I’m trying to think of an appropriate program, ceremony, or activity.
It is with great pride that our Nation commemorates the fiftieth anniversary of Statehood for Hawaii. On August 21, 1959, we welcomed Hawaii into the United States ohana, or family. Unified under the rule of King Kamehameha the Great, it was Queen Lili’uokalani who witnessed the transition to a Provisional Government controlled by the United States. As a Nation, we honor the extensive and rich contributions of Native Hawaiian culture to our national character.
Borne out of volcanic activity in the Pacific Ocean, a chain of islands emerged that would bear witness to some of the most extraordinary events in world history. From Pu’ukohola Heiau and the royal residence at the `Iolani Palace, to the USS ARIZONA Memorial and luaus that pay tribute to Hawaiian traditions, Americans honor the islands’ collective legacy and admire their natural beauty. Home to unique and endangered species, active volcanoes, and abundant reefs, the Hawaiian islands actively conserve their distinctive ecosystems with responsible development and a deep-rooted appreciation for the land and surrounding ocean.
The Aloha Spirit of Hawaii offers hope and opportunity for all Americans. Growing up in Hawaii, I learned from its diversity how different cultures blend together into one population — proud of their personal heritage and made stronger by their shared sense of community. Our youngest State, Hawaii faces many of the same challenges other States face throughout our country, and it represents the opportunity we all have to grow and learn from each other.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by the virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim August 21, 2009, as the Fiftieth Anniversary of Hawaii Statehood. I call upon the people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.
52 comments
August 21, 2009 at 11:35 am
ari
I had some cut-up pineapple for breakfast.
August 21, 2009 at 11:45 am
kid bitzer
i’m hula-hooping while i type this.
August 21, 2009 at 11:48 am
Vance
Macaroni with mayonnaise?
August 21, 2009 at 12:00 pm
AaLD
I just ate some Trader Joe’s tropical trail mix.
Today happens to be my birthday, too, and I’m still trying to think of an appropriate program, ceremony or activity for that.
August 21, 2009 at 12:01 pm
kathy a.
maybe we’ll get hawaiian BBQ plates for dinner. [mac + rice included.]
August 21, 2009 at 12:02 pm
bitchphd
Definitely Hawaiian food for dinner. Mmmmmmm, fattening, rich, Hawiian food.
August 21, 2009 at 12:23 pm
Ahistoricality
do hereby proclaim August 21, 2009, as the Fiftieth Anniversary of Hawaii Statehood
Wait a minute. Isn’t it the 50th anniversary whether he declares it or not?
Unprecedented Federal Power Grab! Usurpation of Calendrical Rights! Impeach! Impeach!
August 21, 2009 at 12:31 pm
Rob_in_Hawaii
Yeah, a chicken katsu plate lunch, a Longboard Lager, and an evening watching a Jack Lord marathon might seem a fun way to mark the 50th anniversary of Hawai`i statehood. But the day isn’t necessarily being treated as a “celebration” here.
Sensitive to the feelings of the Native Hawaiian population, who have seen the theft of their lands and the near obliteration of their culture, the anniversary has been a rather low-key affair here in the Islands. Terms like “observation” and “commemoration” are being employed as the state government and the local media tiptoe around issues of injustice and the near genocide of the host culture.
I’m teaching a section this summer on the history of the Hawaiian Islands and it can at times be a rough slog through the whole progression of overthrow, annexation, and statehood. (Let alone the epidemic diseases brought by the haole.)
So, break out the coconut bra, plastic hula skirt and Tader Vic’s mai-tai glasses on the Mainland. Here, we’re taking a more sober approach to observing Admission Day.
August 21, 2009 at 12:36 pm
eric s.
I’m wearing a Tom Selleck mustache, but I usually do.
August 21, 2009 at 12:43 pm
JPool
It’s like you’ve never thrown a luau before.
