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Clarifying what Hawaiians mean by nation-building and nationhood is like watching a turning kaleidoscope. The passion-driven political dialogue can be colorful, complex and confusing.

In the 122 years since the overthrow of Queen Liliuokalani in 1893 three fairly definitive and divergent political positions addressing the question of nationhood seems to have emerged. Each is exclusive of the others and each moves toward separately conceived outcomes.

One position opposes the concept of a restored Hawaiian nation and two argue for very different approaches to nation-building. Each of the three political positions has a large enough constituent base to be reckoned with.

The first group, which is referred to as Hawaiian Nationals, put forth the argument that the overthrow of 1893 was an illegal act under international law, that Queen Liliuokalani never relinquished her throne and that Hawaii is an occupied nation.

Members of this group are adamant that the path to restoring the nation is through international law and refuse to recognize any jurisdiction of the United States over Hawaii. They cite examples of how other once-independent victim-nations of colonization were able to have their sovereignty restored through international intervention. A small but vociferous faction of this group in its statement of total separatism from the United States accuses people willing to accept the status quo of U.S. rule as guilty of treason and war crimes.

The second group is at the opposite end of the spectrum. Members of this group contend that the transition of Hawaii — from Kingdom to Provisional Government to Republic to U.S. territory to Statehood — was a legitimate transfer of national sovereignty. They do not support any Hawaiian claims of injustice or wrongdoing. They do not accept that any harm befell Hawaiians as a result of the political transfer of jurisdiction. They insist that all programs that give preference to Hawaiians are race-based and violate 14^th Amendment rights.

Examples include the Kamehameha Schools and their Hawaiians-preferred admissions policy, the Alu Like job placement and training programs, the Papa Ola Lokahi health service network, and so forth. This group advocates the dismantling of all such “race-based” public policies and programs.

The third and, probably, the largest constituent group advocates pursuit of the nation-within-a-nation model, such as the one successfully pursued by Native American Indian tribes and Alaska Natives. This model, for Hawaiians, advocates reconciliation with the federal government by first being recognized as Native Americans and included in the Native American Act.

Native American status then qualifies Hawaiians to engage in a federally authorized process by which Hawaiians shape an official proposal for a government-to-government relationship with the United States. I presume this proposal would then have to be ratified by the people of the state of Hawaii as well as the U.S. Congress.

There is a fourth group of Hawaiians who I don’t include as a formal constituency with a political position. They seldom participate in the nation-building dialogue. Most have assimilated themselves into mainstream Hawaii. This does not mean they are less Hawaiian. They simply have chosen not to politicize their sense of Hawaiianess.

Of the three divergent strategies the nation-within-a-nation option has been the most frequently discussed. This position sprang out of the Hawaiian activism of the 1970s that led to the Hawaii state constitutional amendment of 1978 creating the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. What emerged from that period was a supportive public mood and general expectation that the state of Hawaii would support federal recognition for Hawaiians.

It’s important to note that federal recognition does not and would not directly translate to nationhood. It simply recognizes Hawaiians as entitled to the same opportunity as American Indians and Native Alaskans to petition the federal government for a government-to-government relationship.

So, the assumption and anticipation of federal recognition was underpinned by the rather remarkable rise over the years of more than 250 federal entitlement programs for Native Hawaiians generated by U.S. Sens. Daniel Inouye and Dan Akaka. This brought millions of entitlement dollars into Hawaii for education, health care, business opportunities, jobs programs and more.

The failure of the Akaka Bill — mourned by some, cheered by others — to grant Native American status to Hawaiians brought the momentum of the federal recognition option to a screeching halt. It also raised the level of concern that the over-arching matrix of federal entitlement programs for Native Hawaiians has become a house of cards that is subject to legal constitutional challenges.

The concern is dramatically heightened given that Congress doesn’t seem to be inclined to extend Native American status to Hawaiians. The loss of Sen. Dan Inouye and the retirement of Sen. Dan Akaka signaled the end of an era and the shield of congressional protection they so brilliantly wielded on behalf Native Hawaiians is forever lowered.

Moving forward, some people say we are in a ticking-clock scenario. We have an alienated Congress so hopes for federal recognition for Hawaiians have had to shift toward the executive branch of government where President Barack Obama can exercise his executive authority through the Departments of Interior and the Department of Justice. He has just over 18 months until the end of his second term.

But this road is lined with political land mines. Last year when representatives of the U.S. Department of Interior came to the islands to engage in an exhaustive series of statewide public hearings on the question of federal recognition, they were embarrassingly and routinely insulted. This was an onerous beginning to an official executive branch-driven federal recognition foray.

Let’s now move to the most troubling aspect of this overall discussion. The dialogue has been mostly among Hawaiians. The rest of the Hawaii community seems to be in a muted state of curious observance. And, to listen to the Hawaiians-only bantering, it is fair to assume that some third-party observers are becoming convinced that Hawaiians are talking about Hawaiians-only nationhood.

So, what would qualify one to become a citizen of the Nation of Hawai’i? Is Hawaiian required? If yes, how is a “Hawaiian” defined?

Here’s where the discussion can get really bogged down. The word “Hawaiian” is not an ethnic Hawaiian word. The term was generally used under the Kingdom to describe any person who was a citizen from a place called Hawaii.

Nevertheless ethnic ancestry, under the Kingdom, was not a criteria for citizenship. So, although in today’s vocabulary there is a prevailing public assumption that, in the context of nationhood, the word Hawaiian refers to a person of Hawaiian ancestry, the proper term for such an ancestral Hawaiian is Kanaka Maoli (“real” or “true people”). So, the belief by some people that the Kingdom of Hawaii still exists as an uninterrupted sovereign nation presumes that if you are a descendant of someone who was a Hawaiian citizen then you are a citizen of the Hawaiian nation by birthright.

In 1920, in an aggressive attempt to repatriate Native Hawaiians to their lost lands, Prince Jonah Kuhio, delegate to the U.S. Congress from near the beginning of the 20^th century, authored the Hawaiian Homestead Act. This was a pivotal action by Congress that granted recognition to Native Hawaiians as a people of common ancestry who were deserving of special attention separate and apart from the general American citizenry.

This act provided the first legal definition of native Hawaiian (native with a small “n”) as one who is of 50 percent native Hawaiian blood quantum as a requirement to qualify for land awards. Prince Kuhio’s proposal was for a one-sixteenth blood quantum because he anticipated that at some point in the future many Hawaiians would inter-marry and their children would not meet the 50 percent blood quantum.

The Hawaiian Homestead Act of 1920 opened the door to a whole body of entitlement programs that followed years later; most were introduced by Sen. Inouye. But Prince Kuhio’s fear was realized and the majority of Hawaiians did not meet the 50 percent blood quantum.

So, while the quantum of the Homestead Act was left untouched, a new definition of Native Hawaiian (Native with a capital “N”) reduced the quantum to any Hawaiian blood as the qualifying criteria for all entitlements succeeding the Homestead Act.

A third definition of Native Hawaiian, again for the purpose of qualifying through birth records for entitlements, was added to the mix of definitions. If you can trace your ancestral line in Hawaii prior to the arrival of Captain Cook in 1778, you qualified.

To summarize, we’ve established the three main political approaches to dealing with the question of nation-building and noted four definitions of “Hawaiian.” Three of the definitions separate Hawaiians out as a special class of people and provides them access to government-driven entitlement programs.

These definitions will all need to be revisited as part of the nation-building process and somehow linked or merged into an all-inclusive definition of what we mean by Hawaiian.