Correcting Conklin
This is regarding to yet another tirade by Ken Conklin, which was printed in the Feb. 16 issue of the Tribune-Herald, in his response to Filipinos’ support of Hawaiian sovereignty because of shared grievances against American colonialism.
Conklin alleges that members of the University of Hawaii Hawaiian Studies program describes “locals” as “settlers.” His “settlers” were my local childhood playmates, school classmates and fellow soldiers who served with honor, valor and distinction in battles against America’s foes.
What he studiously avoids mentioning are the internment camps where Americans of Japanese ancestry were imprisoned — barbed-wire enclosures that are now a part of historical data.
No mention of what President Grover Cleveland, in his official investigative report to Congress, described as “… an illegal act of war.” An act of war upon my internationally affirmed “free, independent, sovereign and neutral-proclaimed nation.”
Conklin’s written words are simply another attempt to divide and conquer — an attempt to continue the written words of my earlier invaders for well beyond a century past. Words intended to demean and denigrate the victims of that “illegal act of war.”
There is no doubt that Ken Conklin and other of his ilk will provide more written words in their own inimical style. Count on it.
Walter Akimo
Hilo
Good job
I was pleasantly surprised to learn that Hui Malama Ola Na ‘Oiwi was the recipient of a $10,000 gift through Cigna, a gift well-deserved by HMONO. Thank you, Cigna, and others that made this gift a reality.
Hui Malama Ola Na ‘Oiwi has proven itself to me and others they are top of the line when it comes to health care services and information. Never once has HMONO disappointed me, and I have benefited tremendously from their services, information and much, much more for over four years or so. I am so very grateful for their help.
I would like to invite others, public and private, to follow the lead of Cigna and others by considering continuing the financial support of Hui Malama Ola Na ‘Oiwi. It is a great community asset and well-needed resource staffed by wonderful, well-informed people who truly care.
It will be money well spent, and when staff from Hui Malama Ola Na ‘Oiwi turn in for the night, you can be sure they can tell themselves, “Job well done.”
Thank you, HMONO.
Lane Gammill
Mountain View
When does Oahu demand reparations for when we BigIslanders
invaded, conquered, enslaved them and threw 1000s of their warriors over the Pali cliffs?
Where’s the generational outrage over that?
Where’s the affirmative action over that?
Or is it all only about the skin color, not the tyranny & exploitation?
We Hawaiians were stone-age savages have culturally apropriated European Anglo-American traditions: written language, God-given individual equal rights, democracy, freedom, technology…
Where’s the gratitude being taught to our keiki?
Here is my February 16 “tirade” which readers can compare against Walter Akimo’s letter. Readers can decide for themselves whether it is my letter or Akimo’s letter which is “simply another attempt to divide and conquer … Words intended to demean and denigrate”
We’re all equal
A Feb. 8 letter (Tribune-Herald, Your Views) urged Filipinos to support Hawaiian sovereignty because of shared historical grievances against “American colonialism.”
Please don’t fall for the nonsense coming from the University of Hawaii’s Hawaiian studies propaganda factory. They tell you that even if your family has been born and raised in Hawaii for several generations, you are merely “settlers” in someone else’s homeland and have a duty to abandon your hard-won equal rights in order to accept a position of subservience to ethnic Hawaiians.
They want to undermine the patriotism of Asian-Americans by saying you have a moral duty to help Hawaiian sovereignty activists liberate Hawaii from American colonialism and rip the 50th star off the flag.
Will Hawaii residents of Asian descent see themselves primarily as victims of historical domination and exploitation by Caucasians and join the ethnic Hawaiian grievance industry expressing resentment and demanding group reparations for “people of color”?
Or will Hawaii’s people of Asian ancestry see themselves as fully equal to everyone else — individuals whose forebears freely came to Hawaii to work as sugar plantation laborers, nurses and hotel maids to make a better life, and who succeeded in harvesting a piece of the American dream for themselves, their families and descendants?
Today, we are all equal. Do not bow down to Hawaiian nationalism.
Ilk: historical revisionists.
Akin to those purposely omitting significant info
out of American history books.