Audio commentary by Noenoe Silva, Professor, University of Hawaiʻi, Mānoa

Transcription of audio:

One day, when I was doing research on my dissertation, I went into the Hawai'i State Archives and the person who was sitting at the reference desk handed me a booklet, and it had a photograph of a page from the 1897 petition against annexation. I felt like I was being purposefully handed this information. Not too long afterwards, I went to the National Archives in Washington D.C. and I was able to look at the box in which these petitions are held. Ninety-eight percent of this box is the petitions. So the lack of knowledge about these and lack of acknowledgement of them in Hawaiian history books was definitely purposeful. I was able to discover the name of my great-great-great-grandmother, Kauhi Lehuloa. It was like, “This is my grandmother. She signed this!” Most people did not know of the existence of these petitions prior to being made aware of it. And when people were able to find their ancestors' signatures, I think that this gave a lot of people a sense of permission to be more politically active in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement. We don't have to live with this myth that they passively gave up their country to someone else because they didn't.

– My name is Noenoe Silva. I am a professor of Indigenous and Hawaiian politics and a professor of Hawaiian language at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa.