Like American Indians, native Hawaiians suffer disproportionately high rates of poverty, alcoholism, suicide and incarceration. We pay one-fifth into the treasury. Yet we're the most landless of the people living in Hawaii. . . . All we're asking for is our land and self-determination. The Civil War showed that you can't secede from the Union.
Land is central to the debate over sovereignty.
In 1894, the provisional government seized control of almost 2 million acres later ceded to the U.S. government. Some was used for military bases. The rest was given to the state, which has since built on it the University of Hawaii, Honolulu International Airport, parks, schools, roads and small airfields, among other things. A small percentage is now being used for homesteading by native Hawaiians. The prospect of the state and federal government relinquishing control of all the land taken in 1894 is unlikely, said Honolulu lawyer John Goemans, who wants a federal judge to invalidate the referendum on the grounds that a race-based vote is unconstitutional.