Hawaii Protest: Native Hawaiians in Palo Alto peacefully protest, show respect to group funding Thirty Meter Telescope

ByKris Reyes KGO logo
Thursday, July 25, 2019
Native Hawaiians peacefully 'confront' people funding telescope project
This is how Native Hawaiians in Palo Alto peacefully "confronted" the people funding a project that they are vehemently against -- a telescope on their sacred land.

PALO ALTO, Calif. (KGO) -- How do you confront someone you intensely disagree with? How do you talk to someone who is funding a project that will violate your culture?

We have enough examples of shouting, screaming and name-calling in our society to know that often that's the confrontation we're used to.

In Palo Alto on Wednesday morning, our cameras witnessed something completely different.

RELATED: 'The Rock' visits Hawaii protesters as envoy prepares talks

Watch the video above as Kaui Peralto, a teacher of Hawaiian language and culture at Stanford University, brought her community to the office of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the foundation that is helping to fund a project they are vehemently against. Watch as she grabs the foundation representative's hands and then listen for how they express their appreciation. This takes place as they completely disagree with what the foundation is doing.

Hawaiians all over the country, including Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Jason Momoa, have been demonstrating and lending their voices to stop the project that was supposed to start construction on Maunakea last week. The mountain on the Big Island is sacred to the Hawaiian people.

Take a look at the full report by ABC7's Kris Reyes about the demonstration against the telescope project on Mauna Kea.