WAIMANALO, Hawaii — From Honolulu, it takes an hour to drive here, heading north over dagger-like mountains and then east through rolling farm country to the outermost corner of the island known by some as the Hawaiians' Hawaii.
Tour buses circling the island don't stop here except to gas up.
Those who step off the bus won't find hula dancers greeting them with leis, or five-star hotels, or even two-star ones. They'll find a sleepy, rough-edged, working-class town of 10,000 people, some of whom don't like tourists and don't mind saying so.
"Haole, go home!" and variations of whites-aren't-welcome are occasionally shouted from front porches as a reminder that this isn't Waikiki. It's a different world. Locals rule here.
Half the residents are native Hawaiians, and many more are part Hawaiian. This is a place where Hawaiian is taught as a first language in some schools and spoken among neighbors, a place where it is widely held that Hawaii was stolen by the United States and that someday these lands will return to the Kanaka Maoli, the ancient Polynesians who settled the islands.
Scattered throughout Waimanalo's neighborhoods are state flags hanging upside-down, a symbol of defiance. In this corner of Oahu, Hawaiian sovereignty -- a government of Hawaiians for Hawaiians -- isn't just a tropical dream. The people have seen a version of it materialize before their eyes.
In the foothills above town, there is a village unlike any other in Hawaii. It's called Pu'uhonua o Waimanalo ("Refuge of Waimanalo"), a community of 80 native Hawaiians living communally on 45 acres. If Waimanalo is a stronghold of Hawaiian sovereignty, the village is its spiritual center.
Some people refer to it as "Bumpy's town," named after the 300-pound, tattooed, activist ex-con who negotiated the village into existence -- wrangling with the state's most powerful politicians -- more than a decade ago.
Dennis "Bumpy" Kanahele, 51, is a descendant of King Kamehameha I and bears some of the warrior's physical presence. When asked how far removed he was from the king, Kanahele thought for a moment, then lifted a massive leg onto a nearby table. He studied a row of blue and red triangular markings tattooed on his calf.
"Eleven generations, brah," he said matter-of-factly. If Kamehameha were here today, he said, the king would be uniting his people as he did two centuries ago.
