Queen and I: A Story of Dispossessions and Reconnections in Hawai'i

Book info: Queen and I: A Story of Dispossessions and Reconnections in Hawai'i (Hardcover, 223 pages) – University of California Press, 2011. Language: English.

In this exposé Sydney L. Iaukea ties personal memories to newly procured political information about Hawai`i’s crucial Territorial era. Spurred by questions surrounding intergenerational property disputes in her immediate family, she delves into Hawai`i’s historical archives. There she discovers the central role played by her great-great-grandfather in the politics of late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Hawai`i―in particular, Curtis P. Iaukea’s trusted position with the Hawaiian Kingdom’s last ruling monarch, Queen Lili`uokalani. As Iaukea charts her ancestor’s efforts to defend a culture under siege, she reveals astonishing legal and legislative maneuvers that show us how capitalism reshaped cultural relationships. She finds resonant parallels and connections between her own upbringing in Maui’s housing projects, her family’s penchant for hiding property, and the Hawaiian peoples’ loss of their country and lands. From the Back Cover "The Queen and I will be a very important contribution to historical and political literature on early twentieth century Hawai'i. But through its intensely personal narrative, it could have an even greater impact on the way people look at history. Sydney Iaukea weaves archival information into a story about a well-known historical figure while demonstrating the impact of these archival voices on herself. In this way she binds herself to her ancestor and allows him to speak through her, showing how an ancient value can be a new methodology for Native writers in indigenous studies."

―Jonathan Kay Kamakawiwo’ole Osorio, author of Dismembering Lahui: A History of the Hawaiian Nation to 1887

“Raised in Maui’s housing projects, Sydney Iaukea discovers as an adult that she is the direct descendent of Curtis P. Iaukea, a prominent statesman and trusted adviser to Queen Lili’uokalani, the Hawaiian Kingdom’s last ruling monarch. In this courageous work, she documents her dual quest to recover her lost lineage and her ancestor’s historical importance. Revealing the continuity between public and private, personal and historical, Sydney Iaukea’s compelling narrative brings her readers face-to-face with Lili’uokalani during the tragic days of her overthrow.”

―Mary Palevsky, author of Atomic Fragments: A Daughter's Questions

“For those of us born and raised in Hawai'i, Sydney Iaukea's work sheds light on a period of time about which we still know too little, the overthrow of Hawai’i’s sovereign government and its forcible annexation to the U.S. This is a compelling narrative, driven by the mystery of a girl growing up poor, unaware of her distinguished lineage. How could this disconnect have occurred? Through the exploration of memories embedded in the landscape, Iaukea ultimately links displacement, dispossession, and familial strife to Hawai'i's troubled history with the U.S. Iaukea is to be commended for her honest and open heart.”

―Matthew M. Hamabata, Executive Director, The Kohala Center About the Author Sydney L. Iaukea holds a Ph.D. in political science with a specialty in Hawai?i politics. She is a dedicated community member, instructor, and avid surfer. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. The Queen and IA Story of Dispossessions and Reconnections in Hawai'iBy Sydney Lehua IaukeaUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESSCopyright © 2012 The Regents of the University of California
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-520-27066-4
ContentsList of Illustrations, ix,
Acknowledgments, xi,
Introduction, 1,
1. Family Secrets and Cartographic Silences: Chatty Maps and Memory, 14,
2. Land as the Vehicle: The Hawaiian Homes Commission Act (1921) and Defining Nativeness, 40,
3. A Story of Political and Emotional Maneuverings: Queen Lili'uokalani's Trust Deed and the Crown Lands, 61,
4. "E paa oukou" (You hold it): Charging Queen Lili'uokalani with Insanity and "Holding" the Trust Intact, 87,
5. The Final Insults: Kahoaka, Condemnation, the Lele of Hamohamo, Projects of "Reclamation," and Heartbreak, 115,
Epilogue, 143,
Appendix A. List of Commissions and Appointments Received by Colonel Curtis P. Iaukea, 147,
Appendix B. Queen Lili'uokalani's Deed of Trust, 151,
Appendix C. Queen Lili'uokalani's Petition to U.S. President William H. Taft, 163,
Notes, 171,
Bibliography, 193,
Index, 201,


CHAPTER 1

Family secrets and Cartographic silences

Chatty Maps and Memory

For memory to function well, it needs constant practice. —Milan Kundera

Land, body, and memory all inform one another. The land, extending out and into the ocean, holds the practical and epistemological memories of encounters. The body is the agent, the participant in the environment, and the container of memories. For Hawaiians in the past, vital information was relayed through the environment, and this memory of ka 'aina (the land; that which feeds) affected close interpersonal relationships and societal structures. Vestiges of that connection to ka 'aina still exist in places and still hold valuable information about who we are. The dynamics and evolution of land, body, and memory can be glimpsed in the land tenure documents and in the personal stories that accompanied the exchanges of private property. I search and wonder at the connections, then and now, of land and ocean, body, and memory.

