As native Hawaiian students who will graduate from the University of Hawaii Manoa, my peers and I were enthusiastic to attend Civil Beat’s Civil Café on Thursday evening.

For those who were not present and who also missed their live stream, Civil Café hosted two executives from Kamehameha Schools: Paul Quintiliani senior director of the Commercial Real Estate Division and Vice President for Endowment Elizabeth Hokada.

We heard from Kamehameha Schools on their development plans for Kakaako and Civil Café provided the audience an opportunity to raise their questions and concerns.

Much was said about the future, about serving the needs of the lahui, about affordability, about a Hawaiian sense of place, about building community, and about fulfilling the mission of Kamehameha Schools to educate Native Hawaiian children.

I was less than satisfied with the responses we received to many of the audience members’ questions, including my own.

As a millennial and a young native Hawaiian, I am representative of two target audiences Kamehameha Schools should be listening to. Three of my native Hawaiian classmates were also present last night and I left Civil Café feeling like our questions were listened to, but not heard. Kamehameha Schools should know better than anyone that we are not only the future of the Hawaiian people, but our generation is also the future of this country. For this reason, I would like to give Kamehameha Schools an opportunity to readdress these seven questions:

1. Kamehameha Schools’ fundamental mission is to educate the Hawaiian youth. How then does this development project intersect with the mission of the school and serve the Hawaiian community specifically?
2. Kamehameha Schools only admits a limited number of Hawaiian students. How can the trust justify spending millions on a development project like this when there are still native Hawaiian students being excluded?
3. Kamehameha Schools claimed that the money generated from Kakaako would support the costs of their educational program. How much more of these education costs could have been covered by money that is being spent on this development project?
4. Kamehameha Schools appears to be turning a blind eye to the homeless who are a highly visible part of the “urban community” that Kamehameha Schools keeps saying they want to serve. Shouldn’t Kamehameha Schools invest in a plan to address homelessness in this area, especially since many of the homeless are native Hawaiians?
5. In light of Kamehameha Schools’ claim that the development will offer “moderately priced” housing, can they tell us how many of their current student’s families meet the income requirements and will be able to afford to purchase or rent units in Kakaako?
6. How many buyers does Kamehameha Schools anticipate will be permanent local residents rather than vacation homeowners?
7. What purpose do more luxury, high-rise buildings that do not in any way take advantage of Hawaii’s weather or traditional way of life serve the Hawaiian people? Can Kamehameha Schools incorporate more Hawaiian traditions such as malaai (farming) opportunities for the keiki in a garden of native species? While we understand that the money derived from the development will build the financial capacity of Kamehameha Schools, couldn’t the development more directly help address some of the challenges faced by native Hawaiian families today?

Ua mau ke ea o ka ‘Āina i ka pono — The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.

Please Kamehameha Schools, utilize our ‘aina for the purpose in which it was given to us.

About the author: Kalina Chang is an undergraduate student who is studying psychology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Being born in Hawaii and raised here and in the Bay Area, Kalina has been able to draw on her connections to both cultural experiences in her academic focus.

You can watch the Civil Cafe with Kamehameha Schools here.

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