Since arriving, we've heard a steady trickle of talk related to
Hawaiian sovereignty. Some of it has been direct (there's a good radio show devoted to it), but most of it has been indirect: a comment here, a bumper sticker there. That's their original flag (not "state flag").
Without going into the whole history, it's your
basic colonial imperial story:
In 1893, Queen Lydia Liliuokalani was deposed in a coup organized by Sanford Dole, (the pineapple/banana guy is on the left, see how comfortable everyone in the photo looks?),
and supported by US marines. Five years later the islands were annexed. American, Japanese, Chinese, Portugese, and other groups populated the island, crowding the indigenous culture. Statehood followed in 1959, and the Hawaiian-ness of the island has slipped ever since.
So, yeah, that's exxxtreme Manifest Destiny for you. What makes it different from the US's treatment of Natives on the mainland? I don't want to get into "Whose injustice is greater," because there's more than enough to go around. Suffice to say that the relative recency, isolation, and cultural unity of the Hawaiian people are a unique situation.
Can the sovereignty movement take off? It seems to be
gathering followers. Apparently there's a Hawaiian government of sorts that's been meeting formally. There are a series of blogs that follow it, and again, bumper stickers, posters, slogans, anthems, etc...it's all in place.
I asked our neighbor here about it. He said that most people who are into it are sort of like voter-fraud conpiracy nuts: right about everything, fighting the good fight, but basically kooky. (Our neighbor, by the way, has lived here since '62 and is pro-sovereignty in a "Sure, that'd be nice" way.)
He also said that any such independence would be fraught with problems, not the least of which that Hawaiian-ness, for now, has
racial undertones. Also, the islands depend on the mainland's insfrastructure, food, and funding.
Sara and I have been trying to think of a single reason that Hawaiian sovereignty shouldn't happen, and we've come up with crap: world maps and US flags have to be redesigned, Hawaii might just get taken over by China eventually anyway, economic collapse would lower local quality of life.
On the other, much larger hand, freedom and self-determination are pretty sweet. Same for preserving cultural identity.
It does seem that a lot of these grievances are in the past, and there's not much you can do about that. As for current oppression, who knows. All I know is that, since we've been here, I've noticed that white people aren't doing undesirable jobs (gardener, street sweeper, line cook, busser, etc).
Could total sovereignty work? How would it happen? Given the low profile on the mainland, total independence looks impossible. Maybe they'll shoot for a Puerto Rico deal. The Dalai Lama's only asking for cultural autonomy for Tibet from China, so who knows what Hawaiian leaders think they can/should get. (Speaking of Tibet, there are so many comparisons, I'm not even going list them.)
Either way, are we missing something, or is there a moral wrong waiting to be righted?
So, yeah. Food for thought from some dumb tourists who've been here maybe a month, collectively.
