Hawaii marks 50 years of US statehood

Updated August 24, 2009 07:08:27

Hawaii became the 50th State of the United States of America 50 years ago on August 21. While some have been commemorating the occasion, others are commiserating. Hawaii Public Radio has been producing a series of special reports.

Presenter: Geraldine Coutts
Speaker: Kayla Rosenfeld, director of news, Hawaii Public Radio

ROSENFELD: That's correct, there is a strong faction of native Hawaiians here and not only native Hawaiians but sympathisers who believe that Hawaii illegally became a state and that is the debate.

COUTTS: And who's winning, and what are the points on either side that are being debated?

ROSENFELD: Well, I think you could say the American government is winning in that Hawaii is the 50th state, that Hawaii has a strong military presence and that the Hawaiians themselves are still fighting for acknowledgment of their place here in the islands. So I would say the American government is winning.

ROSENFELD: Now Kayla, we're just going to play a little grab, because you have been doing quite an extensive series on this issue. So we'll just hear a part of what you've been doing.

REPORTER: By the time, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Admissions act on March 18th, 1959, celebrations were already underway. As the popular story goes, when the actual vote was held in June, there was overwhelming support for statehood. But who exactly voted?

COUTTS: Kayla, can you explain that and the context for that grab?

ROSENFELD: I can. There is a discussion going on and again it's not just Hawaiians themselves, but people who are studying the issue of statehood and have been for decades. There is an approach that says those who voted for statehood were those who were properly informed, those who were in the government, the upper echelon of Hawaiians themselves, not the native Hawaiians, not the local people. So that is the question, who actually voted? History says 90% of people who voted for Hawaii supported statehood, but that 90% of the population were those who knew about the issue and were in a position to leave work that day to vote and recognised that it would make a difference in their lives. Other folks, mostly local people, would probably have said okay, it's going to happen anyway. It doesn't matter what my vote is so why bother.

COUTTS: Now, how strong is the movement still that the monarchy should be reinstalled in Hawaii? Are there many people still pushing for that or is it saying it's gone to far, progress is progress?

ROSENFELD: You have both sides of that argument. You've got the Hawaiian sovereignty movement who are - they call themselves - nationalists and they are still fighting. In fact on Friday, for statehood commemoration they were protesting a conference that the government put on in the centre of Honolulu. They also have been protesting in kind of a subtle way, more artistically at the Iolani Palace which was the seat of government here in Hawaii for many, many years. They held reenactments of the annexation, the Queen, Queen Lili`uokalani, had been imprisoned in her own bedroom in the palace, so there were reenactments of that, walking towards those kinds of things and then which I think probably made national headlines, and international for that matter is the fact that during the protest on Friday, the native Hawaiian group that is probably the most vocal about statehood, against statehood was pretty loud at their protest at the Convention Centre and they cut the 50th star out of the flag, the American flag and burned it. So just to talk about the level of opposition to statehood by burning that star, that is a big statement in itself.

COUTTS: That would not have been received very well, because the flag in America is sacrosanct.

ROSENFELD: Exactly, exactly. I was reading some of the comments and people were not happy about that. People are very tolerant here about diversity in issues and things like that, but when you start walking on sacred ground, you're right, people protest.

COUTTS: We're going to have another little grab from your programming it is on this issue.

REPORTER: It was very clear to me as a child that the Hawaiian side of me was despondent, depressed, sad over statehood and the immigrant side of me saw themselves as Americans and happy and elated over it.

COUTTS: That was Arnelle Armoral, native Hawaiian liaison to the garrison commander of the US Army. Now how did she come to step forward to talk about and again what is the wider context for that?

ROSENFELD: Okay, well, Arnelle Armoral is a former state senator; I would say about ten years ago, when she was involved in Hawaiian issues. She obviously is a native Hawaiian with some I believe Portuguese background as she mentioned in that clip. That clip came from a talk show that we held as part of the series of statehood that we have been doing. She and several other prominent native Hawaiians were invited to discuss the issues from the native Hawaiian perspective, because much of the discussion coming out Hawaii is from the government's perspective, rah rah. Hawaii was great, statehood was great for Hawaii. Look how much money we have made, look at tourism, look at military, all those things.

But native Hawaiians themselves have been struggling with this. On one hand, their quality of life has improved because of statehood, yet native Hawaiians as a population themselves remains at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder here in Hawaii. So those who are willing to make the effort to become more part of society itself, more of Hawaii do a little bit better than those who are opposed to statehood itself. So that is where she is coming from. She sees it from both sides. She was able to step outside the native Hawaiian anger I guess is the only way I really know how to put it and do something with it. She is an activist, she talks, as opposed to others who are just mad.

COUTTS: And you can hear more special reports on 50 years of statehood at http://www.hawaiipublicradio.org/statehood