Political Quotes

“I want to thank all my colleagues here today, and I want to thank those especially who have risen in opposition. This is what our democracy is all about. My only regret in extending my aloha to those who may not feel able to vote for the bill today is that you have not had an opportunity, perhaps, to visit with, to understand, and to comprehend what it means to be a Native Hawaiian. It is, of course, very easy for someone to say well, how can you do that; you came from somewhere else. I was born and raised just outside Buffalo, New York. I came to Hawaii some 50 years ago, with statehood, given the opportunity to go to the University of Hawaii as a graduate teaching assistant. And the first thing that happened to me as I came that great distance, across the continent and across the ocean, then in a Pan American Clipper, it took 10 hours just to get from the coast to Hawaii. And when I took that first breath of Hawaiian air and saw the gorgeous curves of the island of Oahu, Diamondhead, Waikiki, and the first evening, taken to Manoa Valley, where I now reside, it was as if destiny had called. And the first contact that I had was with my Chinese Hawaiian friend, Solomon Lu, God rest his soul, whose family took me in and treated me as one of their own. And that's what Hawaii is all about. Mr. Speaker, this is not about race. This is about the aloha spirit. This is about the rainbow State of Hawaii.”