Your Views for March 3

Subscribe Now Choose a package that suits your preferences.
Start Free Account Get access to 7 premium stories every month for FREE!
Already a Subscriber? Current print subscriber? Activate your complimentary Digital account.

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