I found the following narrative about the Lele of Hamohamo at the Hawai'i State Archives eight years ago. I was there researching my last name, and when I found this handwritten chapter by my great-great-grandfather, Curtis Piehu Iaukea, I had only a glimmer of a clue as to what he was talking about. I had only just recently found the map to this property at the Bureau of Conveyances in Honolulu, but had not yet uncovered the Kalaniana'ole suit he refers to from the Circuit Court (O'ahu First Circuit). This narrative and others like it helped me piece together and gain insight into the larger story of the political transfer of land in general from Hawaiian Kingdom sovereign territory to the Territory of Hawai'i, the story of Curtis Piehu Iaukea, and finally my own personal narrative. The three stories collide but intimately inform one another, and they do so because of my great-great-grandfather's recorded memory of land—how it was transferred, who transferred it, and what the continuing consequences of these transactions are a century later. Memory fills in the mo'o ku'auhau (genealogy) in practical and more fundamental ways. The Lele of Hamohamo starts and ends this book because it is a microcosm of how I have come to understand myself, my kupuna (ancestors), and my community.

The "Lele of Hamohamo" and the Attempt to Deprive Of It Whilst the Kalanianaole suit was still pending and to my surprise and astonishment, Mr. W.O. Smith showed me a letter which the Queen had sent him a day or two before. The letter was dated February 13, 1912, and read as follows:

"I find I have devised to Mr. C.P. Iaukea a certain lot in Hamohamo, to his heirs and assigns forever. It was not my intention that he should have the benefit of it forever, and as you know I have devised my other beneficiaries their portions for their life and their heirs, failing which the property should revert back to my trustees. It is now my purpose to revoke that and revert the property back to the trust."

Having all the earmarks of one whom I had good reason to believe had written the letter, whose name I'd rather not mention, I had no hesitation in saying so, when asked by my colleagues on the board of trustees what I thought of the Queen's proposition. Convinced as I was that it was not the Queen's wish, I said to them that if they wanted to consent to the request by an amendment to the deed of trust, they could do so, but that I would not be a party to it. It would be a sign of weakness, I said, and might affect our side of the case when the Kalanianaole suit comes up for trial, as showing that the Queen was mentally unsound at the time she signed the deed of trust.

I further called Mr. Smith and Mr. Damon's attention to the fact that, on the two occasions when the draft of the trust deed and the deed itself were read to the Queen, the difference in tenure between the other beneficiaries and mine was referred to; the Queen distinctly saying in the presence of those who were then there with her at the time, myself included, "I wish it so; Mr. Iaukea has done a great deal for me."

What I said impressed them. I heard nothing further in the matter until a day or two later when Mr. Smith reported that, he had interviewed the Queen on two separate occasions; when the Queen said to him, "We will consider it further; put it off." And on the next visit, "Oh, let that go, We won't follow that any further." Mr. Smith leaving her with the impression that she wished nothing further done about the matter.

Closing another chapter of the many intricacies and machinations that surround court life which I have experienced in the course of a lifetime, Liliuokalani's being no exception to the rule.

Speaking of the tract of land in question, Queen Liliuokalani devised to me, known as the "Lele of Hamohamo," situate at Waikiki waena, a quarter of a mile away from the main tract known as the "Ili of Hamohamo," it contained some seven acres, a little more or less. Rice land, and under lease at $200 a year rental. I did not come into possession of the land until eight years had passed with the Queen's death in September of 1917 and when I did it was encumbered by a lease to a Mr. H.A. Heen for some years to run at the same rental of $200 per annum, the prevailing rental for rice lands in those days, of between $25.00 and $30.00 per acre. So that, it wasn't the magnificent gift as many have erroneously claimed, when the services I had rendered the grantor is taken into consideration. It wasn't very long after I had obtained the fee to the land under the provisions of the trust deed, when I turned the whole tract over to my wife, who owned in her own right some fifteen acres adjoining the "Lele of Hamohamo" on the Diamond Head side and next the Fair Grounds.

The Lele of Hamohamo. Lele translates as "jump" in Hawaiian land tenure discourse. It is a section of land in a different part of the ahupua'a (land division with districts running from the mountains to the sea) that contains either taro or forestland for that ahupua'a. As for the phrase "the Attempt to Deprive of It" in the title, it strongly resonated with me. I readied myself for the story about to unfold.

