Trask gets grant
to research how
to help Hawaiians

She said her proposals will
probably include some form of self-
government and legal entitlements
to a national land base

By Susan Kreifels
Star-Bulletin

The state has capitalized on the native Hawaiian traditions of aloha and kokua -- love and support -- to develop tourism, business and environmental protection.

It's time, one researcher says, to give back.

Haunani-Kay Trask, director of the Center for Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawaii, has been awarded a grant to propose the best way to do that. The university will match $20,000 from the Pacific Basin Research Center at Harvard University to fund her research during this fall semester.

"There's no question about how Hawaiian culture has generated so many values that benefit the state," Trask said. "I would like the state to acknowledge that and better use our cultural virtues to improve the condition of Hawaiians. Our people are the least well-off in the community."

She will develop her ideas based on interviews with Hawaiians who have been active in sovereignty groups, whether they be homeless, homesteaders or bureaucrats.

Trask helped found the decade-old Ka Lahui, a native Hawaiian group working for self-government which lists more than 10,000 members.

She said her proposals will probably include some form of self-government and legal entitlements to a national land base.

"Now the sovereignty movement has stalled," Trask said.

"The state doesn't want to give up any land or recognize Hawaiians as a nation."

Recognition of native Hawaiians was an issue in this year's Legislature. State Rep. Ed Case (D, Manoa), who heads the Hawaiian Affairs Committee, let a proposed Native Hawaiian Autonomy Act die this session because of disagreement among Hawaiians. The bill included a state-created autonomy opposed by many Hawaiian groups because it would interfere with sovereignty efforts at federal and international levels.

Case said he would welcome policy recommendations from any native Hawaiians "to put it all on the table.

"We are all engaging in a long-overdue and very necessary debate on essentially how to put the past behind us and move in the future together on native Hawaiian issues," Case said. "One of the primary messages from the native Hawaiian community is that they would like to have that debate internally for now. When they have completed trying to reach consensus, which I hope will be in 1999, they will then engage the rest of us in the resolution, what I've referred to as a global resolution."

The historical event that focuses such groups as Ka Lahui was the 1893 U.S. overthrow of Hawaii's Queen Lili'uokalani.

Trask said Hawaii's tourism economy, capitalizing on the concept of aloha, has displaced native Hawaiians, causing homelessness and other social problems.

But a protest movement that started in the 1970s has led to such developments as a rebirth of the native language and the reclamation of Kahoolawe.

"We've all benefited from the sovereignty movement," Trask said. "It has generated consciousness and made wonderful contributions of cultural values that go with the care of the land.

"This is a very exciting time for Hawaiians to live. Our influence is much greater than previous generations," Trask said.

Trask to focus on fund-raising for Hawaiian studies center Star-Bulletin Haunani-Kay Trask is best known as an activist for native Hawaiians. Now she will use her well-known face and connections for fund-raising. Trask will step down as director of the Center for Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawaii on July 1 and will return as a senior faculty member after a semester of research. Her main focus will be raising money for the center. She will be replaced by Lilikala Kame'eleihiwa, an associate professor in Hawaiian studies. "The university is in tremendous financial crisis," said Trask, who oversaw the completion of the center. "Over the years, I've built up enormous relations to bring into the fund-raising campaign. It's a movement into another state of working for Hawaiian studies." Trask has been at the university for 18 years and was the first faculty hired at the center. Over the years, the center has moved from 28 students to 850, including 135 majors, and it offers 23 courses. "We can't sustain growth if we don't get funding." Trask said potential contributors who visit the center are impressed by how beautiful it is. "They look at the building and feel they've made a commitment they can share. If this is what UH thinks we're worth, you can imagine where we can go."

Federal cut would hurt
Hawaiian health care

A U.S. House bill slashes funding
for Hawaiian health by $13 million

By Rod Ohira
Star-Bulletin

A proposed $13 million cut in federal funding for native Hawaiian health care would eliminate outreach services to more than 25,000 people in Hawaii.

"It would put us out of business," said Hardy Spoehr, executive director of Papa Ola Lokahi, an umbrella organization for five local health-care systems -- Ke Ola Mano (Oahu), Hui Malama Ola Na Oiwi (Big Island), Hoola Lahui Hawaii (Kauai-Nihiau), Na Puuwai (Molokai-Lanai) and Hui No Ke Ola Pono (Maui).

Papa Ola Lokahi spends $3.2 million in federal funds annually to assist native Hawaiians with health-care needs.

Funds also provide scholarships, which has helped train 80 health-care professionals in the last seven years, Spoehr said.

Eliminating funding for native Hawaiian health care is part of a proposal by U.S. House Budget Chairman John Kasich (R, Ohio) to cut $100 billion from the budget over the next five years to reduce the growth rate of the federal government by 1.1 percent.

"The Republican position always was, always is and, as proved (yesterday), always will be anti-minority," said U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, a Democrat. "We have a surplus but that's not good enough, they're going to slash Medicaid and food stamps so they can give tax cuts to wealthy people.

"With them, talk is cheap and money screams.

"Thirteen million is so manini but it shows how far down they're willing to reach just to show who's in charge.

"We'll fight it."

Kasich's budget plan aims to cut spending to achieve tax cuts.

The proposal calls for repealing the so-called marriage penalty, which results in some couples paying higher taxes than if they were single.

Depending on how it was structured, that could cost $50 billion to $100 billion over five years, the proposal said.

In seeking to eliminate "waste, red tape, and bureaucracy," the plan would eliminate the Commerce and Energy Departments and shift some of their functions to other areas.

At the Commerce Department, the proposal would consolidate trade and statistical activities and retain the census, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

At the Energy Department, the plan would keep activities related to nuclear weapons and nuclear waste cleanup.

Kasich proposed five-year savings of $748 million in welfare funding, $2.3 billion in the food stamp program and $4.3 billion by limiting to the rate of inflation the growth of federal reimbursements for state administrative costs in food stamps and the Medicaid health program for the poor.

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Reuters contributed to this report