Hawaiians express hope in new administration

By Lillian Hanly

State and County workers in Hawai'i say there is renewed hope around the Covid response and possible self-determination, following the election of a new US president.

While being physically removed from some of the direct impacts of the Donald Trump administration, there is a general sense of relief among those spoken to.

A State Senate worker in O'ahu, Jacob Aki, said he believed with the new administration, Hawai'i would see a more concerted response to the pandemic, based on science and advice given by health experts.

"I do believe we will see a more robust response to this Covid, not just here in this state but across the entire country."

Upon election, Joe Biden set up a new taskforce to assess the current Covid-19 pandemic response and to look at ways to improve.

Aki hoped alongside this, there would be a second round of federal funding that could go to the healthcare response, providing capital to small businesses or directly to residents to support with bills or costs due to job loss.

There had been a slight increase in cases recently due to the opening up of borders in October despite a general trend downward. Restrictions remained in place for inter-island travel and from outside of Hawaii with different processes for testing and quarantine depending on the island.

Newly-elected council member in Hawai'i Island, Holeka Inaba, said he wished there had been an overarching response from the State rather than individual islands creating their own restrictions.

Aki agreed.

"The rules and the policies relating to Covid-19 that have been dictated by our government have been somewhat confusing for many local residents.

"The State has issued its own guidelines and its own policy but it allows each of the different islands and each of the different island counties their own authority to issue their own set of rules which has caused some confusion, some concern, because instead of having one overall state policy that is consistent, each island, while the policy itself is similar, there are some minor differences that often causes confusion."

In terms of supporting disproportionately affected communities, there had been some funding from the US government for meal assistance, housing and general support. But Inaba pointed to high rates of unemployment in the tourism industry.

"The way our resources have been spent is keeping people afloat, and I'm not sure if we've done necessarily a good job in planning ahead.

"So it supports people today and in the future. But there were a lot of restrictions that came with that funding from the Federal government, so our County and State had to follow what was outlined for spending in those funds. We've tried our best, but it's a work in progress."

Inaba noted that tourism was starting to come back but he wanted to focus on investing in agriculture as a way of becoming more sustainable.

"As we've seen, we've had tens of thousands out of work and it's kind of important for us to invest in agriculture here especially since it can sustain us in terms of food production and getting people back to work," Inaba said.

Aki also stated that it was important to now look at how to build capacity in the economic sector, business, in law and different fields, for Native Hawaiians especially.

Aki added that the disproportionate effects of Covid-19 had hit native Hawaiians hard.

"Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are actually more likely to contract Covid-19 than any other ethnic population. Part of the reason for that is because we live in multi-generational homes.

"So we will have the kupuna, makua, keiki, everyone living under one roof. So when one person contracts Covid-19 it's more likely to spread to a large number of individuals and that's what we've seen."

Aki said it was evident on the island of O'ahu, that in large native Hawaiian populations there were high amounts of Covid-19 cases.

Targeted efforts at State and County levels had meant health messaging had been consistent to these communities, and there were also efforts to help people self-isolate if they could not do so in their own homes.

Disproportionate effects on certain communities also fuelled conversations around self-determination for Kanaka Maoli.

"Towards the tail end of the Obama administration in 2016, there was a process set up within our Department of Interior for the Native Hawaiian community, if it was our wish to pursue Federal Recognition, which is similar to the nation within a nation model that many of the Native American tribes have," Jacob Aki said.

The effort to pursue that status was stalled when Donald Trump took the presidency due to a different view on the relationship between the Federal government and native peoples of the US said Aki. He believed the Biden-Harris administration would be willing to provide support to indigenous peoples.

"There's been heated discussion and debate over the past 20/30 years on what type of governing model we believe would be best for Native Hawaiian people. Before talking about that, we need to figure out what the wants of the community are.

"I think it needs to be a bottom-up approach, not dictated from the top-down. While I believe it's great to have a Federal Recognition process there if that is the want of the Native Hawaiian community, but right now I think we need to dig deep to find out what we want as a people."

Aki Acknowledged there were different factions and ideologies of what self-determination looked like.

"I think it's really important for us to come together right now to navigate how we want to go forward."