Lawrence Downes: The Big Five-O
The 50th state turns 50 on Friday, and the strange thing is how wildly and jubilantly the islands aren’t celebrating. There are no official parades. No King Kamehameha on a flowery float, surrounded by his court. No bonfires. No blowout concerts with fireworks, aerial acrobats and hula troupes...
...The reasons are sad but obvious. The state is preoccupied by economic worries. Tourism is in the tank. The governor and state unions are battling over layoffs and pay cuts. Unemployment has been rising; sea levels are probably next. Underneath is the unresolved pain of Native Hawaiians, unhappy over long unsettled land claims and economic disadvantage.
A Honolulu newspaper columnist, David Shapiro, lamented all the ambivalence, comparing the lackluster commemoration unfavorably to the galas in Alaska, the 49th state. The commission chairman objected, saying a big party would be a waste of money. Maybe he’s right. But it’s too bad the state couldn’t have found a better way to give the anniversary its due, given how hard the islands struggled for equality, and how joyously the victory was celebrated 50 years ago.
It was a long fight. It took The New York Times a while to get it right. This page opposed the overthrow of the monarchy in 1893, but for decades after, the idea of adding Hawaiians and “Asiatics” to the union gave the editors jitters. We came around only after World War II — when the islands bled at Pearl Harbor, rebuilt the fleet to win the Pacific war, and sent thousands of sons overseas, including the Japanese-American volunteers of the 100th Battalion, one of the most decorated units in Army history. It took Congress another decade...
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...The reasons are sad but obvious. The state is preoccupied by economic worries. Tourism is in the tank. The governor and state unions are battling over layoffs and pay cuts. Unemployment has been rising; sea levels are probably next. Underneath is the unresolved pain of Native Hawaiians, unhappy over long unsettled land claims and economic disadvantage.
A Honolulu newspaper columnist, David Shapiro, lamented all the ambivalence, comparing the lackluster commemoration unfavorably to the galas in Alaska, the 49th state. The commission chairman objected, saying a big party would be a waste of money. Maybe he’s right. But it’s too bad the state couldn’t have found a better way to give the anniversary its due, given how hard the islands struggled for equality, and how joyously the victory was celebrated 50 years ago.
It was a long fight. It took The New York Times a while to get it right. This page opposed the overthrow of the monarchy in 1893, but for decades after, the idea of adding Hawaiians and “Asiatics” to the union gave the editors jitters. We came around only after World War II — when the islands bled at Pearl Harbor, rebuilt the fleet to win the Pacific war, and sent thousands of sons overseas, including the Japanese-American volunteers of the 100th Battalion, one of the most decorated units in Army history. It took Congress another decade...