August 21, 2009 at 12:44 pm
elizardbreath
Poi! Poi for everyone!
August 21, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Mr. Sidetable
I’m rebranding my leper colony as a vacation paradise.
August 21, 2009 at 12:47 pm
booferama
I’m calling everyone “Higgy Baby.”
August 21, 2009 at 12:49 pm
ari
I’m rebranding my leper colony as a vacation paradise.
Nice.
August 21, 2009 at 12:53 pm
Anderson
I’m trying to think of an appropriate program, ceremony, or activity.
Burning down the Bureau of Vital Statistics and conducting a luau in the smoldering coals?
August 21, 2009 at 1:02 pm
chris y
So in another 27 years you’ll all be partying to celebrate the Treaty of New Echota?
August 21, 2009 at 1:04 pm
ari
Is that question directed at someone, chris? Because I doubt President Obama, who called for a celebration in this case, will still be in office then. But one never knows.
August 21, 2009 at 1:10 pm
politicalfootball
You Obamabots have been duped again! The truth is that Hawaii’s statehood is a fraud – it was never legally enacted – and although Obama WAS born in Hawaii, he was NOT born in the United States.
(And no, I don’t care about the citizenship rights of people born in US territories.)
August 21, 2009 at 1:20 pm
silbey
Hawaii was actually born in Kenya.
August 21, 2009 at 1:22 pm
ari
Pangea means we’re all citizens of the world.
August 21, 2009 at 1:54 pm
Ben Alpers
Pangea means we’re all citizens of the world
Continental drift is a myth dreamed up by the Weather Channel to shore up long-term profits once everyone figures out that global warming was a lie. Just ask my senior Senator!
August 21, 2009 at 2:19 pm
pain perdu
“Unified under the rule of King Kamehameha the Great, it was Queen Lili’uokalani who witnessed the transition to a Provisional Government controlled by the United States.”
Well, that’s a charitable way of putting it. Way to look forward, not backward, Barack. (semi-pwned by rob_in_hawaii)
August 21, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Linkmeister
Rob’s “low-key” description is accurate as far as it goes. Craven kowtowing to the small but noisy sovereignty movement is what I call it.
August 21, 2009 at 2:30 pm
Jason B.
Living in Oklahoma is trying enough without you reminding me how stupid Inhofe is, Ben.
August 21, 2009 at 2:52 pm
pain perdu
Living in Oklahoma is trying enough without you reminding me how stupid Inhofe is, Ben.
They don’t make ’em like Mike Synar anymore, do they Jason B.? I have hope, though.
August 21, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Vance
I don’t think you have to be for sovereignty to be ambivalent about the annexation. (Yes, if people were trying to celebrate Annexation Day, that might make a more natural focus for the resentment.)
August 21, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Ezra
I am not ambivalent about some slack key tonight.
August 21, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Colin
yep, “witnessed the transition” is one of yer better euphemisms. And “linkmeister,” WTF? The 1959 plebiscite to which you link excluded the option of independence. Native Hawai’ians are already a minority in Hawai’i and many have had to leave because it’s gotten too expensive to live there. Sure, sovereignty advocates are today a small minority. But (a) if your immediate ancestors had a recognized national gov’t the was illegally displaced by a coup, nationhood is a claim you might not lightly give up, and (b) nationhood becomes the idiom for trying to protect what land and other rights you have left. There’s something deeply unpleasant about dismissing people as “noisy” in these circumstances.
August 21, 2009 at 4:38 pm
margarita
And then what would be the point?
August 21, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Ezra
Can’t we all just get along and listen to music? 1, 2, 3, 45, . And one for Rob: 7!
August 21, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Ezra
Let’s try again: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.
August 21, 2009 at 5:30 pm
Linkmeister
Colin, there is an entire state Department devoted to Hawai’ian Affairs, which is very well funded and is dedicated to protecting Hawaiian land, language and culture. In addition, the native Hawai’ian has exactly the same rights as every other American citizen.
