Former U.S. diplomat and state lawmaker Patrick Pihana Branco is settling into his new home in Washington, D.C., where he will serve as the first Native Hawaiian White House Fellow. The 37-year-old Kailua native is one of 15 leaders from across the country who will spend the next year as senior advisors to either the president, vice president, or any of the Cabinet secretaries.
“My experience has been more at the fingertips of government. Whether it’s being in the U.S. Embassy in Caracas (Venezuela), and you get an order to evacuate the embassy in 48 hours. You don’t question the order, you implement. Or being in your home community and translating community concerns to legislation,” he said. “But I really haven’t been at the federal level making policy for the entire nation.”
The White House Fellows program was established in 1964 by President Lyndon B. Johnson to give emerging leaders first-hand experience working at the highest levels of the federal government. Branco said the selection process was strenuous.
“I had 11 interviews in three days with the Secretary of the Navy, a U.S. Trade representative, the Secretary of the Army, and the Department of Commerce. If you make it to regionals, you have 15 judges, five interview panels,” says Branco. “If you go to nationals, you have 30 judges, 10 interview panels, a written exercise, and they’re watching us the whole time.”
Notable program alumni include former Secretary of State Colin Powell, CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and Hawaiʻi’s own Mufi Hannemann.
“There’s been no Native Hawaiian fellow in 60 years,” says Branco, “Hawaiʻi is extremely pivotal, especially when we’re turning to the Pacific, we’re turning to Asia. So, our perspective should be at the table. Not just a local Hawaiʻi perspective, but a Native Hawaiian perspective.”
The Kamehameha Schools Kapālama graduate studied international studies and political science at Hawaiʻi Pacific University and international relations at John Hopkins University.
After graduation he entered the U.S. Foreign Service through the Congressman Charles B. Rangel Graduate Fellowship program, where he was the first fellow from Hawaiʻi and the first ʻŌiwi selected to the program. Since then, four more Native Hawaiians have become fellows and are now U.S. diplomats. Branco spent seven years in U.S. embassies around the world.
“I was in some hostile areas like Colombia during the peace process. Venezuela full embassy evacuation. Pakistan. I would fly into Afghanistan. I worked for the lead negotiator for the U.S,” he shared.
As a Hawaiian, Branco views his time in the U.S. Foreign Service as a continuation of Hawaiʻi’s rich history of diplomacy.
“We had over 80 embassies worldwide. We were engaged in the family of nations,” says Branco. “I feel like continuing that legacy is really important.”
Branco comes from the next generation of ʻŌiwi leaders – well-versed in Hawaiian knowledge and secure in their identity. It’s a privilege he says his great-grandfather, Edward Pihana, never had.
“When I was young, my papa would always tell me about how he was beaten in school for speaking ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi and then he would go home and get dirty lickins for speaking English,” he said. “And so that’s what I thought about when I was in the legislature.”
Branco returned home in 2020 and was elected to represent his hometown district of Kailua and Kāneʻohe in the Hawaiʻi House of Representatives.
There, he spearheaded the passage of the ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi resolution, which apologized for the 90-year ban on Hawaiian language in island schools. As a lawmaker, he saw the importance of codifying protections for Native Hawaiians.
“How do we institutionalize our language? How do we institutionalize our culture to make sure that we’re never taken out?” Branco said. “That’s where I hope to see our lawmaking go in the future – especially for those of us who are Kānaka elected in office. Institutionalize us, so we can never be taken out of government.”
Branco left his position in the state legislature in 2022 to run for U.S. Congress but lost in the primary to Jill Tokuda. The failed bid only hardened his resolve to run again in the future.
“At the federal level, whatever form of self-determination that our people choose, we need to rectify that. That’s why we have ceded lands issues. That’s why it’s so important to have a Native Hawaiian in the federal delegation who is going to take on these issues and be able to figure out what our people want, what our people need and develop a process.”
For now Branco is concentrating on the White House Fellowship, but who knows, he may seek a higher office in the near future.
“My parents asked me ‘Why you do this kind of thing? Why you push yourself?’ And I just think of my own story. I grew up Kailua, but we’re not from a wealthy family. There were 18 of us at my tutu’s house all sleeping on the floor next to each other. But I could dream big. I was that weirdo always watching Animal Planet and History Channel,” Branco said.
He says his story is no different from other Native Hawaiians across the pae ʻāina.
“I am the son of a high school dropout and teenage mom. That’s why I want to share these types of stories, because I want people to be like ‘I can do that too.’ That’s what’s really important for me.”
