Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Celebrating ʻŌiwi Brilliance

Aloha nō e nā ʻōiwi o ke ao!

NaHHA joins our Native Hawaiian community and native peoples beyond our shores in celebrating Indigenous Peoples’ Day. 

We are fortunate to work with so many brilliant, dedicated ʻōiwi tirelessly advancing the good of their communities as we collectively mālama our Hawaiʻi. We are particularly inspired lately by the growing number of ʻōiwi growing the legacy of leadership left to us by our kūpuna, stepping up to lead in sectors as diverse as tourism, government, energy, finance, philanthropy, and certainly in our community institutions and organizations.

Indigenous Peoples’ Day is intended to replace the celebration of Columbus Day, a holiday once celebrated across the U.S. to commemorate European explorer Christopher Columbus, who committed violence against Native Americans and was credited in colonial narratives as “discovering” the Americas, when indigenous people had thriving societies there for many generations. 

A handful of communities across America officially recognized Indigenous Peoples’ Day in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and many more have done so in the last decade. This year’s commemoration is the first time the day has been recognized by the President of the United States.

The State of Hawaiʻi stopped celebrating Columbus Day in 1971, replacing it with Discoverers’ Day “to honor all discoverers, including Pacific and Polynesian navigators.” Despite that forward-thinking realignment of the holiday by the Legislature then, Indigenous Peoples’ Day is still not an official holiday in Hawaiʻi, despite a 2013 proposal to designate it as such. That proposal never made it to the floor for a vote.

Since 1997, NaHHA has been working at the intersections where the Native Hawaiian community meets the broader Hawaiʻi community and economic opportunity, particularly in the visitor industry. Although Indigenous Peoples’ Day is not an official holiday in Hawaiʻi, we encourage everyone to be mindful of the history, traditions, culture and aspirations of the Native Hawaiian community, and indigenous communities wherever you are.

To our Pacific cousins we are working with to host the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts & Culture in 2024, the hundreds of Native Hawaiian entrepreneurs listed on the business directory at Kuhikuhi.com, our colleagues in indigenous hospitality at the American Indian & Alaska Native Tourism Association, and the thousands of ʻōiwi we serve in Hawaiʻi’s visitor industry and community – we honor you today. Aloha.