The legality of the overthrow has been argued for one hundred years and will probably continue to be argued for another hundred. I’ve lived here for 30+ years and heard both sides the entire time.
What else do you call a small group of people who illegally occupy public buildings but noisy? I still maintain that many of them haven’t thought the issue through; it’s like the people at these town hall meetings who scream “keep government’s hands off Medicare.” No SocSec, no representation in Congress except possibly a non-voting representative (can you say Guam?), etc.
If we weren’t a state we’d still be a territory, run by a military/civilian oligarchy.
August 21, 2009 at 6:34 pm
jacob
I’m ambivalent on the merits of Hawaiian nationalism, but it seems odd to me to respond to the demands of nationalists (whom I believe want sovereignty) by saying that statehood is better than being a territory. So far as I know, no one is suggesting that Hawaii revert to being a territory, least of all the nationalists.
August 21, 2009 at 6:57 pm
Rob_in_Hawaii
I’m a big fan of Linkmeister, so I’ll just have to agree to disagree with him on the Sovereignty folks here in Hawai`i. (Just as I continue to be amazed by his odd worship of the Dodgers.) :-)
Those seeking Hawaiian Sovereignty are part of a large, multi-faceted, multi-voiced movement. To dismiss all of them as “noisy” just because a handful of its members engage in civil disobedience from time to time, is simply unfair to the vast majority of its participants. (It’s like dismissing all those against Bush’s wars because Code Pink seems rude to you.)
As a haole, I try to stay out of the debate and let Hawaiians decide for themselves how they envision “sovereignty.” But I doubt many of them are clamoring for adopting the “Guam model” instead of statehood. (Or, God forbid, the model of my home town, Washington, DC.) There are plenty of other choices being debated on which way to go from outright independence to some kind of nation-within-a-nation status.
And mahalo nui loa to Ezra for the Hawai`i music links! Jake Shimabukuro rocks!!!
August 21, 2009 at 8:45 pm
kathy a.
it’s a bit after dark here in the SF bay area, and somebody’s celebrating something with fireworks. probably the 50th.
August 21, 2009 at 8:47 pm
kathy a.
i cannot sort this out by searching “fireworks” on the SFGate website. because every article is about sports or a certain crime.
August 21, 2009 at 11:35 pm
Linkmeister
Thanks for the compliment, Rob.
If there’s a large group, from all I can tell its members seem content to let its loudest malcontents do the talking, which may be why my perception is different from yours.
When the civil rights movement had its successes in the 1960s it was in part due to the white majority of the nation recognizing that their cause was just; I don’t think the Hawai’ian sovereignty movement is behaving in a way that will get the non-Hawaiian majority on its side. At least, they’re not going to get me on their side by cutting out stars on the American flag and chopping up effigies of Uncle Sam, both of which they did today.
I was suggesting that had there been no statehood Hawai’i would still be stuck in territorial status like Guam, with no voting representation in Congress. I was not saying that the sovereignty movement would approve that status.
August 22, 2009 at 12:40 am
Keir
I am pleased to see that `they aren’t polite enough’ etc are common tropes across the Pacific.
August 22, 2009 at 3:17 am
Zora
Copyeditor here. It’s NOT Hawai‘ian, but Hawaiian. There’s an ‘okina (glottal stop) in front of ‘ohana and a kahakō (macron) at the the end of Pu‘ukoholā (Hill of the Whale).
August 22, 2009 at 12:33 pm
Linkmeister
“More flies with honey.”
August 22, 2009 at 1:02 pm
Vance
Ah, so your concern is for the efficacy of their protest. Right. You, sir, are a concern troll.
August 22, 2009 at 2:22 pm
Uncle Billy the Un-Cunctator
Ugh, I’m having flashbacks to “Comin’ down! Outta mah way, Haole Boy!”
August 22, 2009 at 3:25 pm
Vance
I think I must be missing an allusion.
