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An Office of Hawaiian Affairs ad that has been running on local television stations appeals to Hawaii residents to ask lawmakers to support OHA’s proposed land development project in Kakaako Makai.

The site has been newly christened by OHA as Hakuone, which the agency says refers to “a small land division cultivated for a chief.”

The 30-second segment features an Asian woman who appears to be in her 60s stepping out of her house and walking in her tree-filled garden.

“Hawaii is my home. But first it was home to Native Hawaiians. Settlers like my ancestors found a welcoming society. They thrived. Too many Hawaiians did not,” she says in a serious tone. “Tell lawmakers no housing restrictions in Hakuone. Justice for Hawaiians is justice for everyone.”

This ad is the first time that I have heard the word “settler,” as understood by scholars, used in the mainstream broadcast media in Hawaii by non-academics.

The term derives from the concept of settler colonialism or, in the recent Hawaii context, Asian settler colonialism. While the general public is likely unfamiliar with the latter term, it provides useful insights into the Hakuone controversy.

The notion of settler encompasses more than one’s immigrant ancestors, as stated in the ad, but also the contemporary non-Indigenous groups residing in native lands like Hawaii. The woman in the ad appears to be Japanese or Chinese, the two most politically and economically dominant Asian American groups in the islands. As she says, her ancestors “thrived,” which isn’t necessarily the case with other Asian groups, such as Filipinos and Micronesians, that immigrated to Hawaii.

The concept of Asian settler colonialism was introduced by the late Native Hawaiian scholar and sovereignty leader Haunani-Kay Trask in 2000. 

My good friend and colleague, University of Hawaii Manoa English professor Candace Fujikane, has expanded upon that concept in her introductory chapter of “,” which she and I co-edited in 2008. 

She defines Asian settler colonialism as “a constellation of the colonial ideologies and practices of Asian settlers in Hawai‘i,” which is viewed as a U.S. colony rather than a state. These ideologies include racism, while practices consist of institutional discrimination.

Settler and settler colonialism differ significantly from each other. Settler colonialism is a system of power and control by a resident racial or ethnic group over a native people in their homeland. 

As settlers since the arrival of New England missionaries beginning in the 1820s, whites formally imposed settler colonialism in Hawaii following the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy some 70 years later.

If the woman in the OHA ad is viewed as local Japanese, local Chinese or both, it appears to highlight Asian settler colonialism against Native Hawaiians. However, for myself, Filipinos (and other Asian groups except Japanese and Chinese) are not engaged in such colonialism because they lack the requisite power and control.

Legislative Opposition

The ad alludes to the opposition by the Legislature, in which Asian Americans are a majority of lawmakers, to approve OHA’s proposal for residential and commercial development of its 30 acres of land in Hakuone. 

OHA acquired ownership of those properties in a 2012 settlement with the state in lieu of $200 million it was owed for unpaid public-land trust revenues between 1980 and that year. 

Unfortunately for OHA, six years before the settlement, a state law was enacted that prohibits high-rise housing development makai of Ala Moana Boulevard. The agency has been unsuccessfully seeking to revise that legislation. 

House Speaker Scott Saiki has proposed that in exchange for abandoning the plan to build three residential towers, the state would provide OHA with $100 million in cash, $65 million for wharf repairs in the area, and an increase of several million dollars to $25 million in its annual payment from the state.

In a special meeting several days later, the OHA trustees voted unanimously to reject Saiki’s offer. 

“We are asking for equal treatment. We are asking to be accorded the same privileges as the developers from the mainland whose towers continue to go up, unimpeded, just across from Hakuone,” the board of trustees said.

Can the concept of Asian settler colonialism help us to understand and possibly resolve this dispute over Hakuone between OHA and the Legislature? 

It can if we view OHA as representing Native Hawaiians and the Legislature as an institution in which the political power of Asian Americans is asserted, although it also has Native Hawaiian leaders and members, as well as those from other ethnic groups. 

As a result of Saiki’s proposal to OHA, the news media has represented the conflict between the agency and the Legislature as particularly involving Saiki. However, such a view focused on individuals, albeit one with considerable power, obscures the systemic nature of settler colonialism.

From an Asian settler colonialism perspective, Asian American political domination extends well beyond the personal power in the Legislature of Saiki, Senate President Ron Kouchi, or others such as Sens. Donovan Dela Cruz, Donna Mercado Kim, Michele Kidani and Glenn Wakai.

Longtime Subjugation Of Native Hawaiians

The ideologies and practices central to Asian settler colonialism are institutionalized, meaning they are established and followed widely in our society rather than being limited to personal biases and actions.

Asian settler colonialism encompasses more than political power in the Legislature. It also consists of the economic power of Asian Americans, including through the corporations and businesses they control or own, their wealth and income, and their higher levels of employment, education, and home ownership. 

The concept of Asian settler colonialism highlights the subjugation of Native Hawaiians, of which the Hakuone dispute is just the most recent of numerous examples over the decades, such as the long-term underfunding of the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.

This insufficient funding, which has left almost 28,000 Native Hawaiians on the DHHL waiting list, isn’t simply because the state lacks money. Rather, it is due to the established practice by the Legislature not to consider the agency a policy priority, the same problem that OHA faces.

In thinking about how the Hakuone dispute can be resolved, legislators need to keep in mind that since 2011 the state of Hawaii has by law recognized Native Hawaiians as the “only indigenous, aboriginal, maoli population of Hawaii.”

As such, they have a legal and political status and rights that no other group can claim, particularly to land, water and sovereignty. As we all consider how to settle the Hakuone conflict, we all should remind ourselves of that Indigenous status and rights.