Why the Department of Hawaii Home Lands Doesn't Matter

Itooktheredpill repeats a canard that we've seen plenty of:

In order to process your application, DHHL [Department of Hawaiian Home Lands] utilizes information that is found only on the original Certificate of Live Birth, which is either black or green. This is a more complete record of your birth than the Certification of Live Birth (a computer-generated printout). Submitting the original Certificate of Live Birth will save you time and money since the computer-generated Certification requires additional verification by DHHL.

When requesting a certified copy of your birth certificate from the Vital Records Section of DOH, let the clerk know you are requesting it “For DHHL Purposes,” and that you need a copy of the original Certificate of Live Birth and not the computer-generated Certification.

Posted by Itooktheredpill, January 13, 2009

This much is true; the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands does indeed require more than a computer-printed Certification of Live Birth. What the Birthers consistently, and intentionally, ignore is WHY the DHHL has this standard of proof.

The answer is, naturally, in the same DHHL manual that RedPill links to:

To be eligible to apply for a Hawaiian home lands homestead lease, you must meet two requirements:

- You must be at least 18 years of age; and
- You must be a native Hawaiian, defined as "any descendant of not less than one-half part of the blood of the races inhabiting the Hawaiian Islands previous to 1778." This means, you must have a blood quantum of at least 50 percent Hawaiian.

So for this particular Hawaii department's program, which is limited to homestead leases, you need to prove your genealogy, not just your birthplace. The manual goes on:

The general rule of thumb in determining 50 percent blood quantum is to submit enough documentation tracing your genealogy to your full Hawaiian ancestor(s). Some applicants need only go back two generations, that is, to their grandparents. Others may need to go back further, gathering pieces of information which eventually grow into a large family tree with roots beginning with full Hawaiian ancestors...

You will need the certified birth certificates for:
- Yourself;
- Your biological father; and
- Your biological mother.

That's right: not only do you need your own certified birth certificate, you need certified birth certificates for BOTH of your parents. Again, only for this state program, and not for any other state purposes. The reason a computer-printed Certification is insufficient is because it only lists your parents' names and races; when you need to prove your heritage, you need more than that. Importantly, a Hawaiian Certificate of Live Birth lists the newborn's parents' birthplaces, in addition to their ages and addresses.

And pause for a moment and think how many times in your life you've been asked to produce certified copies of your parents' birth certificates. It doesn't happen. That's because this is a singularly unique program, with requirements you don't see for normal state business. The only reason the DHHL has gotten singled as emblematic of Hawaiian policy is that it's the one lonely little program that would require more than Obama's provided.

Naturally, folks like Redpill conveniently ignore the fact that DHHL's concern is with genealogy, not mere birthplace. They emphasize the requirement of a Certificate rather than a Certification, and claim that that requirement should be binding on Obama, but then they turn right around and black-out the DHHL requirement to produce parental birth certificates. To even pay lip service to that detail would serve only to shine a spotlight on the unique circumstances of the DHHL and their emphasis on family (not individual) birthplaces, and nobody in their right mind would expect a Presidential candidate to produce birth certificates for his parents to run for office. As with so much else, the Birthers pick and choose which details they want to shout from the rooftops, and which ones they want to bury.