Talk:Hawaii Admission Act

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This page needs more information about native Hawaiians and the Statehood decision.

(I agree. Also, a link to the bill, what was the vote in Congress, What day was the law signed, etc. None of the basics are presented, we get straight into the critique of the decsion. That section is really good, but the more basic information is sketchy. Not good)

Who was on the "Hawaii Statehood Commission"? How was the decision made? (Lorrin Thurston was the chairman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honolulu_Advertiser)

Did native Hawaiians have a voice in the statehood decision? There seems to be no evidence of a public referendum on the 1959 decision, only a 'approval' vote after the decision was made.

There is mention of a plebiscite in 1940 as well as some controversy about US soldiers and US citizens being allowed to vote in that decision. In addition, in the 1940 plebiscite the voters were not given the option of choosing to be an independent nation. The territory was redefining its status, and according to Article 73 of the UN Charter the voters should have been given three options: statehood, territorial status, or independence. (Martin)

It is especially important to address the sentiment of the native Hawaiians when discussing the statehood decision. On the NARA site there is a mention of petitions and letters from Hawaiians. And, according to other sites, there is strong evidence that native Hawaiians did not want statehood at all.

In 1897 the annexation of Hawai'i (as a territory of the US) was protested by native Hawaiians in the form of the "Petition against the Annexation of Hawaii Submitted to the U.S. Senate in 1897 by the Hawaiian Patriotic League and the Hawaiian Islands". There are 21,169 signatures of Hawaiians on this petition, from all of the islands -- this was more than half of the Hawaiian population at that time. The petition can be viewed on microfilm at the National Archives and Records Administration.

Sources: NARA http://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/1999/nr99-103.html Honolulu Star Bulletin http://starbulletin.com/1999/08/10/news/story8.html http://starbulletin.com/2005/07/18/news/story1.html

HCR180 http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/session2002/Bills/HCR180_.htm

Controversy over vote http://hawaiiankingdom.info/C1126750129/E1496000730/

Alexandria Martin http://www.fiu.edu/~harveyb/hawaiianstatehood1.html

http://aurora.wells.edu/~fweinberg/aloha.htm

Susurrus 07:25, 26 September 2005 (UTC)sshawhan

[edit] Objections to statehood

It is almost certainly correct that the majority of ethnic Hawaiians opposed annexation in 1897. However, at the time less than a quarter of the people traced Hawaiian lineage. When Hawai'i became an organized territory of the US, it became open to relocation by any legal resident of the US, who could then legally vote in local elections. With the loss of independence, demographics became destiny, an issue Tibetans struggle with today.

The United Nations didn't exist during the 1940 plebiscite. UN resolution 742 of 1952 regarding non-self-governing territories didn't spell out placing independence on plebiscite ballots (an oversight rectified by Resolution 1541 in 1960), and was non-binding on members.

cmholm 02:10, 26 May 2007 (UTC)cmholm

It is almost certainly correct that the majority of ethnic Hawaiians supported statehood in 1900. Both of the first two representatives, Kuhio and Wilcox, worked very hard to gain statehood, and the organizations that were previously anti-annexation changed position and worked towards integration with the United States on equal terms.

I think trying to place argument, in line, without references or citations is poor form - I've taken the liberty of removing the unreferenced material. --JereKrischel 07:03, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps that was best. I attempted to correct what I saw as glaring inaccuracies in the argumentative text as I found it in the article, and neglected to add my citations. I have no idea what the native pov was in 1897. I worded the initial paragraph above hoping to reduce native nationalists repeatedly editing the main article by conceding a point that is difficult to (dis)prove, while showing that their remaining arguments didn't hold water. I read these sorts of things in the local Maui newspapers so often that I overlooked the fact that that section of the article was blowing npov out of the water to begin with.

---cmholm 04:03, 18 July 2007 (UTC)cmholm

[edit] Should this link to Legal status of Hawaii?

I see there's a page Legal status of Hawaii, which seems relevant. Should this page link to it? Normally, I'd add a link myself, but I don't know anything about this subject and the alleged controversy. Espertus (talk) 06:19, 8 June 2008 (UTC)