9 July 2003, with follow-up dis-
cussions between then and April 2004. Our first meeting took place in
Mililani’s Hilo office at the Gibson Foundation, a nonprofit organization
founded in 1987 to support housing for Native Hawaiians. She focuses
on assisting küpuna or elders in the community by providing advice and
project support for home construction and repair. This, she feels, is her
life’s purpose, working selflessly, without pay for her community.
The initial interview lasted for three hours and covered a wide range
of topics affecting Native Hawaiians. She possessed a nervous yet vibrant
energy, constantly in motion, her pacing accented by her graceful hand
gestures. The conversation was intense, as if we could affect the future of
generations of Hawaiians by the agreements that were made in our private
conversation. At times, the sky opened up and our voices were drowned
out by the Kanilehua rains—short bursts of liquid sky that maintain the
lush vegetation. Other times, the noise from the low-flying interisland jets
overwhelmed us, and the conversation stopped entirely. Once, her voice
144 the contemporary pacific • 17:1 (2005)
dropped to a whisper as a pedestrian passed by on the sidewalk. I felt like
a conspirator, an insider participating in events that would turn the future
for our nation. This is her story.
nn: Tell me how you became involved with the sovereignty movement in
Hawai‘i.
mt: I came home from law school. It was in the late ‘70s. Alu Like had
asked me to work at the 1978 Constitutional Convention (“Con-Con”).3, 4
I was in my last year at law school, and during that time, I attended hear-
ings about Sand Island.5 There, I heard testimony presented by a group
of Wai‘anae Hawaiians called Ho‘äla Känäwai, which means “to awaken
the law.” They were alleging that the Hawaiian people had particular
rights that other Native Americans did not, and that Hawaiian rights to
land resources were part of the Ceded Lands Trust.6 I became interested in
what they were doing, and from that time I began to work with them. I
wrote a research paper on the Hanapepe, Kaua‘i, water case, which raised
the issue of Hawaiian entitlements to water. I was working with a Japa-
nese attorney, Mitsuo Uehara. Together we filed an amicus curiae (friend
of the court) brief on behalf of the Hawaiian people.
nn: When did you become involved with the Hawaiian sovereignty
movement?
mt: First, I became involved with the Ho‘äla Känäwai group. They were
looking at the concept of sovereignty as it could apply to Hawaiians in
this modern period, but building on the status of the Hawaiian Kingdom,
and even going further back to the time of the monarchy and before west-
ern contact. They were trying to look at sovereignty, not only in the US
political context, but also the cultural aspects of sovereignty that existed
before contact; and what happened during colonization and how our
political status had changed. Ho‘äla Känäwai became a statewide non-
profit corporation. They proposed legislation for the creation of a Hawai-
ian corporation, fashioned after the Alaska Native situation. This was
taken into the State Constitutional Convention in 1978.
nn: Is this when you became involved with the Con-Con?
mt: I was approached by Alu Like to be a researcher for the Hawaiian
Affairs Committee of the Con-Con. By that time, the Ho‘äla Känäwai Bill
had been in the State of Hawai‘i Legislature for two years. They were
dialogue • wong-wilson 145
ready to move on their legislation. The idea was that Native Hawaiians
could form a corporation, then go to the state for a share of the Native
Hawaiian assets. We wanted lands from the Ceded Lands Trust and some
money so that the community could address their own needs.
nn: Was this effort successful?
