Who Owns the Crown Lands of Hawai’i? by University of Hawaii professor and attorney Jon Van Dyke hearkens back to a simpler time, a time when white guilt combined with an embarrassing over-romanticism of pre-European-contact Polynesia to create a wonderfully slanted perspective on both history and law. In other words, an age stretching back to at least the mid-1990s. It would be inaccurate to call Van Dyke’s take on historical analysis post-modern, as post-modern histories are generally impatient with the kind of meta-narrative embraced by Van Dyke’s work. Rather, the historical sections of the book remind one of nothing so much as early 19th century accounts of noble and untainted natives—though in this case the villains aren’t shifty and murderous local tribes so much as shifty and murderous (and greedy) Europeans. It’s endearingly retro in a way—I had believed that we had gone past the point of people “going native” in the Islands, but Van Dyke has proven me wrong.

Perhaps, instead of the pseudo-inquiry of the title (does anyone really think that a book entitled Who Owns the Crown Lands? is going to arrive at the answer, “the government, silly?”), it would have been more accurate to have called the volume “Collected Clichés of the Sovereignty Movement.” There aren’t many that have been overlooked. Romanticizing the life of the early Hawaiians while overlooking or downplaying the more brutal or inequitable features of their culture and social structure (and indeed of most civilizations at that age of development)? Check. Characterizing nearly all European advisors, merchants, etc. to settle in Hawaii as patriarchal exploiters at best and rapacious scoundrels at worst? Check. Depending on highly biased reports of the Hawaiian Revolution that have since been discredited in the hopes of characterizing it as illegal or as an act of the US Government? Check. Ignoring the democratic concerns that led to the revolution and annexation? Check. Treating the distribution of the crown lands as some sort of modern 40-acres-and-a-mule cure-all for the various problems of Native Hawaiians? Of course. I suppose it’s good of Van Dyke to gather them all in one place like this and give them an academic negligee for greater legitimacy. Those who have the time and inclination to sort through this dense volume may appreciate the expansion of bumper-sticker ideological tropes swollen into heavily-footnoted chapters. Who knows? Some people might be into that.

Then there are the legal arguments. In truth, it was difficult to get much further than the author’s approving and frequent citations of the infamous 1993 Apology Resolution (an impressive bit of biased and poorly-researched history in its own right). For a law professor who was educated at one of the country’s finest schools and then taught briefly in Washington, D.C., Van Dyke puts a stress on the legal weight of Congressional Resolutions that is so unwarranted as to teeter on the verge of delusional optimism at best and outright disingenuousness at worst. Granted, one could argue some resolutions are more equal than others, but no one can honestly put forth the proposition that a resolution has any force of law, being merely the expression of an opinion, and in general, a highly politicized one. In the case of the Apology Resolution in particular, it is even more objectionable given Senator Inouye’s assurances to his colleagues that, “as to the matter of the status of the Native Hawaiians... this resolution has nothing to do with that.”

But the frustration doesn’t end there. Van Dyke repeatedly conflates race with tribe and government in what can only be a willful attempt to avoid the inescapable truth that no continuing and recognized Hawaiian government has existed since Lili’uokalani. Moreover, even reaching back to the Kingdom of Hawaii in support of this racial-governmental connection is deeply flawed, as it is well documented that there were many non-Native Hawaiian citizens of the kingdom, some of whom even served in the government. The boundaries of the Kingdom of Hawaii were geographical, not racial, and it is saddening to see the invasion of modern racial politics into a culture that has always prided itself on tolerance and diversity.

Still, this volume is virtually guaranteed to become the bible of sovereignty grievance and argument, and it is—to be fair—exhaustively researched and extremely broad in its scope. One might wish that it attempted to present an objective examination of the question rather than a full-fledged thesis defense, but objective examinations don’t exactly earn you OHA support. The writing, for what it’s worth, is accomplished, if not riveting, and many readers may make it through several chapters before beginning to skim. Supporters of sovereignty and the Akaka Bill may find it a useful summation of their position, and are urged to find a Cliffs Notes version. Opponents of the same may find it a useful guide to the other side as well as a handy way to keep the papers on their desk from flying away.

- GIR-

Malia Hill holds a J.D. from the Catholic University of America, as well as a B.A. from Mt. St. Mary's College, where she studied history and philosophy. With family from all over the Islands, she spent many years living and working in Hawaii. Her studies included research on race and the plantation system, and she even spent some time working in the Hawaii State Legislature. She currently resides near Washington, D.C., and misses the ocean terribly. She can be contacted at pmbhill@gmail.com.