A person who by either birth or naturalization, is a member of a political community, owing allegiance to the community and being entitled to enjoy all it’s civil rights and protections.
—Black’s Law Dictionary
Citizenship is allegiance and in order to establish national allegiance one must declare so in writing and under oath before a duly appointed agent of the nation to which one is becoming a citizen. Na kanaka maoli (aboriginal Hawaiians) were once citizens of their own sovereign nation, but upon the overthrow and annexation by the U.S. they ultimately and involuntarily became citizens of the United States. In legal terms that is where their allegiance remains, until the Hawaiian nation has re-established the process for acquiring citizenship.
Kanaka Maoli who repatriate are in fact renouncing their U.S. citizenship and rebuilding the nation of Hawai’i by reaffirming their allegiance to their ancestral nation. They are the backbone of a sovereign, independent Hawai’i.
In 2007, the legislature of Hawai’i (Mana Kau Kanawai) passed two resolutions that lawfully and collectively returned all Kanaka Maoli to their nation. This process was executed to counteract the unlawful and involutary collective naturalization of all Kanaka Maoli via annexation to the United States in 1898.
The nation however is not built of Kanaka Maoli alone, citizens of other nations who have no aboriginal blood are active participants in the process of Hawaiian nation rebuilding. For non-Kanaka Maoli, the same rule applies to them in requiring allegiance to the Hawaiian nation, and a process exists for them to do just that.
Today, the laws are in place to fulfill the fundamental requirements of international law to qualify the government to exercise perfect right to be recognized as a nation.