mt: Unfortunately, the entire effort was co-opted by a group of Hawai-
ians who were tightly associated with the Democratic Party. Frenchy
DeSoto was in charge of the Hawaiian effort at the Con-Con.7 Her com-
mittee looked at the research and concluded that (1) Hawaiians were not
ready for self-governance; (2) the community initiative was a substantial
threat, a challenge to the state; and (3) Hawaiians needed a two-step
approach. The committee considered the US government’s Bureau of
Indian Affairs, which has oversight of the Native American Indians. They
decided the first step was the creation of a State of Hawai‘i–type Bureau
of Indian Affairs. They created the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, which
emerged after the ‘78 Con-Con. All of the people affiliated with the Con-
Con plan got Democratic Party support. Henry Peters (a legislator who
would become the powerful Speaker of the House of Representatives)
and John Waihee (a young lawyer who would become the first Native
Hawaiian governor) supported the bill. They said, “Let’s create the
‘Office of Hawaiian Affairs’ and make it a quasi-sovereign entity so it
could be part state, part nation. That way we don’t have to create a sep-
arate nation.”
nn: What was your reaction?
mt: I opposed the committee’s decision, left the Con-Con, and continued
to work with Ho‘äla Känäwai. It was then that we decided we really
needed to work with a larger group—it couldn’t be just Ho‘äla Känäwai,
a few Hawaiian Homesteaders, but we had to broaden the effort. There
were many other organizations looking at this concept of sovereignty:
grassroots groups and Hawaiian Civic Clubs were looking at self-gov-
ernance, Hawaiian Homesteaders were discussing sovereignty,8 Native
Americans were coming to Hawai‘i to talk about sovereignty, other
Hawaiians were going to the United Nations. We decided that we would
have a häläwai, a gathering, and it was decided that a new group should
form so that Ho‘äla Känäwai could remain intact.
nn: Who else was involved with this movement?
146 the contemporary pacific • 17:1 (2005)
mt: The president of the Ho‘äla Känäwai was Blackie Hoohuli. Aunty
Apolonia Day from Maui, Aunty Marie from Wai‘anae, Aunty Pele
Hänoa, and others were involved in the Ho‘äla Känäwai movement. A
new group was formed called the Native Hawaiian Land Trust Task Force.
It was headed by küpuna from each island. One of its central goals was
accountability, because we realized that the Ceded Lands Trust assets were
being encumbered, sold, and developed before Hawaiians could get the
sovereignty question addressed.
nn: What action did the Native Hawaiian Land Trust Task Force take?
mt: The task force took its legislative initiative to the US Congress, which
then called for an investigation of the Hawaiian Home Lands program. A
Federal /State Task Force on Hawaiian Home Lands was set up in 1982.
The Federal /State Task Force continued to bring together all kinds of
Hawaiian groups, not really sovereignty groups, but grassroots groups
looking at sovereignty. Many küpuna from the grassroots communities
were involved. After a number of years, the report on the Hawaiian Home
Lands situation was published. It was worse than we had thought. Much
of the land was being used for public purposes. We realized that the
Hawaiian Home Lands comprised nearly 200,000 acres of rocks, unsuit-
able for agriculture, and, to make matters worse, while we were trying to
focus on the homestead issue, we had not been paying attention to the
larger land issue—the Ceded Lands Trust. So, we decided we would call
for a big, statewide häläwai. We decided that the time had come to call for
a constitutional convention.
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Replies
Need to understand this assignee:
"The Office of Hawaiian Affairs is an organization that has been the object of attack by independence-minded Hawaiian nationalists since its creation."
That's the wedge of oath that Hoala Kanawai took because we were Independent since it's inception in 1974 and formally organized in 1977. Hoala Kanawai is a Hawaiian Homestead organization that thought independently from the Civic Clubs and their weak associations members.
Ho 'ala Kanawai (the law is the law) was in full swing in 1978, this group started in 1974 and my mother was part of this group of women living on Hawaiian Homestead in Waimanalo. It was so unusual for my mother to step out of her comfort patriarchal zone. One that I ran from and continue to do so until this moment.
The Native Hawaiian Land Trust Task Force, was there in the audience seeing the Rod Burgess and Bob Fukuda at work for the developers. All that was needed was the word 'density' in place and single dwelling be removed for absolute control (revolving door) and our loss of successorship. Why? For profits lasting for 30 years a bankers connection.