I know that name Lele—it's what I once called my sister when we were younger, because "Lesley" was too hard to say. I may have always known that Lele was part and parcel of my family, of our interfamilial interactions, and of our larger social histories. I was impressed when I first saw the map of this property. Almost eight acres, and in such a prominent location: right there in the middle of what was once the larger Waikiki area, surrounded by and containing duck ponds, lo'i (taro) and rice fields. Le'ahi (Diamond Head) stood on one side, and the ocean was off to the other. Two rivers ran alongside, and two ahupua'a converge in that place. So much history here. So much mana (power) in the landscape.

The mana remains but is buried under schools, homes, and parking lots and is layered over with multiple social articulations—the result of the last one hundred years of history in Hawai'i. Pulling away some of these layers uncovers parts of my family's history and reveals the larger consequences of capitalism, land dispossession, secrecy, and manipulation both then and now.

My great-great-grandfather describes a contest over this property early on in our family's and Hawai'i's modern history. But no one ever told me about the Lele of Hamohamo. The intrigue surrounding the title to this property first appeared to me in the unpublished chapters of my great-great-grandfather's writings, which I read with curiosity driven by some deep, personal anxiety. Other family members know about this property, and the connecting property Hooulu, intimately. Some in the family are completely aware of these properties—in fact, they have profited greatly from this land, providing themselves with house lots, mansions, and private-school educations. But how much do they really know? And how much did they really profit? I was about to learn more.

I needed to pinpoint exactly where the Lele of Hamohamo was located. Then would come the more difficult tasks of deciphering how this specific land deed figured in the larger mystery of the Queen Lili'uokalani's deed of trust proceedings in 1909, of understanding the suit brought against her in 1915 by Prince Kuhio with the "insanity trials," and of tracking the government's condemnation of this property into the 1930s. My kupuna (ancestor) wrote about all of these land deals. His memory reveals how private property law in Hawai'i was used to disenfranchise and disassociate us individually and collectively from land, from our mo'o ku'auhau (genealogy), and from our 'ohana (family). Territorial land laws in Hawai'i a century ago privileged and disempowered practical land ownership. They also undermined native connectivity through 'aina, mo'o ku'auhau, and 'ohana. We live with the consequences of these legal maneuverings today.

Searching through these documents took me on a journey into a mystery. I pulled on the threads of entanglements that never seemed to loosen. I looked for the virtual keys to this property, but each new discovery led me to more locked doors that needed to be opened. Along the way, familial and political relationships, some Machiavellian, were revealed to me. But at first, simply the land ownership itself sparked my interest and fed my desire to know. Who owned it? Who sold it? How did a Waikiki fortune, if only a small piece of it, slip away from my mother, my little sister, and me?

I grew up on Maui without property. After my parents divorced, my father sold our farm in upcountry Maui. Most of our share of the proceeds, along with any child and spousal support, never materialized, and so my mother always worked a minimum of three jobs to provide for our survival. For the three of us, something in the social system became unhinged, and we lived landless. Growing up without legal title to land not only disconnected us from ka 'aina, but also forced us into the low-income housing apartments in central Maui known as Harbor Lights. We lived in marginal and unsafe surroundings. I both questioned the fairness of this social reality, and later wondered about my own identity as a Hawaiian.

If as Hawaiians we know ourselves through our connection to ka 'aina, what happens when this connection is broken, and never allowed to flourish? Who am I without this? How did this dispossession not only affect my practical needs, but also alienate me from deeper understandings of self, genealogy, and community? And finally, once this loss of self, experienced as loss of land, is recognized, how do I fill the void? Luckily ke kai, the ocean, was close by and free. We spent most of our lives swimming, paddling canoe, and surfing, and this welcoming expanse still provides me with a constant means of escape and a source of solace.

The severing of immediate family connections also served to disassociate me from my larger 'ohana and its narratives. I didn't know who the first Curtis Piehu Iaukea was. Our only glimpse of family history came from periodic ventures to Waikiki on the island of O'ahu, where we would look at the giant oil painting of Colonel Curtis Piehu Iaukea next to the escalators on the second floor at the Queen Kapi'olani Hotel. We decided he must have done something important to deserve a full-size portrait of himself in a hotel in Waikiki, but we didn't know what. Some years later, at the University of Hawai'i, I enrolled in a class on nineteenth-century Hawaiian history. The assigned reading included two books by and about Curtis P. Iaukea. Now my interest was piqued, because what I knew about both the man and the era amounted to almost nothing. Information about my father's side of the family had been nonexistent. Or had it been withheld?

