Peter Apo is a Trustee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs and President of The Peter Apo Company, LLC, a cultural tourism consulting firm. [1] [2] He is also an accomplished musician in the folk and Hawaiian music genres, with a career stretching back to the early 1960s.
Peter has had a distinguished career in public service. In 1980, he was elected to the first Board of Trustees of OHA. In 1982 he won election to the Hawaii State House of Representatives where he served for 14 years. In 1994 Honolulu Mayor Jeremy Harris appointed him to become the City’s Director of Culture and Arts. In 1996 he assumed the position of Special Assistant on Hawaiian Affairs to Governor Ben Cayetano. He subsequently returned to the City & County of Honolulu as Director of Waikiki Development. He was re-elected as a Trustee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs in 2010. [3] Apo would eventually rack up the largest ethics fine in Hawaii history, $25,000, after OHA paid out a $50,000 settlement over sex harassment allegations against Apo.
He is a founding member of the Native Hawaiian Hospitality Association, served as its past chairman, and was its Director of Culture & Education. He has chaired the Pacific Islanders in Communications, and is a past chair of the Historic Hawaii Foundation and the Friends of the Natatorium. He has also served on the Chaminade University Board of Regents and the board of directors for the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau. He also had the honor of serving as Civilian Aide to the U.S. Secretary of the Army for West Oahu and Kauai. He continues serving the community on numerous boards and commissions.
Peter Apo is also an accomplished singer and songwriter. He is one of three founding members of the 60s folk band The Travelers 3. He has since performed as a soloist, as well as in several other bands. [4]
References
Native Hawaiians are the Indigenous Polynesian people of the Hawaiian Islands.
Brickwood M. Galuteria, is an American politician, radio host, musician and actor. He was the Hawaii State Senator representing District 12 of Honolulu. He previously served as state chairman of the Democratic Party of Hawaii (2004–2006). In 2022, he was elected to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs Board of Trustees as an At-Large member.
Honolulu City Council is the legislature of the City and County of Honolulu, the capital and largest city in Hawai'i, the fiftieth state in the United States. The City and County of Honolulu is a municipal corporation that manages government aspects traditionally exercised by both municipalities and counties in other states. Each of the nine members of its city council is elected to a four-year term and can serve no more than two consecutive terms. Council members are elected by voters in nine administrative districts that, since 1991, are reapportioned every ten years. Like the Honolulu mayor, members of the city council are elected via nonpartisan elections.
Kakaʻako is a commercial and retail district of Honolulu, Hawaiʻi between Ala Moana near Waikīkī to the east and downtown Honolulu and Honolulu Harbor to the west. Kakaʻako is situated along the southern shores of the island of Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi.
Mililani Trask is a leader of the Hawaiian sovereignty movement, political speaker, and attorney. One of Trask's contributions to the Hawaiian sovereignty movement was her founding of Na Koa Ikaika o Ka Lāhui Hawaiʻi, a native Hawaiian non-governmental organization focusing on cultural, social, and economic development, education, health, housing, land entitlements, energy, and water issues.
The Office of Hawaiian Affairs (OHA) is a self-governing corporate body of the State of Hawaii created by the 1978 Hawaii State Constitutional Convention.
Keiko Cecilia Bonk is an American artist, musician and former politician from Hawaii. Bonk co-founded the Hawaii Green Party and was the first person in North America elected to a partisan level office as a member of the Green Party of the United States. In the US most local elected offices are nonpartisan, meaning the candidate is not running as a member of a political party. State and federal offices are partisan, meaning that the candidates represent political parties. In Hawaii local government, such as county government, it was formerly necessary to declare your political party. Other people who called themselves "Greens" had been elected to local government offices in the United States prior to Keiko Bonk, but they were not representing a legally established political party. In the United States, it is very difficult to win an election in a partisan race if the candidate does not run as a Democrat or Republican. Keiko Bonk was the first person in the United States to run as a representative of the Green Party and beat a Republican and Democrat.
Sir Peter Henry Buck, also known as Te Rangi Hīroa or Te Rangihīroa, was a prominent New Zealand anthropologist and an expert on Māori and Polynesian cultures who served many roles through his life: as a physician and surgeon; as an official in public health; as a member of parliament; and ultimately as a leading anthropologist and director of the Bishop Museum in Hawaii.
