If Bill Burgess and his hui want Kau Inoa shirts so bad, they can have mine.

I have three or four in a drawer somewhere, XL, XXL and medium, maybe one more, not sure. I don't think I even kau'd my inoa on the registry. Somebody had extra and a bunch ended up at my house. You know how that goes. I have some canoe club shirts I got the same way even though I don't paddle. I have T-shirts from beach clean-ups that I didn't attend. In the '80s we all wore Hard Rock Café shirts from cities we never visited. Just because someone has the shirt doesn't mean they have the heritage. Just because they have the blood doesn't mean they wear the shirt.

Why do they want the shirts so badly? What do they think comes with the shirts? Good parking at the Cazimeros' May Day concert? Twenty percent off a Sig Zane mu'umu'u? VIP seating at Merrie Monarch?

Wearing a Kau Inoa shirt won't get you into Kamehameha Schools. Having Hawaiian ancestry doesn't even guarantee admission, but no one is filing lawsuits for the Hawaiian kids who get rejected because they don't test well enough or don't have the right connections.

Having a Kau Inoa shirt or being on the Kau Inoa registry doesn't mean you'll get Hawaiian Home Lands to build your house. Plenty of Hawaiians with 50 percent blood quantum or more have the shirt but not the land. Some people have the shirt and no house at all. Lots of Kau Inoa shirts in the Leeward beach camps. Is that what they want?

You could wear a Kau Inoa shirt, get your name on the list and your life would not change at all. If anyone thinks being Native Hawaiian means suddenly your life is easy or charmed, he couldn't be more mistaken. You still have to register your car, pay taxes, wait in line at the post office and separate your glass from your plastic at the recycling center. You have to do all those things PLUS watch them sell beaches that your father once knew to build their hotels, to paraphrase that old song of lament. You have to do all those things plus navigate all the assumptions, good and bad, people carry about you because you're Hawaiian. You have to do all those things and try to decide if and when to get mad, how mad to get, what to do about it and when to not even bother. It's no pa'ina.

When being Hawaiian has an appreciable advantage in day-to-day life, maybe Burgess and his lot will have a point. But the way things are, being Hawaiian doesn't carry many advantages that those types could appreciate.

Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.