Someone suggested that I research my last name. This intrigued me because I had thought that I knew all I needed to know about my family. For me, family consisted solely of my small nuclear family. The larger Iaukea family wasn't encountered or discussed much except when the holidays rolled around, and we were painfully reminded of them by their silent absence.

So I started by researching my last name at the Bureau of Conveyances—where the land tenure records of Hawai'i are kept. Within a very short time, what my research uncovered truly shocked me. My great-great-grandfather came to life—instead of simply appearing in an oil painting on a hotel wall, he appeared before me as a foreign diplomat of both the Hawaiian Kingdom and the Territory of Hawai'i, as an integral member of Hawaiian governance for more than seventy years, and as a property owner on almost every main island in the Hawaiian archipelago.

Questions of native subjectivity, especially with regard to land and private property, soon were driving my academic work, because the history of dispossession and social dislocation in Hawai'i is my own immediate family's history. I grew up landless, marginalized, and without a place or a voice in the contemporary world, but my great-great-grandfather held over forty appointed and elected positions during his career as a public servant in Hawai'i in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

He also clearly wanted the history of his times preserved. Toward the end of his life, Curtis P. Iaukea was a member of the Hawai'i State Archives Commission and a founding member of the Hawaiian Historical Society. The territorial government commissioned him as the "chief historian" of the islands, and in 1939 he wrote weekly columns for the Honolulu Advertiser about everything from his memories of growing up on Hawai'i Island and being called to O'ahu to serve Na Ali'i to his official trips abroad as the representative of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Throughout his career, he was both a repository for and creator of state discourse, representing Hawai'i internationally, and later preserving Hawaiian memory after the islands had become socially and politically occupied and reconfigured as a territory of the United States.

My great-great-grandmother, Charlotte Kahaloipua Hanks Iaukea, was an akamai (knowledgeable) landowner and prominent social figure in her own right. From her ancestral line of Kahaloipua and Hanks, she inherited most of what is today Date Street, located off of Kapahulu Avenue in Waikiki. Her paternal line through Frederick Leslie Hanks links her to the same family as Abraham Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks. Her maternal line, Kahaloipua, stems from Kekualaula and Keawaaua, high chiefs on the islands of Hawai'i and O'ahu. Akini Wahinekapuokaahumanu was her mother. Charlotte also served as a lady-in-waiting, commissioned as a Knight Companion of the Royal Order of Kapi'olani, to Queen Kapi'olani and was a friend of Queen Lili'uokalani.

This was all new to me, and this Curtis P. Iaukea seemed to be a strong, enigmatic, worldly, and all-knowing figure. But so many questions still came to mind, and I had my doubts about his integrity. My experience with others of his name did much to instill trepidation and caution, since these descendants are now living on acreages or benefiting from trusts passed down from Curtis and Charlotte Iaukea, and have also knowingly cut us out of the familial loop, because my mother divorced my father due to his infidelity with someone who later became his fourth wife, one who could never bear to see us communicating in any sort of way with our father, and who would ultimately make sure that we were not allowed to attend his funeral. The interfamilial dynamics are still full of strife and emotional pain. The management of inheritance, land titles, and wealth is hidden. Knowledge is jealously guarded.

Private property continues to be a cause for division among family members today. My mother, my sister, and I were not invited to my grandfather's funeral, for what we can only guess had to do with the hiding of his assets. And make no mistake about it—attendance at a family funeral is by invitation only. My grandfather's wife, whom he married after my grandmother died and whom I have never met, kept the location of his funeral services a secret from us. The mortuary told us that we must check with the "family" to find out when the services would occur, but my grandfather's wife never returned our calls. My father and uncles also kept the location of the services secret. They inherited and now with my half brother closely control most of the remaining property that passed down from Charlotte and Curtis P. Iaukea.

The death of my father proved even more emotionally violent. My stepmother filed court papers to forbid my mother, my sister, and me from seeing our father on his deathbed. We fought these papers in court and won. However, by the time the court issues were settled, my father had died, which we found out about with everyone else on the evening news. My stepmother then hastily held my father's funeral service in private. We were deprived of saying our last good-byes, as were the legions of friends and wrestling fans who wanted to grieve this loss. Only a few family members were present, including a couple of half sisters, a half brother, along with a few stepmothers. How they justify their actions to themselves is a mystery to me, but ultimately, all that mattered is that we were on good terms with my father just before his death—regardless of the shadow that private property had cast over his life, and the chaotic relations that ran rampant up until his death.

(Continues...)Excerpted from The Queen and I by Sydney Lehua Iaukea. Copyright © 2012 The Regents of the University of California. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS.
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