Letani Peltier (ʻ17) and Alyssa Kau (3L) representing Ka Huli Ao at the Native Hawaiian New Student Orientation.

On Friday August 18, 2017, Native Hawaiian Student Services hosted its third annual Native Hawaiian New Student Orientation. Professor Avis Kuuipoleialoha Poai ‘04, current law student Alyssa Kau ʻ18, and recent graduate Letani Peltier ʻ17 represented Ka Huli Ao and helped to welcome new and incoming students. It was truly inspirational to see so many Kānaka ʻŌiwi as they prepared to begin their journey at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Indeed, this year, we will welcome 659 new Native Hawaiian students at Mānoa. This event provided a unique opportunity for us to greet these students and encourage them to consider law as potential future career path.

NHSS also hosted a panel geared towards undergraduate students who are interested in the prospect of attending graduate school. Alyssa participated on the panel with Heoli Osorio, Ph.D. candidate in English, and Haunani Kane, Ph.D. candidate in Geology. Panelists discussed their personal experience with work-life balance in graduate school and provided tips on how to best prepare for graduate school. Aside from the practical considerations of applying for graduate school, all panelists spoke about their experiences of how to combine activism and enact social change for the betterment of Native Hawaiians in the field of academia.

Alyssa spoke specifically about how Native Hawaiians can use the court system to assert self-determination and control over land and natural resources. In highlighting specific cases, such as Professor Kapuaʻala Sproat’s work in Nā Wai ʻEhā and Waiāhole, Alyssa spoke about how Ka Huli Ao trains students to strategically engage with both the legal and political arenas in the state of Hawaiʻi to reclaim fresh water and other natural resources that have been misappropriated to sugar and other colonizing enterprises for over a century. Alyssa also spoke about the reciprocal relationship between community organizers and attorneys where the ultimate goal is to achieve justice for our communities by using the legal system as an expression of self-determination.