Primary Sources from UH Mānoa Library's Hawaiʻi Congressional Papers Collection
About this Primary Source Set
When Hawaiʻi became a state in 1959, the Admission Act set a requirement for the federal government to review its land holdings in Hawaiʻi, determine which lands were still needed and which were “surplus,” and return the surplus lands to the state. The deadline for this process was in 1964, five years later. That renegotiation of federally controlled lands which were primarily military lands, still has huge impacts today. In addition to lands declared to be federal property by executive order, the Army received 65-year leases to 40,000 acres on Oʻahu (Mākua, Kahuku, Poamoho) and Hawaiʻi Island (Pōhakuloa), which are expiring in 2029. The Army is currently in the process of applying for new leases to retain some or all of these lands, which makes it essential to understand how they gained use of these lands in the first place. In these sources, we can see some of the different actors involved in that negotiation, their concerns, and points of tension among them.
This primary source set, which includes materials from the Senator Hiram L. Fong Papers and the Senator Daniel K. Inouye Papers, as well as sources from outside the Congressional Collection, was created in 2024, in partnership with the Hawai'i Congressional Papers Collection, by Kenji Cataldo. As part of their fellowship, Kenji also authored the blog entry Voice and Power in Archival Research and presented part of their research at the "Mākua: Past, Present, Future" panel at Mālama Mākuaʻs Piko of Peace event on November 2, 2024. Their research also informed the production of the podcast Before Us.
Banner image: Mākua Valley, Kenji Cataldo.