Capsun's Corner – by Capsun M. Poe

Note:  This is part of my Weekly Wednesday AQ Wisdom special series.  To see other posts in the series, click on the Best Bets tab at the top of any page here and scroll down to the “AQ McElrath” section.

Part Three:  AQ’s 1980s Post-Career Activism

Ah Quon would camp out at the State Capitol and sift through hundreds of proposed bills, looking for proposals that would impact the lives of the poor and the elderly, erode civil rights, or increase the cost of living.

Ah Quon retired from the ILWU in 1981, but never retired from her life-long mission of helping working people help themselves, defending civil rights, and advocating for fair treatment of the underprivileged.

In 1983, she attended the founding convention of the Nuclear-Free Pacific Community in Vanuatu where the people of many of the Pacific island nations came together to call for an end to nuclear waste dumping and nuclear bomb testing in the Pacific. Later that year, Ah Quon moved to Washington, D.C. to work with the Villers Foundation on antional legislation on issues concerning the elderly.

On her return to Hawaii in 1985, she co-founded the Committee on Welfare Concerns which helped focus the previously separate lobbying efforts of individuals and organizations concerned with the elderly, welfare rights, the handicapped, civil rights, and social programs.

During many sessions of the Hawaii State Legislature, Ah Quon would camp out at the State Captiol and sift through hundreds of bills, looking for proposals that would impact the lives of the poor and the elderly, erode civil rights, or increase the cost of living.  Then she and the Committee on Welfare Concerns, an organization of individuals and 24 organizations, would lobby lawmakers.

In 1998, Ah Quon fought for legislation that would allow for death with dignity, or physician-assisted death.  She was instrumental in the formation of the Governor’s Blue Ribbon Panel on Living and Dying with Dignity. She worked hard to promote greater public awareness of how current medical practices often prolong death, the difficult choces faced by families and invidiuals with terminal illness, and the cost of dying.  Hawaii law has yet to provide for death with dignity.

Please visit next Wednesday as I continue with AQ’s story, from the 1990s.

Mahalo!

Tags: aq, aq mcelarta, ilwu, mcelrath