Mililani Trask

"OHA wants to retain wardship – have the state provide it with the revenue, but they are not willing to work with their own people to provide critical needs like housing and poverty alleviation. We have to stop making the goal of self-governance be the opportunity to suck at the state and federal teet. It is not that. It is economic self-sufficiency and that's where we should be going and we're not."

Mililani Trask worked for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs from 1998 to 2000 as a Trustee at Large. After the passage of the Rice Decision in 2000 gave non-Hawaiians voting access in OHA elections, Mililani lost her bid for reelection despite the fact that she won the 1998 election by a previously unprecedented number of votes cast by Hawaiians since the formation of OHA in 1978. In 2016 she ran for the Big Island OHA Trustee position on the grounds that the Office of Hawaiian Affairs needed to be more accountable to its beneficiaries. In press interviews and meetings on the topic, she has addressed the need for reform and a change in leadership. Although she did not win the 2016 election, she urged Native Hawaiians to vote.

Mililani Trask was born on the island of Oahu in Honolulu, Hawaii and she has four siblings. Mililani's mother, Huanani Cooper was a school teacher and Huanani's mother, Iwalani Haia, worked for the Benevolent Societies on Maui while also engaging in efforts to raise awareness around the 1893 overthrow of Queen Liliʻuokalani. Mililani's father, Bernard Trask was a lawyer. Mililani's grandfather, David Trask, was the first sheriff in Honolulu and was affiliated with the Territorial Legislature for 26 years. Her uncle, David Trask Jr. was a senator, a state representative and a leader of the Hawaii Government Employees Association. He was credited for bringing the power of collective bargaining to the union. Her other uncle, Arthur Trask, was a layer and political figure for the Democratic Party who was well known for his abilities as an orator and storyteller.