3.11.05
End of a hectic week, got a draft of my section of the report in, the first of many revisions I’m sure. Got some relatively positive feedback on it, which is interesting because I think it still needs a bit of work before it is ready for print. A lot of it was like reconstructing a crime scene, stating the facts and attributing the appropriate sources, trying to piece together exactly what happened, when, how and by whom. I’m liking this part of the job so far. We’ll see how it goes on from here.
So Tristan is coming out for sure, he accepted a position in DC and is now in the hunt for housing. So far it sounds like he has gotten a couple of good prospects already, in a fun part of the city too. A bunch of old friends are also coming out for the next couple of weekends, should keep me busy for the remainder of the month.
On a side note, I’ve been reading up on a small piece of legislation that is going for a senate vote regarding Native Hawaiian federal status . I’m still a little fuzzy on the details, but I do know that there is a lot of opposition against it for various other reasons. It is a topic that I’ve given more than a passing thought on, I think from Grant’s class back in UH, and my conversations with the Land Tenure Center in Madison. Of course I don’t know where I stand on this issue, what would help is if I could understand the real impacts on Kanaka Maoli and other residents of Hawaii.
I often wonder if any kind of law or change in policy can be fostered without an understanding or general respect for history, and when I mean history I don’t mean the versions that have been whitewashed to tell the side of the victor, or the colonial power. Then again, that is the nature of colonialism to deprive the native of the ability to tell their history in their own tongue, their own perspective. Without a foundation of knowledge or sense of identity, a people can easily be displaced in their own ancestral land, pitted against immigrants from far away, other cultures who compete for power and capital, form governments and buy land.
welcome to the rat race.