Among members of Congress, there seems to be a misunderstanding that Native Hawaiians are a tribe, living together, speaking Hawaiian, poor, downtrodden and underprivileged. In short, that they are like Indian tribes as described by the 2003 U.S. Senate Budget Committee:

"Regardless of where (native Americans) reside, however, they continue to rank at near the bottom of nearly every social, health, and economic indicators, as compared to all other groups of American citizens. They continue to suffer the highest rates of unemployment and poverty, live in substandard housing, have poor health, receive an inadequate education and contend with disintegrating social systems."

This is far from the case with Native Hawaiians, who have integrated themselves into the general population as evidenced by their lifestyle and living standards. A statistical review reveals more similarities to Hawai'i's general population than differences.

According to the state Data Book and the Office of Hawaiian Affairs Data Book, the average household income of Native Hawaiians is 9 percent less than Hawai'i's people as a whole, while the unemployment rate for Native Hawaiians is greater (6.4 percent versus 3.8 percent).

Native Hawaiian households with annual incomes of $200,000 or more are a smaller percentage than Hawai'i generally (1.4 percent versus 2.8 percent) with smaller percentages earning $50,000 or more (45.3 percent versus 57.3 percent). And 18.3 percent of Hawaiians are below the poverty level, versus 12 percent of Hawai'i residents overall.

Compare these data with the American Indians whose "unemployment rate hovers near 50 percent" and whose average annual per-capita income is $8,284.

There is a Native Hawaiian underclass, as has developed with other minorities. This boosts the crimes and incarceration rates, single-mother birth rate, and drug use. However, remove this class from the statistical base, make due allowance for a lower-than-average age for Native Hawaiians, and we find that they are, for the most part, remarkably similar to the rest of Hawai'i society.

Because there has been so much intermarriage by Hawaiians, only 1 percent of Hawaiians are now pure-blooded, and only 10 percent of Native Hawaiians have 50 percent or more Hawaiian blood. A perusal of lists of Hawaiian names is a good indicator. For example, of the nine Native Hawaiian trustees of the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs, only two have Hawaiian last names.

Because so few qualify for the former legal definition of "native Hawaiian" — those with at least 50 percent Hawaiian blood — what has evolved is the current definition of "Native Hawaiian" (capital N) for the Akaka bill as anyone having an indigenous Hawaiian ancestor. This means that anyone with as little as 1/256th Hawaiian blood is a "Native Hawaiian." Many native Hawaiians (small n) object to this watering down of the definition.

While 5 percent live on leased land in the Hawaiian Home Land areas, the other 95 percent live in the larger community. Only 60 percent of Native Hawaiians even live in Hawai'i. The other 40 percent live in all of the other 49 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico.

Only 1 percent of Native Hawaiians speak Hawaiian as their primary language, but even they also are fluent in English. Thus, 99 percent of Hawaiians have English as their primary language. Most Native Hawaiians do not speak Hawaiian beyond a few words.

The Akaka bill states:

"Despite the overthrow of the government of the kingdom of Hawai'i, Native Hawaiians have continued to maintain their separate identity as a single distinct native community through cultural, social and political institutions, and to give expression to their rights as native people to self-determination, self-governance and economic self-sufficiency."

With due deference to Sen. Akaka, that is a real stretch.

Since the 1970s, there has been a revitalized interest in Hawaiian culture, but it has been by all racial groups.

For example, at the Women's Correctional Center, classes on native plants, lei-making and care of lo'i (taro patches) are being taught by a group of predominantly Caucasian people to inmates who are predominantly Native Hawaiian.

Native Hawaiians may engage in traditional Hawaiian activities such as hula and canoe-paddling, but so does the rest of the population.

We all enjoy Hawaiian music, but it is not aboriginal Hawaiian music. Instead, it is Western music that Hawaiians and others have modified and adapted. The favored musical instruments are of European origin. For example, the 'ukulele originally was Portuguese and the guitar Spanish.

All of Hawai'i's ethnic groups, the Filipinos, Koreans, Chinese, Japanese and more, engage in their own regular cultural activities.

Native Hawaiians are not a tribe anything like native American Indian tribes. That is because at the arrival of Western culture, Hawaiians embraced it enthusiastically rather than rejecting it. At the time of Cook's arrival in 1778, the Hawaiian Islands were each governed by a separate chief, with an aboriginal culture and no written language. Within 60 years, Hawai'i had developed a reputation as one of the most literate nations in the world.

