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| | Policing the Borders of Racially Exclusive Policies within the Kanaka Maoli Community:
The Recognition of Racially Non-Hawaiian Hanai Persons in Hawaiian Families |
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< | The indigenous people of Hawai’i, the Kanaka Maoli, have traditions for handling adoption called hanai. Hanai practices are not unique compared to other Polynesian peoples, but they significantly differ from traditional adoption practices in other parts of the United States. This paper will explain what those differences are in order to explore (i) how the substance of the hanai practice is being betrayed in within the modern Hawaiian community, (ii) what harmful effects this betrayal has for the family concerned and the group as a whole, and (iii) how these harms should be corrected by addressing the discordance between current community recognition policies and traditional cultural values concerning family and hanai family members. |
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> | The indigenous people of Hawai’i, the Kanaka Maoli, have traditions for handling adoption called hanai. Hanai practices are not unique compared to other Polynesian peoples, but they significantly differ from traditional adoption practices in other parts of the United States. This paper looks at what those differences are in order to explore (i) how the substance of the hanai practice is being betrayed within the modern Hawaiian community, (ii) what harmful effects this betrayal has for the family concerned and the group as a whole, and (iii) how these harms should be corrected by addressing the discordance between current community recognition policies and traditional cultural values concerning family and hanai family members. |
| | I. The Spirit of Hanai, and the Difference Between “Hanai” & “Adoption”
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< | The common conception of a family entity in the United States is the nuclear family, and the term adoption refers to the movement from a child permanently and completely from its natural nuclear family to the adoptive one. The traditional Maoli people lived communally and their conceptions of family and adoption differs. A person’s family, their ohana, goes beyond the parent-child relationship to include what Americans would consider far distant relatives (i.e. 13th or 14th cousins) and close friends in the community. Hanai describes the permanent movement of a child’s primary care giving from the natural parents to someone usually within their ohana, although not necessarily a biological relative. The hanai child is always aware of its natural parentage and will likely have a relationship with the natural parents. However the hanai relationship between child and adoptive parents is equal in recognition and similar in substance to that of the adoptive parent’s natural children. |
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> | The common conception of a family entity in the United States is the nuclear family, and the term adoption refers to the movement from a child permanently and completely from its natural nuclear family to the adoptive one. Traditionally Maoli people lived communally and their conception of family and adoption differed. A person’s family, their ohana, goes beyond the parent-child relationship to include what most Americans would consider far distant relatives (i.e. 13th or 14th cousins) and close friends in the community. Hanai describes the permanent movement of a child’s primary care giving from the natural parents to someone usually within their ohana, although not necessarily a biological relative. The hanai child is always aware of its natural parentage and will likely have a relationship with the natural parents. However the hanai relationship between child and adoptive parents is equal in recognition and substance to that of the adoptive parent’s natural children. |
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Hanai is common and not considered emotionally traumatizing for a child. The hanai system and extended ohana structure create an environment in which a hanai child has the benefit of his hanai parents and natural parents, instead of a perception of loss expressed in western adoption practice. There is no stigma connected to being hanai within Maoli families. There is also no tradition of lessened recognition of a family member due to a hanai, versus a biological, connection. Hanai compared to natural children are equally loved, committed to permanently for care giving, and recognized as heirs.
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| | II. The Spirit of Ohana & Hanai Betrayed |
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< | The hanai practice described above still survives. But the reality of customs from ancient Maoli traditions is that their development occurred during a time when the Maoli were a racially homogeneous community. Descriptions of how hanai children were recognized, as full members of the family without lessened community recognition, come from a time when recognition questions involving trans-racial hanai did not notably arise. Thus, no custom squarely addresses how the general Hawaiian community has or should recognize a racially non-Hawaiian child that is hanai into a racially Hawaiian family. |
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> | The hanai practice described above survives today. But the reality of customs continued from ancient Maoli traditions is that their development occurred during a time when the Maoli were a racially homogeneous community. Descriptions of how hanai children were recognized, as full members of the family without lessened community recognition, come from a time when recognition questions involving trans-racial hanai did not arise. Thus, no custom squarely addresses how the general Hawaiian community has or should recognize a racially non-Hawaiian child that is hanai into a racially Hawaiian family. |
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The face of the Hawaiian community has changed dramatically in the last century. Hawaiians are continuing the tradition of hanai, but in the highly racially-mixed communities and hanai family members now include racially-non-Hawaiian (RNH) persons and their descendants. |
| | III. A Call for Change: Cultural Preservation Policies that Maintain Substantive Cultural Values |
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< | The harm that these exclusionary policies cause is so pervasive within the Hawaiian community that they must be changed. Community leaders must look to traditional Maoli goals of customs and practices to inform the development of new policies that strive for cultural preservation without substantively subverting major customs such as the recognition for ohana members in a community and the status of hanai members in an ohana. These cultural cornerstones should not be overturned. Policy makers must look to these values and allow them to inform rules pertaining to recognition of community members. Efforts like these would point to the importance of recognition of our hanai family, without regard to their biological race, and would have the effect of correcting the discordance between cultural values and modern recognition rules while also preventing the multifarious harms described above. |
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> | The harm that these exclusionary policies cause is so pervasive within the Hawaiian community that they must be changed. Community leaders must look to traditional Maoli goals of customs and practices to inform the development of new policies for RNH-hanai family members. As the Hawaiian community strives to prevent cultural extinction it must take care not to subverting major customs such as the recognition for ohana members in a community and the status of hanai members in an ohana. These cultural cornerstones should not be overturned. Efforts to preserve these values, to reaffirm the importance of recognition of our hanai family, whatever their biological race, would have the effect of correcting the discordance between cultural values and modern recognition rules while also preventing the multifarious harms described above. |
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< | Appendix I: English to Hawaiian Dictionary |
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> | Appendix I: English to Hawaiian Glossary |
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Kanaka Maoli, Maoli: Native Hawaiians (pronounced similarly as the Maori, the related indigenous peoples of New Zealand) |