Paradise Interrupted

It's finally gained national attention, landing a story (albeit buried on page 13) in the NYT Sunday edition: the discrimination case brought against Kamehameha, one of Hawaii's premiere private schools. Here's the twist: it's a white family that is suing the school for not granting their son admission, citing violation of the 1866 Reconstruction Act following the conclusion of the Civil War. At the core, does it violate the law, and is it flat out discrimination? Yes. But as with many legal arguments and rulings (not that I'm a lawyer), it fails to take into consideration the history surrounding those decisions, not to mention the last will and testament that dictated the formation of a private institution that receives no federal funding. Strict interpretation of the law. As a rational and intelligent human being, I get it-- I get the importance of law and the subsequent abiding of it. However, why is it that so many laws fail to take into consideration the effect that they will have on the future?

To understand where I'm going, and where I'm coming from, I'm going to offer up these simple facts about the state of Hawaii that the throngs of tourists would undoubtedly rather turn a blind eye to so as not to let it ruin their vacation in paradise: Hawaii is part of the United States thanks to a political and military coup, supported by the U.S. Military and backed by the U.S. Government, staged by sugar cane farmers at the turn of the 20th century. Hawaii's monachy was overthrown, stripped of power, and the U.S. stepped in and made it a territory. (This was of course after Hawaii was invaded the first time a little more than 100 years prior in the 18th century when Captain James Cook "discovered" the islands, opening the door for missionaries to "bring religion to the savages," and also, disease and a near total decimation of the Hawaiian culture, not to mention its people.) My grandfather tells stories of how children were punished in school for speaking Hawaiian-- their native language, rather than English, and as such, his generation grew up in a culture of fear (huh-- the true American culture, perhaps?). They-- the strongest link to the past, became a transition generation, and the history of an entire people was lost.

Okay, so maybe that's a little extreme, and there were still remnants passed down, but the language was lost-- and is still lost today, aside from a small nationalist movement to resurrect the culture of Hawaii through immersion schools that attempt to revitalize heritage through language, among other things. But, the reality is still this: [native] Hawaiians are amongst the poorest, most undereducated people in the state of Hawaii. They comprise the largest percentage of prison inmates and economically, earn the least amount of money of any other ethnic group in the islands. A shocking statistic when you consider that native Hawaiians-- and that's not even 100% Hawaiians, because they don't exist anymore, make up less than 0.04% of the population. It's not only a dying culture, it's a dying race that will all but disappear in three generations.

Believe me, I'm not a radical that believes that Hawaii could have remained (or should be) an autonomous nation; clearly its size and resources could not have supported it. Not to mention its plum location in the Pacific (which made it an attractive military outpost in the first place) could very well have made it little Tokyo (although with the mass of Japanese tourists that visit Hawaii each year, it may as well be). I'm proud to be a multi-ethnic, multi-racial, Hawaiian-American.

But, when Kamehameha opened it's doors in 1887 at the bequest of its benefactor, Princess Bernice Pauahi Bishop's will, it was well before Hawaii was even made a territory. The school's mission, to educate and improve the capability and well-being of Hawaii's children was, and is, taken very seriously-- by those who understand why it was so important when it was founded in the first place. My grandfather-- that very same little boy who was punished as a child for speaking Hawaiian, graduated from Kamehameha. As a boy of just 10 years old, he received a scholarship to attend the prestigious school, and left his family of 13 on the island of Maui. Because of Kamehameha, he received an education that his family could never have afforded, and as a result, went on to achieve great things, one of which was becoming the youngest civilian Chief Engineer in Naval history. He in turn instilled the importance of hard work and a good education not only in his children and his grandchildren, but also in everyone around him. So the legacy of Kamehameha isn't just in the students that it educates, but in every future generation that results thereof.

The argument lies in the wording of the will: "Hawaii's children." Sure, today, that interpretation has an entirely different meaning. But in the time of Bernice Pauahi Bishop, Hawaii's children were Hawaiian. How could she have even conceived that over 100 years later, her people would be nearly gone? If we were simply to interpret language and legal documents to mean what they were intended when written rather than translate that application to today, all [white] men would still be the only ones created equal; and women and minorities would still not have the right to vote, not to mention have any of the other civil liberties that were then only intended for white men.

Despite all this, I still see both sides of the argument. On the surface? Discrimination is bad. I think we can all agree with that. But what's the counter-argument for discrimination that is based on discrimination? Do the discriminated have an inherent right to fight for their culture and to educate their people, especially when they were oppressed, and really robbed, of their history in the first place?

Social, emotional and historical issues aside, I guess the court battle will ultimately come down to answering these basic questions: how can the law impede on the inherent legal right of an individual's will? And if a court of law can overturn that right, then what legal rights do any of us have?