$1 a year to lease the land, then subleases to the observatories for $1 a year. The practice began in 1964 when the school signed a 65-year lease with the state of Hawaiʻi with the intention of building a single observatory, but a
soon followed. This ignorance and willful apathy has become a devastating pattern in which settlers and in positions of power disregard the will of Native Hawaiians, the indigenous people of Hawaiʻi. Why are Native Hawaiians continually ignored, cast aside, and devalued? Why should we stand aside when other people commodify and monetize our language, culture, traditions, and land? Why can't non-Hawaiians understand us when we say Mauna Kea is sacred to Native Hawaiians? Why do we have to prove why the mountain is sacred and how it is sacred to us?
Ultimately, our language and culture exist for us and by us, and it’s up to us to ensure its preservation. Mauna Kea is where our are buried, their bones in the ground; it is where Hawaiians generation after generation, a long and surviving lineage, have gone to gather and sing, to chant, to dance hula, to pray, to be within the living presence of mauna.
patiswhereitsat I’m so upset to learn that this indigenous people’s sacred place is being disrespected and potentially desecrated by California. I hope the university loses. 🤙🏼🌺
yep, i said it