August 22, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Uncle Billy the Un-Cunctator
Allusion in regards to the flashback comment?
Any haole who has surfed anywhere in Hawaii besides Waikiki has probably heard this. It can happen while simply paddling for a wave, or it can happen if you’ve already dropped in. If you’ve already dropped in, you can usually expect to be chased around in the water, or welcomed with punches on the beach.
August 22, 2009 at 5:56 pm
Uncle Billy the Un-Cunctator
Here’s an article on Hawaiian localism from the perspective of a Hawaiian:
http://www.authorsden.com/categories/article_top.asp?catid=22&id=45634
August 22, 2009 at 7:58 pm
Jonathan Dresner
The surfing localism — tribalism, territorialism, whatever you want to call it — is really just the best known manifestation of a fairly strong tradition of resentful exclusion and outright violence by “kama’aina” (long of the land) against “malihini” (newcomers). Just a few miles from my son’s school in Keaau was the Kingdom of Hawaii outpost. I was told, by folks who lived in the Paradise Park area near there, that the outpost was basically the start of an area which was dominated by sovereignty activists, functionally outside of the jurisdiction of the local police.
There were several cases, while we lived in Hilo, of bullying and violence, in schools and in public, related to the local-haole tension.
August 22, 2009 at 8:25 pm
Keir
Which is itself a counterpart to an even longer tradition of resentful exclusion and outright violence by the colonising settler powers against the indigenous peoples…
(Not to excuse violence or anything, but come on, there’s more going on than just some angry youths. And `oh no, you’ll lose social security’ sounds suspiciously like the arguments against devolution, none of which really ever seemed to stack up & further miss the point that a lot of this is about mana first and foremost.)
August 22, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Jonathan Dresner
Not to excuse violence or anything, but come on, there’s more going on than just some angry youths. … miss the point that a lot of this is about mana first and foremost.
I’ve written about Hawaiian sovereignty before (1, 2): it’s a relatively recent movement (post-statehood), and owes more to post-colonial theory (as your comment clearly demonstrates) than to any Hawaiian tradition.
August 22, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Keir
There’s an obvious sense in which Hawaiian sovereignty has to be a post-colonial idea; it couldn’t very well be pre-colonial, because the notions of sovereignty etc are rather colonial notions to start with, and certainly the idea of lacking sovereignty only makes sense within a colonial framework.
But that’s not to say that there’s anything wrong with those demands.
August 23, 2009 at 12:11 am
Linkmeister
Not a concern troll, Vance. Just a resident who worries that if the sovereignty crowd got its ultimate wish then I’d somehow have to pack up my aging mother and leave the state, voluntarily or by force.
Granted that’s unlikely, but if you lived here and heard some of the extremists that I’ve heard, you’d be a little concerned too, I suspect.
As Mr. Dresner points out, it’s a relatively recent movement. I got here in 1978; my family got here in 1970. None of us recall much public fuss until the mid-80s, some 20 years after statehood.
August 23, 2009 at 12:32 am
Keir
Granted that’s unlikely, but if you lived here and heard some of the extremists that I’ve heard, you’d be a little concerned too, I suspect.
This is about as likely as death panels, to be honest & functions to sidestep the reasonable demands of indigenous activists.
August 23, 2009 at 7:40 am
Jonathan Dresner
This is about as likely as death panels, to be honest & functions to sidestep the reasonable demands of indigenous activists.
To be honest, the “reasonable demands of indigenous activists” are taken fairly seriously by both the general public and institutions of power: look at the success of Hawaiian culture and language programs in the state educational system, for example, or the archeaological authority.
But the rhetoric of sovereignty is threatening, and, while it’s very unlikely that the US is going to give up Hawai’i, no matter what the Hague says, it’s increasingly likely that frustration with legal attacks on Hawaiian institutions will result in greater resentment, more support for sovereignty, and more violence.