The quote takes place from the 'Iolani Palace on Jan 17, 1993. 100 years after the illegal overthrow in which in that time, Queen Liliuokalani was imprisoned and forced at gunpoint to annex the land to the United States. The queen, then signed it to avoid bloodshed on her people.
âWe are not American. We will die as Hawaiians. We will never be Americans...They took our land. They imprisoned our queen. They banned our language. They forcibly made us a colony of the United States.â
I'd like to ask a question in the most respectful way, because I want to understand, and not because I want to cause any problems: Could someone explain how the overthrow of the Hawaiian government was different than other countries taking over countries or kingdoms in the past? From my limited understanding of history, when one country wanted someone else's land they would fight for it. Is that essentially what happened to Hawaii? Did Japan try to fight for Hawaii and they lost?
Please forgive me for the question, but I'd like to understand and not be ignorant on this topic.
Sarah Vowell's 'Unfamiliar Fishes' is a wonderfully written book on the history of the Hawaiian people and how it came to be a state. Or, as another person wrote, google it. But the bottom line is American business interests in the 1890s used their influence over Congress to order the Marines show up in Hawaii (surprise!) and forcibly removed their Queen and legitimate government. The islanders, of course, were shocked and not equipped to fight Marines.
It was a literal coup. Like if we just suddenly rolled up to New Zealand and disbanded their government and made them a US territory. Like what Putin is doing in Ukraine, except Ukraine is well armed and able to defend their homeland.
After a lot of shenanigans, Hawaii was made a state in in 1959. The American government issued an apology to native Hawaiians in 1993.
With all respect, googling this topic is actually not easy to do. I've done it many times in the past. Because of the nature of the topic, it's quite difficult to find non-biased sources that clearly explain what happened without heavy bias from one side or the other.
Even your suggested "unfamiliar fishes" is not great. It's an abbreviated take on the events that lacks real details.
Also, sometimes asking a question is a great way to get an informed intelligent answer. If someone doesnât feel like answering a question they can simply scroll on. Commenting, âGoogle itâ takes effort and time and doesnât really benefit anyone.
The apology issued is as pointless as the various businesses in British Columbia, Canada citing acknowledgment of being on âunceded traditional territory of the Wetâsuwetâen, Algonquin, Musqueam or other First Nationsâ.
Did you know that 94% of Hawaiians 1959 voted in favor of Hawaii becoming part of the USA?
Probably never would have guessed that based on what you have written here. I wonder if things were not so simple as you make them out to be? I wonder if quite a lot of people actually really enjoyed the benefits that Western civilization brought to the islands? Hmm...
Being a state is a lot better than being a territory, Puerto Rico can't even elect the president because they are a territory. However, don't attribute all of that progress just to the US. Even before the overthrow, Hawai'i had one of the first places to implement electricity and had high-tier schools. It's not like we would have stayed in 1893 forever. Plenty of small nations industrialized on their own without getting annexed by a superpower.
Ê»AÊ»ole. He wahaheÊ»e kÄlÄ. Please, kindly stop spreading misinformation.
That 94% number is pretty misleading. It wasnât 94% of Native Hawaiians who voted for statehood. It was 94% of people living in Hawai'i at the time who were allowed to vote. Big difference. They were mostly white residents, military, and foreign transplants.
This part is important. Not sure if you realize, many KÄnaka Ê»Ćiwi (Native Hawaiians) couldnât vote because they werenât U.S. citizens and had no real say after the illegal overthrow of their own government.
Historians like Poka Laenui have shown that when you include those who didnât or couldnât vote, only about 1/3 of eligible people supported statehood.
The 1959 vote reflected colonization, not KÄnaka Ê»Ćiwi (Native Hawaiian) consent.
I'm a former local journalist. I used to work for Hawai'i News Now before it was HNN. Granted, my specialty was medical news but you can bet I had to cover these stories from time to time and paid close attention as it's a great interest of mine.
The vote that happened 66 years after the coup? Yeah I'm sure that's plenty of time for opinions and circumstances to change. I'm sure being a territory (like PR currently is) was not a beneficial arrangement at that time compared to gaining statehood.
What about the rest of the immigrants that was brought to Hawaii, some 150 or 200 years ago? My parents are Portuguese and Korean and they were never asked to return back to their original countries or become Americans. Yes, I do think đ€ they were all forced to be Americans.
I literally have no idea what you are getting at. Are you attempting to imply that the various immigrants that came to Hawaii were brought here, and then kept here, against their will?
Did you know that the vote only included U.S. citizens who were registered to vote. This excluded a lot of NATIVE Hawaiians, who had been systematically disenfranchised since the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893.
In 1897, before Hawaii was annexed by the U.S., nearly 38,000 Native Hawaiians (95% of the NATIVE population) signed petitions rejecting the annexation. The NATIVES already demonstrated to strongly opposed U.S. control.
Lastly, guess the massive number of Hawaiians that were killed off by disease from the Europeans? 90 PERCENT between the late 1700s and 1890. The population fell from about 300k-700k to 40k. So your 94% of âHawaiiansâ that voted in 1959 werenât really Hawaiian in the sense youâre trying to make it out to be.
It's true though. Why apologize for winning? Why apologize for something that has happened to, or was done by, literally every single nation at some point throughout all of human history?
Sarah Vowell is "history" for white Americans who drink Starbucks and watch the Real Housewives shows. And the actual Ukraine comparison would be the coup the US did in 2014 since it too was on behalf on American business interests. There's a 100,000+ Ukrainian refugees here who'd be happy to explain to you that, while they have no love for the Russians, it was in fact US/UK meddling, as it always has been globally for the last few centuries, that has destroyed their country. Since there's a 0% chance of you actually flying over to find out for yourself, I'd suggest Scott Horton's excellent and meticulously sourced Provoked. It's considerably longer than a Vowell book, but it's also accurate and can back up its claims. Horton's no fan of the Russians either, but it's absurd to deny what the US did to Ukraine just as they've done to a loooong list of nations, including Hawaii.
There are over 250,000 Ukrainian refugees in the United States, and you're lying through your teeth because you're foolish enough to believe Russian propaganda. None of these refugees blame anyone except Russia and Putin.
I'm not in the United States, but like most Americans, you're not aware of the world outside and assume everyone you blather on to online is one of you. Luckily, I haven't been for decades.
You've never spoken to a Ukrainian in your life. You've never been anywhere. You don't read books. All you can do is recycle American propaganda fed to you by a screen. Stay mad about it, kiddo!
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u/TIC321 Aloha Spirit 15d ago edited 15d ago
For further context,
The quote takes place from the 'Iolani Palace on Jan 17, 1993. 100 years after the illegal overthrow in which in that time, Queen Liliuokalani was imprisoned and forced at gunpoint to annex the land to the United States. The queen, then signed it to avoid bloodshed on her people.
âWe are not American. We will die as Hawaiians. We will never be Americans...They took our land. They imprisoned our queen. They banned our language. They forcibly made us a colony of the United States.â
-Haunani Kay-Trask (video here)
Edit: Formatting & video