( This is suppose to be a comment/response to "Pesky Hawaiians" by mlesueur, but it was too long. Just to let you know, I'm not just rambling.)

It Ain't Easy Being Colonized

I was born in the Philippines, probably a closer example to what Hawaii is today (clump of islands, strategic placement to the east and the Pacific Ocean, a culturally diverse place of various brown people).  And on a more relevant note I’m also half Ilocano, the largest group of native Filipino that immigrated to Hawaii during its heavy plantation times. Today, the Filipino economy is mostly based on tourism and modeled by you guessed it—the good ‘ol Americans! And though it was never “officially” colonized by Americans, the U.S. armed forces provided during the Japanese invasion in WWII and the eventual U.S. “occupation”, has definitely left a lingering imprint on the whole culture and the land.

Well let me rephrase “lingering” presence. It’s actually a lot more forceful than that. Because of colonialism (both official and unofficial) most of the Philippines became Catholic. The economy is capitalistic. The government, in all fairness, is democratic. The noble notion of the Philippines becoming independent came to be when the archipelago finally had to come to the conclusion that freedom meant unity under the common denominator of the term “country”. The whole archipelago of the Philippines, pre-Magellan, was not really a united country. I’m not trying to over simplify things, but the islands were rather divided with all sorts of ethnic groups, who had their own languages, religious beliefs, and too put it bluntly—their own separate cultures. The notion of a “country” and “entitlement” to the land didn’t really exist until outside powers started to enforce their paradigms upon it.

But don’t get me wrong…I’m not rooting for colonialism. I’m not rooting for the mass enslavement of people. I’m glad the Philippines fought for their rites as an independent country. And compared to Hawaii, the so called “native” people seem to be in better conditions.

But I can’t help to feel a bit indifferent when my relatives say, “we have it good.”  I want to scream because…Who the hell has it good? Who is the “we” here? I once asked my aunt this question and she said the “natives”. Technically speaking my family isn’t even native if you take in mind that the other half of me is Basque Spanish—the main ethnic group that colonized the Philippines in the first place.

Honestly, when I was growing up in the homeland, the only people who had it good where the people who lived in the cities. Doctors, business men, hotel managers—people who catered and fed off of the colonial footprint. The Philippines wouldn’t have doctors if it weren’t for Americans setting up medical schools after World War II. There would be no incentive to go into big business if the Philippines didn’t have a Capitalist economy. And our “booming” tourism wouldn’t be what is today without America’s help to exotify the people and it’s various cultures.

So here’s the strong connection with Hawaii—would Hawaiians even want their own country back? DUH! HELL NO! And…perhaps. It is in fact not a simple question. And has no simple answers. Sure the Hawaiians were definitely there first,  But how and can you erase years of rape of the land, (literal) rape of the people, and essentially rape of a culture?

I want to just end it all and say “give them back their damn land you bastards!” I do recognize that the terrible treatment of natives have basically made them the poverty stereotype of their own country. And I do recognize that their rich culture, cultivated from hundreds of years of history, has been reduced to really bad Luaus and tacky shirts.  I believe they should have ownership of the land their ancestors rightfully claimed. And I want them to reclaim their culture for themselves and not for the entertainment of others. But that just can’t be attained through a simple giving back of the land.

In (what my section thinks is) a cynical view of things—I don’t think you can just give them everything back. I think eventually, if the U.S. ever did do the “right” thing and give back the land to the “rightful” owners, the American presence would be there anyways. How would you tell the integrated peoples who have made a life there, who have embody what is to be a Hawaiian, they are in fact not native people; that they do not have a right to the land? And hell—tourism and agriculture has been a good economic base for the last 100 or so years.

It is so shitty that I think this way. Trust me, I feel horrible. But if Hawaii was its own country, was internationally (in the Western sense) recognized, as well as economically competitive, wouldn’t have to inherently succumb to these influences anyways. Even under the rule of King Kalakauam Liloukalani, the monarch before Queen Liloukalani, the economy of Hawaii was based on agriculture and attracted all sorts of people for its so called exotic “foreignness.”

I don’t want to say that every amazing diamond in a rough, culturally unique, country, and its people, are somehow all going to be predisposed to the western colonial sphere one day…but then again I am. Call me insensitive, but hell, I am a product of colonialism too. So is more than half of the whole world. Are we all going to avenge our ancestors in a giant revolutionary uproar? Countries wouldn’t even exist if that were the case. It would be one people displacing other people for land till the end of time.  How do you even begin to solve that enigma?

- Marielle Argueza