Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity (review)

There is a new wave of Hawai'i scholarship that is turning the dominant historiography on its head by challenging the seamless narrative that writes statehood as an inevitable end to processes of "civilization," "development," and "assimilation." These new works draw on previously ignored Kanaka Maoli (native Hawaiian) sources and epistemology, telling a different story about U.S. colonization, indigenous culture, and resilience.

Hawaiian Blood is a key text in this new body of research, addressing the core question of who counts as native to Hawai'i. Based on J. Kēhaulani Kauanui's in-depth research of primary documents leading to the passage of the 1921 Hawaiian Homes Commission Act (HHCA), it illuminates the complex, random, and often contradicted ways in which blood quantum first came to be imposed on Kanaka Maoli. Kauanui aptly demonstrates the way that "blood logics" are used to define native Hawaiian identity as something quantifiable, and therefore reducible. As she points out, these same logics were used against native peoples on the U.S. continent with similar results of dispossession. Once indigenous peoples are racialized via blood quantum, they can then be deracinated to the point where they no longer count as native, a "statistical elimination." And of course, those not recognized as native cannot claim native lands or sovereignty. As Kauanui writes, "the book critically interrogates the way blood racialization constructs Hawaiian identity as measurable and dilutable" (3), underscoring why the distinction between indigeneity and race needs much more attention in American Studies and Critical Race Studies.

Tracing the discursive threads in the HHCA hearings, Kauanui demonstrates how the narrative shifted from one of collective entitlement to one of paternalistic colonial welfare. This shift was largely made under pressure from American sugar planters who wanted to increase their access to lands, and therefore needed to diminish Hawaiian land claims. As Kauanui reminds us, this whole discussion is taking place in the context of "an unextinguished sovereignty claim" (25), including rights to 1.8 million acres of Hawaiian kingdom land. Instead of returning kingdom lands to Hawaiians, Congress ends up returning some Hawaiians (restricted via blood quantum) to some land (restricted via planters' stipulation and bureaucracy). This has the effect of "reframing the Native connection to the land itself from a legal claim to one based on charity" (9).

Kauanui bookends her analysis of the HHCA hearings with two chapters setting the colonial context, and a final chapter examining contemporary fallout from the imposition of blood quantum. The first chapter clearly lays out the differences between Hawaiian genealogy and blood quantum as models for identifying indigeneity, and the final chapter focuses on the impact on the contemporary sovereignty movement. These chapters are critical to a fuller understanding of the significance of the HHCA hearings. Additionally, along with the introduction, they contain incisive analysis of the colonization of Hawai'i by drawing upon an impressive array of cross-disciplinary sources.

The book pivots on the interrelated, and often misunderstood, concepts of indigenous genealogy and sovereignty. Concluding, Kauanui reminds us, "blood quantum classification cannot account for the emphasis on relatedness in genealogical practices- forms of identification that serve to connect people to one another, to place, and to the land. These connections are grounded in sovereignty, self-determination, and citizenship, not racialized beneficiary status" (196). This book is incredibly important in building a new understanding of colonization and racialization in Hawai'i, and is a must read for anyone interested in American Studies, Indigenous Studies, and/or Critical Race Studies.