-- MakalikaNaholowaa - 01 Apr 2008

The Kanaka Maoli (the indigenous people of Hawai’i) 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 and discusses (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 Hanai System: A Background & Comparison to American Adoption Practices

The common conception of a family entity in the United States is the nuclear family, and the term adoption refers to the movement of a child permanently and completely from its natural nuclear family to the adoptive one. Traditionally, Maoli people lived communally, and an ohana (a Maoli family) includes extended members of a family and friends in the community. Accordingly, the adoption traditions differed. 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, this information is not kept hidden from them, and they will very 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.

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 a relationship with his natural parents, instead of an experience associated with loss, abandonment, and confusion, feelings that seem to commonly result for children under western adoption practices. 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.

II. The Spirit of Ohana & Hanai Betrayed: Lack of Recognition for Trans-racial Hanai

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.

The face of the Hawaiian community has changed dramatically in the last century. Hawaiians are continuing the tradition of hanai, but in highly racially-mixed communities and hanai family members now include racially-non-Hawaiian (RNH) persons and their descendants.

A. Modern Challenge: The Trans-racial Hanai Family

The community recognition problem that trans-racial hanai presents occurs in the following context. The Hawaiian community is responding to the need for active efforts at cultural preservation by creating programs and organizations for its own benefit. These programs and organizations generally restrict participation to those with some Hawaiian blood quantum. Generally these policies provide no language regarding the treatment of RNH- hanai family members. As a result, the adopting ohana members are able to participate in these programs, but the RNH- hanai member and his descendants are excluded. Therefore, RNH- hanai children and their descendants comprise a class of persons that are members of Hawaiian families but not allowed participation in the Hawaiian community fully compared to natural born members. (See Appendix II for an illustration of this problem recently presented in litigation.)

B. Effect: Three Nested Rings of Harm

These exclusionary RNH- hanai practices are causing harm on three fronts. First, the hanai person suffers by not being granted the same rights to participation in the community that his hanai family members would by virtue of his hanai status – a status that traditionally has deliberately avoided diminished recognition within the family or community. Second, it is important to realize that the Hawaiian family as a whole is associatively injured. The ohana concept does not allow injury to a family member to remain localized. The community that calls into question the legitimacy of a hanai child harms not just the child but insults and causes emotional harm to the entire family unit. Third, the Hawaiian community as a whole is harmed. The community is allowing race to nullify the opportunity for meaningful community contribution by a child of a community family. The community is also creating unnecessary exceptions to recognition traditions of Hawaiian family members and treatment of hanai persons which degrades the culture that the policy aims to preserve.

III. A Call for Change: Cultural Preservation Policies that Maintain Substantive Cultural Values

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 subvert major customs such as the recognition of ohana members in a community and the status of hanai members in an ohana. These cultural cornerstones should not be disregarded. 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.

Appendix I: Illustration of RNH-Hanai Exclusion

Mohica-Cummings v. Kamehameha School illustrates this problem well. Kamehameha School is a prestigious K-12 private school providing services that include difficult to obtain Hawaiian cultural and language education courses. Their admission’s policy is racially preferential and it is effectively completely exclusive to persons with a Hawaiian ancestor. There is no language in their policy speaking to RNH-hanai children and the current interpretation denies admissions preference to this group. Braydon Mohica-Cummings is the son of a RNH-hanai woman. He was admitted to Kamehameha School, but his admission to the school was rescinded when it was discovered that his Hawaiian familial status was through his hanai grandfather, a Native Hawaiian man. After a court provided injunctory relief allowing Braydon to attend school while the suit challenging the lawfulness of Kamehameha’s racially preferential policies was in progress, the school settled the case with the family. The settlement included an agreement to allow Braydon an exception to their ancestor requirement, but no general exception for RNH-hanai persons has been instituted.

• The word "injunctory" didn't exist. You wanted in fact to say "interim," rather than "injunctive."