Sonny Kaniho - A Hawaiian Patriot (died Friday, August 14, 2009) - Forum

Monday, August 24, 2009 by Larry Geller Sonny Kaniho was one of the giants in the modern Hawaiian rights movement who gained fame by quietly, and then not-so-quietly, protesting the failures of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands to make land available to Native Hawaiians. That’s a little of what Ian Lind wrote on Friday, August 14, 2009, a few minutes after receiving an email with news of Kaniho’s death. The rest of Ian’s article was a thoughtful remembrance and included photos of Kaniho and his 1974 protest. The news also appeared the next day in Tiffany Edwards Hunts’ blog, in an article by Hugh Clark with photos by Ian. Today the Advertiser got around to printing a story of Kaniho’s death. It says: Kaniho died Friday at the age of 87. I’ll bet the story was written in a timely fashion. The news is exactly 10 days old, though. In addition to being old and containing this error, it’s not bad, but its appearance in today’s paper makes me wonder about the health of the Advertiser itself. The effect of the delay: How thoughtless and disrespectful of the editors to have sat on it until today, how out of touch if they didn’t notice. And good thing we have some great blogs in Hawaii. By Ian Lind - Friday (3)…Sonny Kaniho dies August 14th, 2009 · 4 Comments I received an email a few minutes ago with news of Sonny Kaniho’s death. Aloha, My name is Monique Batchelder. I am the grand-niece of Sonny Kaniho. I grew up next to him in Waimea living between him and my Grandfather (Kenneth Kaniho Sr.) He was battling alzheimers and lost this morning. He passed on to a place where all the land is his. Sonny Kaniho was one of the giants in the modern Hawaiian rights movement who gained fame by quietly, and then not-so-quietly, protesting the failures of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands to make land available to Native Hawaiians. Here’s the introduction I wrote several years ago to photos of Sonny’s most famous protest, a symbolic occupation of a DHHL pasture in 1974. May 1974. Two years before the first protest landing on Kahoolawe. George Ariyoshi was serving as governor but would not face election until later in the year. Hawaiians and part-Hawaiians were becoming increasing restive and politically active, with long-term problems of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands becoming key issues for many. And then there was Sonny Kaniho, veteran and retired Pearl Harbor shipyard worker. Kaniho had been on the Hawaiian Homes waiting list for nearly two decades without being awarded any land, while watching large parcels being leased to some of the state’s largest landowners. Perhaps an unlikely activist, Kaniho began a campaign of civil disobedience. In April 1974, Kaniho issued a public statement claiming land that had been leased to Parker Ranch. That lease had lapsed, and Kaniho stepped up to oppose and used direct action to block its extension. Those photos of the 1974 protest, and the subsequent trial, are available online and hopefully, in a small way, can help keep Sonny a part of our history. Hugh-isms — RIP Sonny Kaniho 15 Aug 2009 / By Hugh Clark Sonny Kaniho, in the cowboy hat, claiming homestead land in Waimea on May 18, 1974. © Ian Lind, Kaaawa, Hawaii Forgotten or overlooked. Waimea’s Sonny Kaniho, known to police there as the “nicest protester” has died. Sonny, a retired Pearl Harbor pipefitter, returned to his South Kohala home to seek justice for native Hawaiians after mulling over the fact his father was about to die and never received a Hawaiian homesteads pastoral lease awarded decades before. It was a sort of class action movement on behalf of what he described as “dying Hawaiians.” Sonny often took matters into his own hands, staging sit ins and occupations of Hawaiian land provided to large leaseholders. Once he set some cows loose and then called the cops and media to reveal his novel protest. He once disrupted a lease auction and was arrested. He was the friendliest defendant he ever booked, a seasoned Waimea officer said afterward. According to Ian Lind’s blog, possibly the best on Oahu, Sonny died of Alzheimer’s. The grand niece (Monique Batchelder) who was Ian’s source did not state many details. When the Hawaiian movement is eventually measured and reflected on in a historical book yet to be written, a chapter will have to go to Sonny who epitomized the old phrase “peaceful protester.” In his differed way, he helped pave a break up of sweetheart leases and got Hawaiians placed onto their own land, not figuratively as his father had experienced reality. (40-year newspaper veteran Hugh Clark is a fellow Big Island Press Club member, friend and mentor to the Big Island Chronicle.) Posted by Tiffany Edwards Hunt @ 7:23 am Posted on: Monday, August 24, 2009 Hawaiian activist Sonny Kaniho He brought attention to thousands of waiting homestead applicants By Michael Tsai Advertiser Staff Writer When Sonny Kaniho looked across the broad expanses of pastoral lands on his native Big Island, he saw not just beauty, history and opportunity, but injustice. Kaniho — a retired airman, Pearl Harbor ship-fitter and rancher whose father died while waiting for his Hawaiian homestead land — spent decades trying to bring public and administrative attention to the plight of thousands of Native Hawaiian homestead applicants left stranded on the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands waiting list. Kaniho died Friday at the age of 87. "His main motivation was that there were a lot of people who had waited a long time to receive their land, and he wanted to help them," said Kaniho's son, Kalani. Kaniho was born in Kawaihae Uka on the Big Island and spent most of his life in Waimea. He served in the Air Force for 20 years before taking a job as a shipfitter at Pearl Harbor. Kaniho's father, Willie, died in 1978 after spending some 26 years on the homelands list. As Kaniho told The Advertiser in 1996, he promised his father that he would see to it that he would help those still waiting. Kaniho's high-profile battles with the state actually began in 1974, when he and several others were arrested for trespassing during a protest in Waimea. One of the arresting officers remarked that Kaniho was "the nicest protester I've ever dealt with." It was a reputation that would follow the affable Kaniho, even as he continued his activism with a series of protests in which he and other members of the "Aged Hawaiians" (a group representing Native Hawaiians who had been waiting since 1952 for pastoral land allotments) turned loose cattle on homestead lands leased to non-Hawaiian users. In one such protest, Kaniho mailed an airline ticket to then-Gov. Ben Cayetano so he could attend. (Cayetano, who was in the Philippines at the time, returned the ticket.) "My father was a very kind person and he was very respectful of other people," Kalani Kaniho said. "It took a lot to get him upset." Kaniho would eventually get his homestead pastures in 1991, but that didn't quell his desire to fight for those who still waited. "They might have thought that if they gave him his land, he might back off, get satisfied and discontinue his protests," Kalani Kaniho said. "But, no, he wasn't satisfied. He knew there was still more to be done." Kaniho is survived by his wife, Tomie; daughter, Kathy Gayle; sons, Kalani and Kazu; brothers, Thomas, Kenneth and Martinson; sisters, Jane Gouveia and Mary Tegman; and four grandchildren. Funeral arrangements are pending. Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@honoluluadvertiser.com.

Replies

maori puanani o tahiti robinson August 25, 2009 at 5:19pm

Sonny Kaniho will be missed by his ohana...I am his cousin as my great grand aunty married Willie Opunui and his mother
was Kaniho of Keanae and so we here in Maui are a close ohana...I believe as a rancher, Sonny's love for ranching was only
matched by his love for the aina and his family. We learn to love and give love and it is out of this love that we will protest
with respect and kindness to our opposers who may find it tiresome to react...thing is, they at times may be confuse...how does one react to someone who show you a little kindness and still stand for what he believes is the right thing to do? Is not
ke akua, ke akua aloha ? Aloha, Maori

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