Aloha mai kākou,
May invites celebrating a strength we know well but do not always name – the quiet, enduring resilience carried through wāhine.
In our moʻolelo, wāhine are not passive. Pele creates and transforms. Papa grounds and births. Hiʻiaka journeys, heals, and restores. Hina, Haumea, and Kihawahine embody power that adapts, endures, and gives life even through disruption.
That inheritance moves through all of us.
This legislative session, like many before it, tests that resilience. Protections for ʻāina and people remain unevenly enforced. Burial councils are without quorum. Efforts to ensure accountability in Public Land Trust (PLT) revenues – among the most significant mechanisms intended to uplift Native Hawaiians – continue to face inconsistent administration and sustained efforts to obstruct and destabilize this framework.
And still, our response is not retreat. It is steady, intentional persistence.
I witnessed something similar in East Maui, alongside the mahiʻai of Wailuanui, Keʻanae, and Honopou. Long-time commercial diverters stoked fears to stymie stream restoration that returned flows, long denied, would be taken in excess; that imbalances imposed across generations would, at last, be turned back upon them.
But the mahiʻai offered a different truth: why would those who endured imbalance choose to perpetuate it? Why not restore systems that sustain all?
That same clarity was echoed recently when I heard Kū Kahakalau speak for Pōhakuloa, not with hesitation, but with certainty. The return of that ʻāina – all of it – is not a matter of if, but of when. Continued harm by the U.S. military is unacceptable; any compromise that allows it runs counter to her values.
One cannot help but wonder how different decisions might have been had that ʻike guided the 1964 leases. That it now helps inform OHA’s position in 2026 reflects a cultural inheritance that has never relented. Kuleana carried forward, generation to generation.
I see that same inheritance across our communities and within OHA: advocacy that remains steady despite shifting terrain; leaders who prepare, adapt, and stay anchored in purpose; and wāhine across our pae ʻāina – mothers, daughters, aunties, kūpuna – carrying ʻike that guides decisions, often without recognition, always with impact.
Resilience for our lāhui is not endurance alone. It is clarity without hardness. It is the ability to adjust strategy without compromising values. It is optimism practiced with discipline paired with readiness for what must come next.
It also asks us to imagine better: A future where the PLT is managed with consistency and integrity. Where systems meant to serve actually function. Where restoration is responsibility, not debate. Where collective wellbeing reflects balance, not extraction.
This understanding is also personal. I carry the guidance of my own mama: whatever you choose to be, be your best, be of service, and be kind. That, too, is an inheritance – simple, steady, and enduring.
This work is not easy and progress is not always immediate. But movement, grounded and principled, is its own strength. Guided by ʻike and the mana of wāhine, over time what we build will endure, and what is pono will prevail.