Hawaiians openly embraced Western immigration, customs, technology and capital. The constitutional monarchy established in 1840 was modeled on Britain's. The Hawaiian monarchs had a palace and were received as royalty by Queen Victoria in England.

Despite the racism that prevailed at the time, the Hawaiians were treated differently. Intermarriage with Caucasians was confined mainly to Hawaiians. While Hawai'i's leading clubs excluded Asians and other ethnic minorities, Hawaiians were not excluded. At the time of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended such exclusionary policies, the president of the exclusive O'ahu Country Club was a Native Hawaiian.

The history and condition of Native Hawaiians cannot be equated with that of American Indians.

What should concern us is the excessive amounts of money that native tribes in the U.S. are spending on political influence — and the possibility that a Native Hawaiian government might do the same.

Professor Randall Roth and Judge Sam King's book, "Broken Trust: Greed, Mismanagement & Political Manipulation at America's Largest Charitable Trust" (University of Hawai'i Press, 2006) reveals a corrupt Hawai'i political environment that created, and allowed to continue, Bishop Estate trustees taking million-dollar annual salaries and engaging in other unsavory acts. If it had not been for the Internal Revenue Service forcing their ouster, those trustees would still be in office.

This should serve as a warning.

Time magazine reported four years ago: "And leaders of small, newly wealthy tribes now have so much unregulated cash and political clout that they can ride roughshod over neighboring communities, poorer tribes and even their own members. The amount of money involved is staggering. Last year, 290 Indian casinos in 28 states pulled in at least $12.7 billion in revenue. Of that sum, Time estimates, the casinos kept more than $5 billion as profit."

What has happened in many states is that excessive contributions are made to elected officials by American Indian tribes seeking to expand their reservations. Expanded areas are then used for tax-free retail gasoline and cigarette sales, and some of the profits generated are used for more political influence ad infinitum.

This is very real influence. With gambling or without, a Native Hawaiian government will have a great deal of money in hand to influence political decisions.

It is likely to eventually have control of the 30 percent of Hawai'i's land that is held in trust for Hawaiians by various entities including the $10 billion Kamehameha Schools (formerly Bishop Estate), the Hawaiian Home Lands Commission and the island of Kaho'olawe.

This land is separate from that owned by wealthy Native Hawaiian private estates such as the $2 billion Campbell Estate and the thousands of individual Native Hawaiian families who own their own homes.

And then there is the cash hoard of $400 million held by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, a quasi-state agency, which spends lavishly on Washington attorneys and lobbyists such as Patton Boggs.

The Akaka bill has never been voted on in Hawai'i, and rarely publicly discussed. Virtually the entire political establishment in Hawai'i supports the Akaka bill. However, while a few individual businesses have endorsed it, not a single business organization has taken a position on it.

Informal online and telephone polls indicate that informed Hawai'i residents, including possibly even Native Hawaiians, are opposed to it.

If the people of Hawai'i are opposed to the Akaka bill but the politicians are wholeheartedly in favor of it, one might be forgiven for thinking that we should follow the money.

After a protracted and expensive period of trying to sign up Native Hawaiians for a native roll, only 12 percent of Native Hawaiians signed and, ironically, many of these opposed the Akaka bill.

The last vote that Hawaiians cast on the issue of sovereignty was in 1959, when 95 percent of Hawai'i's citizens voted for statehood. A majority of Native Hawaiian voters, then, must also have voted for statehood.

In the end, we have to consider who is likely to benefit from a Native Hawaiian government. Judging from American Indian governments, it will not be the least affluent. With no requirement for secret ballots, the elites will most likely control it, and they will be the ones to benefit.

The tragedy is that a better result would ensue if Native Hawaiians were to relinquish a race-based policy and instead adopt the Basques' policy of defining a Basque as someone who speaks the language and understands the culture. It would result in cultural revival, ensure that lower-income Native Hawaiians would get their due share of funds (along with other low-income people), and end the divisiveness that race-based policies always engender.

Cliff Slater is a regular columnist for The Advertiser. A footnoted version of this article is available at www.cliffslater.com.