ABSTRACT
The developer proposed to actually fill certain kinds of small ponds — they're sort of a brackish water pond, and in these ponds grow small shrimps that Native Hawaiians would very often harvest. This was a very volatile issue, and it also fit into the context of a resurgent Native Hawaiian culture, with Hawaiians pursuing lots of new political arrangements. For example, there is a bill pending right now in Congress to confer on Native Hawaiians some version of a sovereign state, a state within a state, such as many Native American tribes have. The initial meeting is always quite important in the author's mind because it is all about managing expectations and tone setting, and much of what happens is chartered at that initial meeting. One of the things that happen as the conversation develops is that a group gets on a learning curve together.