Rice v. Cayetano, 528 U.S. 495 (2000), was a case filed in 1996 by Big Island rancher Harold "Freddy" Rice against the state of Hawaii and argued before the United States Supreme Court. In 2000, the Court ruled that the state could not restrict eligibility to vote in elections for the Board of Trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to persons of Native Hawaiian descent.
H. William Burgess was an attorney who lived in Hawaii. He opposed the Hawaiian sovereignty movement and of government programs that benefit Native Hawaiians. Burgess brought two lawsuits seeking to have such programs declared unconstitutional.
Gladys Kamakakuokalani ʻAinoa Brandt was an educator and civic leader in Hawaii. She served as a principal at Kamehameha Schools and helped found the University of Hawaii's Hawaiian Studies Center, leading to a revival of interest in native Hawaiian culture. Later, she led protests against the trustees of Kamehameha Schools for financial mismanagement, leading to their replacement.
In 1898, the United States Congress annexed Hawaiʻi based on a Joint Resolution of Annexation. Questions about the legitimacy of the U.S. acquiring Hawaii through a joint resolution, rather than a treaty, were actively debated in Congress in 1898, and is the subject of ongoing debate. Upon annexation, the Republic of Hawai‘i transferred approximately 1.8 million acres of Hawaiian Government and Crown Lands to the United States (U.S.), which are today held by the State of Hawaiʻi. In the 1993 Apology Resolution, the U.S. government officially apologized to the Native Hawaiian people, acknowledging that the Republic of Hawaiʻi transferred these lands "without the consent of or any compensation to the Native Hawaiian people of Hawaiʻi or their sovereign government" and that "the indigenous Hawaiian people never directly relinquished their claims. .. over their national lands to the United States." Although the lands are commonly referred to as "ceded lands" or "public lands," some refer to them as "seized lands" or "Hawaiian national lands" or "crown lands" to highlight the illegal nature of the land transfer, acknowledge different interpretations of the legal effect of the Joint Resolution, and to recognize that Native Hawaiians maintain claims to these lands. Many Native Hawaiian individuals and organizations insist on the return of title, which would be consistent with international law and recognition of the rights of Indigenous peoples, whereas others seek back rent for the use of the land.
Bruce M. Botelho is an American attorney and politician in the U.S. state of Alaska. He served as the mayor of Juneau from 1988 to 1991 and from 2003 to 2012. Born and raised in Juneau, where his father was a top official of the Alaska Highway Patrol, Botelho has pursued concurrent careers in law and politics, largely with success. He also previously served a term as mayor from 1988 to 1991, defeating former Alaska Secretary of State Robert W. Ward in the election. He spent most of his professional career as an employee of the Alaska Department of Law. He rose to the top position in the department in 1994, when Governor Walter Hickel appointed him to be the Alaska Attorney General. Retained by Hickel's successor, Tony Knowles, Botelho served as Attorney General for nearly nine years before retiring from state service.
Walter Meheula Heen is an American lawyer, politician and judge. He briefly served as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Hawaii and trustee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.
David M. Louie is an American lawyer who served as Attorney General of Hawaii from 2011 to 2014.
Kanaiolowalu is the Native Hawaiian Roll Commission's enrollment list of Native Hawaiians in a registry of people eligible to develop a government. The Native Hawaiian Roll Commission was established by Act 195 signed by Governor of Hawaii, Neil Abercrombie on July 7, 2011.
Val Okimoto is an American politician and educator serving since November 29, 2022 as the member of the Honolulu City Council representing District VIII. She is a former member and Minority Leader of the Hawaii House of Representatives, serving in that body from 2018 to 2022.
Raymond Burghardt is an American diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador to Vietnam from 2002 to 2004, Director (1999-2001) as well as Chairman of American Institute in Taiwan from 2006 to 2016.
Linda Dela Cruz was a Native Hawaiian singer known as "Hawaii's Canary" and acclaimed for the Hawaiian "ha'i" (falsetto) style of singing. She was honored as an inductee of the Hawaiian Music Hall of Fame twice, once in 2006 as an individual and again in 2015 as part of the Halekulani Girls. After retiring from her musical career, Dela Cruz worked as an activist for Hawaiian rights and served on the board of trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs.
Momi Cazimero is an American graphic designer and firm owner, who established the first woman-owned graphic design firm in Hawaii.