In this 1959 photo, 6-year-old Dodie Brown of Honolulu holds a newspaper noting Hawaii's new statehood. (AP file photo)
The 50th state turns 50 years old tomorrow, but don’t expect an all-out bash.
“Instead of state government having huge parties and fireworks, we’re having a convention,” says Manu Boyd, cultural director for the Royal Hawaiian Center, a shopping and entertainment area in Waikiki. “That shows the strength and spiritual power of the Hawaiian people, whose shattered world has not yet been addressed.”
In addition to the statehood conference, according to this story by Mark Niesse, the Hawaii Statehood Commission has been airing TV and radio ads with “50 Voices of Statehood” interviews, inviting schools to place commemorative items in time capsules, displaying artwork on the meaning of statehood in the Hawaii Convention Center and showing exhibits in state airports.
“Out of respect, we decided not to do the parade and the big party,” says Kippen de Alba Chu, who chairs the Statehoood Commission. Those kinds of events “would have been a waste of state funds, especially given the economy.”
Besides, says Poka Laenui, a Hawaiian and attorney who has worked for independence for more than 30 years, “This newfangled idea of celebrating statehood shows that people don’t understand Hawaii’s history, or if they do understand, then they’re celebrating a lie, a theft, that essentially stole a people’s right of self-determination.”
Meanwhile, legislation is working its way through Congress that would treat Native Hawaiians similarly to Native American tribes and Alaskan natives.
Gwen Florio
Leave a reply