516
Opinion of the Court
the definition was modified and in the end promulgated in statutory form as quoted above. See Hawaii Senate Journal, Standing Committee Rep. No. 784, at 1350, 1353-1354; id., Conf. Comm. Rep. No. 77, at 998. By the drafters' own admission, however, any changes to the language were at most cosmetic. Noting that "[t]he definitions of 'native Hawaiian' and 'Hawaiian' are changed to substitute 'peoples' for 'races,' " the drafters of the revised definition "stress[ed] that this change is non-substantive, and that 'peoples' does mean 'races.' " Ibid.; see also id., at 999 ("[T]he word 'peoples' has been substituted for 'races' in the definition of 'Hawaiian'. Again, your Committee wishes to emphasize that this substitution is merely technical, and that 'peoples' does mean 'races' ").
The next definition in Hawaii's compilation of statutes incorporates the new definition of "Hawaiian" and preserves the explicit tie to race:
" 'Native Hawaiian' means any descendant of not less than one-half part of the races inhabiting the Hawaiian Islands previous to 1778, as defined by the Hawaiian Homes Commission Act, 1920, as amended; provided that the term identically refers to the descendants of such blood quantum of such aboriginal peoples which exercised sovereignty and subsisted in the Hawaiian Islands in 1778 and which peoples thereafter continued to reside in Hawaii." Haw. Rev. Stat. § 10-2 (1993).
This provision makes it clear: "[T]he descendants . . . of [the] aboriginal peoples" means "the descendants . . . of the races." Ibid.
As for the further argument that the restriction differentiates even among Polynesian people and is based simply on the date of an ancestor's residence in Hawaii, this too is insufficient to prove the classification is nonracial in purpose and operation. Simply because a class defined by ancestry does not include all members of the race does not suffice to
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