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“Aloha to all of you. I did not think that you, the lahui, were still remembering me, since 10 years have passed since I became a mother for you, the lahui, and now the United States sits in power over me and over you, my dear nation.

“What has befallen you is very painful to me, but it could not be prevented. My mind has been opened because of what the United States has now given to the lahui Hawaii. Here is what I advise: that the people should look to the nation’s leaders, Mr. Kaulia and Mr. Kalauokalani. A great responsibility has fallen upon them to look out for the welfare of the lahui in accordance with the laws that the United States has handed down, to ensure that the people will receive rights and benefits for our and future generations, and I will also derive that one benefit.

“We have no other direction left, except this unrestricted right, given by the United States to you the people. Grasp it, and hold on to it; it is up to you to make things right for all of us in the future.”

The above passage is the English translation of a statement made by Queen Liliuokalani in less than two months after Congress enacted the Hawaiian Organic Act, which made the Hawaiian Islands a territory of the United States and its people, United States citizens.

On Jan. 17, 1893, insurrectionists — mostly White Hawaiian Kingdom subjects — overthrew the Hawaiian Kingdom government with the assistance of a racist U.S. government official, a sympathetic President Benjamin Harrison and a well-placed battalion of U.S. Marines. That’s the quick-and-easy version – it gets a whole lot more complicated.

Queen Liliuokalani was imprisoned and for the remainder of the 19th century, Hawaiian Kingdom subjects, the overwhelming majority being Native Hawaiians, were disfranchised from governance and robbed of their political power.

Immediately after the 1893 overthrow the insurrectionist regime petitioned the U.S. Congress to annex the Hawaiian Islands. That proposal was tossed out by President Grover Cleveland, who tried to restore Hawaiian independence. Four years later, that same insurrectionist regime – now calling itself the Republic of Hawaii – returned with another annexation proposal.

Hawaiians protested. They came out in the lehulehu a manomano (the great many and numerous). Organizers went door to door, amassing well over 30,000 signatures split between two petitions: one of them protesting the U.S. annexation of the Hawaiian Islands and the other calling for the restoration of Queen Liliuokalani. And they took it to Washington, D.C.

The annexation proposal failed to meet the required two-thirds majority Senate approval for ratification, but annexation supporters went with a simple majority scheme and laid claim to the Hawaiian Islands through a joint resolution.

Imagine, for just a moment, the loss – the gut-shot feeling of stratosphere-high-hope crashing down upon shattered dreams. Those dreams you’ve shared with your loved ones, generations of dreams built one upon the next, passed from grandparent to grandchild and beyond. Lifetimes, moments, hope, dreams. Gone.

Dream Killer, Hope Slayer

Native Hawaiians re-emerged in the wake of great catastrophe – foreign-introduced diseases that disappeared over 90 percent of the population. We pulled back from the brink of extinction and charged forward against one adversity after the other. A great many lives were lost in the struggle, but a great many more lived because of it.

The 1898 Joint Resolution wasn’t just an illegal annexation violative of recognized international law at the time. It was a dream-killer, a hope-slayer, a world-breaker. It was a monster that tore down everything we had built and all that we had achieved — in the face of insurmountable adversity — and that monster threatened our continued existence. Imagine how you’d feel.

I look at the words written by Queen Liliuokalani, and I try to imagine what it meant for her to say that “we have no other direction left,” and I try to imagine the great weight upon her heavy heart and naau, when she told her people to “grasp” and “hold” the power given to them by the United States “to make things right for all of us in the future.”

I look at the words written by Queen Liliuokalani, and I try to imagine what it meant for her to say that “we have no other direction left.”

I try to imagine the sheer force of determination our kupuna (ancestors) had when they rallied together. They propped up and gave props to their own American political parties and elected their own Native Hawaiian congressmen, throwing shade to all that had been thrown at them. They grasped and held the power given to them to survive, to make things right for all of us in the future.

The U.S. Department of the Interior laid a pathway for Native Hawaiians to acquire greater political power over our internal affairs by way of establishing a formal government-to-government relationship with the U.S. government (a.k.a. federal recognition). “Grasp it and hold on to it.”

There are divisions within the Native Hawaiian community over this issue. Many fed-rec opponents believe that past U.S. wrongdoings entitle them to a form of restitution – specifically the restoration of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Quite a handful of these theories are manufactured by demagogues and self-proclaimed international legal experts who prey on the sense of injustice that many Native Hawaiians maintain.

These wayward theories have a tendency to allege that the Hawaiian Islands are under a belligerent U.S. occupation and that a simple trip to some international forum, be it the International Court of Justice, Permanent Court of Arbitration, or International Criminal Court, will result in a forceful withdrawal of U.S. interests. Yeah, that’s not how it works.

For those that still believe such a thing, I impart to you these words from well-known international law jurist, James Crawford:

“The essential point is that in cases of a material violation of a peremptory norm, the lapse of time in and of itself does not extinguish title; what is required is a settlement of the underlying problem — either an explicit statement or a general acceptance by the international community as a whole that the situation has been resolved. The internal situation within the territory concerned and the positive integration of its people into the State will be highly relevant in any assessment.”

The international community, as a whole, appears to believe that the illegal annexation situation has been resolved. I believe our kupuna understood that 116 years ago, which prompted Queen Liliuokalani to express that we have “no other direction left,” but to “grasp” and “hold” the power given to us by the United States “to make things right for all of us in the future.” I, for one, intend to do just that.

Thank you, President Obama, for keeping our struggle in mind and to all those out there, who have supported (and continue to do so) Native Hawaiian rights and our exercise of self-determination. E ka Lahui Hawaii, e ola mau.