HAWAII IS NOT AMERICA!

More Native Hawaiians now live on the US mainland than on the islands themselves. In 2023, the US Census Bureau reported that 53% of them resided on the continent, compared with 47% in Hawaii. The devastating fires on Maui in August that year only aggravated the trend.

However, the displacement of indigenous people began centuries ago through European and American expansion. Before Captain James Cook landed in 1778, Hawaii was inhabited by descendants of Polynesians who’d settled there from as early as the 5th century AD.

The US-backed overthrow of Queen Lili‘uokalani - the only reigning queen and last monarch of the Hawaiian Kingdom - led to the annexation of Hawaii by the United States in 1898.

There’s still a lot of Western ignorance surrounding the history of these Pacific islands. In this 1990 clip from an episode of Island Issues, activist and educator Hunani-Kay Trask (1949-2021) quickly educates a caller on America’s dark past.

Sources:

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1018804108

https://womenshistory.si.edu/herstory/activism/object/queen-liliuokalani

https://womenshistory.si.edu/herstory/activism/object/queen-liliuokalani