Making ‘Justice For All’ Reality

Wednesday - February 22, 2006
By Alice Keesing

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Kaneko with Ted Halstead, author and president
of the New America Foundation

William “Bill” Kaneko prefers to fly well below the radar. In fact, a MidWeek profile is probably the last place he wants to be. “Unassuming” is the word most often connected with Kaneko, yet he’s billed as a leader and mover in some of the most significant issues facing Hawaii.

“Bill is very quiet and he’s very unassuming,” says Paul Alston of law firm Alston Hunt Floyd & Ing. “But once you start digging into his background, he’s done a remarkable number of things. And he’s still out there doing them.”

Kaneko has an impressive track record in civil rights, notably leading the fight to win redress for Japanese Americans who were interned during World War II. In more recent times, however, the 45-year-old has been making his mark in state public policy, delving into everything from the Akaka Bill to genetic engineering to new economic initiatives.

Six years ago, Kaneko founded the Hawaii Institute for Public Affairs, the state’s first independent public policy think tank. Despite the huge number of non-profits in Hawaii all clamoring and competing for money, HIPA is going gangbusters. It has scooped up $4 million in grants and awards in just three years, and Pacific Business News named it one of the top 25 non-profit fundraisers in the state.

Perhaps the feng shui design of the HIPA offices is bearing fruit. Or perhaps it’s Kaneko’s touch.

“He’s definitely a visionary,” says Laurel Johnson, who works with Kaneko. “He does care deeply about what happens to Hawaii,” she adds. “He comes from here, and he really wants it to be a better place for his son and for his family and for everyone.”

Kaneko started to think about HIPA in the 1990s because he was frustrated by talk that never went anywhere when it came to improving Hawaii’s economy and by decisions that were made without any research to back them up.

So HIPA does two things: It offers research, analysis and recommendations so that informed decisions can be made; and it acts as a neutral body to bring together the myriad sides of a debate to help reach consensus.

The think tank focuses on healthcare and economic development. One of its first and biggest undertakings was the Hawaii Uninsured Project, which aims to reduce the number of people in Hawaii with no health insurance. It was partly thanks to the project’s data that 29,000 people recently gained Medicaid coverage.

“That’s 25 percent of the uninsured population in a single swoop,” Kaneko says. “That’s the power of public policy.”

HIPA also is participating in the Hawaii 2050 Sustainability Plan, a roadmap for how Hawaii will grow and develop and use its resources in the future.

And then there’s the Akaka Bill. “That piece of legislation is probably the most far-reaching since statehood,” Kaneko says. “But I would say that 99 percent of the population has not even read the bill itself. It’s a long drawn-out process, and there’s a lot of misconceptions about the Akaka Bill.”

HIPA organized a forum last year to help improve understanding of the bill, and there is more work in the pipeline.

Among Bill Kaneko’s projects are the Akaka Bill,
Japanese internment and health insurance

Underlying all of Kaneko’s work is a strong sense of social justice. (It’s no coincidence that his son’s name is Justin - Kaneko wanted to call him straight out Justice, but his wife Reyna worked out a compromise.)

The stirrings of this social conscience began in an ethics studies class at the University of Hawaii.

“I learned for the first time the history of the Japanese in Hawaii,” says Kaneko, who was born and raised in Aiea. “It just struck me. It was very moving to learn about the internment camps and the plight of, not only the Japanese in Hawaii, but the whole history of Hawaii and the history of immigrants, and this spilled over into issues of civil rights and fairness and justice.”

Kaneko has degrees in business and law. During his career, he has worked as an accountant (which he hated) and a state planner.

And (somehow) on top of everything else right now, he continues his legal work at Alston, Hunt, Floyd and Ing. But through it all, there has been the common thread of his fight for civil rights.

As director of Asian Pacific Affairs for the Democratic National Committee, Kaneko served as the primary liaison between the DNC and the White House, Congress and state elected officials across the country.

He has also served as president of the Honolulu chapter of the Japanese American Citizens League and as vice president at the national level.

The Honolulu chapter last year presented Kaneko with a distinguished service award recognizing his “dynamic” leadership.

“During his tenure the JACL became quite well known and influential,‘says current president Karen Nakasone.

It was with the JACL that Kaneko led the fight to right the wrongs against Japanese Americans during the war.

In addition to winning redress for those who were illegally interned, Kaneko helped persuade the U.S. Department of Justice to compensate another 2,000 people who were turned out of their own homes - an event that was unique to Hawaii.

“They went everywhere, they went to their relatives’houses and slept in garages. We met one family that lived in a chicken coop,” Kaneko says.

Kaneko also was involved in the case of Bruce Yamashita, the local boy who took on the Marine Corps and revealed a system of racial discrimination.

“He ultimately got commissioned as a captain in the Marine Corps Reserves and it changed how things are done in the United States Marine Corps,” Kaneko says.

Much of the work that Kaneko does requires some tenacity. It’s a skill he says he draws from kendo, the art of Japanese samurai swordsmanship, which he practices at a Kalihi dojo.

“The most valuable thing I get out of that is the discipline,” Kaneko says. “The whole notion of going the extra mile, of having the strength and stamina and courage to never give up.”

HIPA hosts its third annual public affairs leadership awards dinner at the Hilton Hawaiian Village on March 2. An institute fundraiser, the awards dinner recognizes inspirational leaders in this state.

This year’s honorees are Alan Oshima, senior vice president at Hawaiian Telecom; Haunani Apoliona, OHA Chair; Randy Perreira, HGEA executive director; Lynn Maunakea, former executive director at the Institute for Human Services; and Sam and Mary Cooke of The Cooke Foundation.