It is an ongoing myth that Hawaiians invited everyone here and we are still inviting tourists. Let me set that straight.I. We never invited Captain Cook here. He was just lost and lucky for him and his crew he stumbled upon our islands. Not so lucky for us. Within a few hours of finding Kauaʻi, one of his crew shot and killed a man. That night they fired cannons and shot off fireworks in order to terrify our people.II. We never invited whalers and sandalwood traders or most of their ship jumpers here. They brought diseases, the idea of prostitution, the idea of money and wealth, and guns. A lot of trouble ensued.III. We didn’t invite the missionaries here. Uncle Kekuni Blaisdell pointed out that the missionaries mythologize ʻŌpūkahaʻia, saying that he invited the Calvinists. But he left Hawaiʻi as a child, and lucky for him, the missionaries in New England took him in. He was sent to their Indian School, and like everyone else, died there. He was only 27 years old. He had been away since he was a child so he certainly was in no position to issue invitations on behalf of the Kingdom. The French threatened war if the government would not allow their Catholic missionaries to stay here.IV. After 60-70 years of missionizing and settling here and getting wealthy, the descendants of the Calvinist missionaries overthrew our constitutional, democratic government. We did not invite them to do so. Neither did we invite the troops from the American warship the Boston to land and point guns at our Queen.V. We didn’t invite them to create a law that banned the teaching of our native language in both public and private schools. Our kūpuna did not consider that government legitimate and they did not vote in favor of that law.VI. We did not invite the annexation of our country to the United States. In fact, there was mass organized protest of the annexation.VII. We did not invite the military invasion and occupation of our islands that immediately followed annexation. We did not ask that our islands be used as a launching place to violently subdue other native peoples like the peoples of the Philippines. We did not invite the US military to use our islands as the launching place of every war since then: WWI, WWII, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and now the everlasting War on Terror, the Afghanistan War, and the Iraq War. We did not ask to carry such burdens of sorrow that our place is being used in the service of violent world domination. The military occupation of our islands has caused great environmental destruction, as well. In just one example, it has turned Puʻuloa, a series of amazing fishponds and clam and oyster beds, into Pearl Harbor, site of constant oil leaks, nuclear submarines, and missile launchers.VII. We did not invite the colonial status of the Territory period in which both the executive branch and the judiciary were appointed by the President of the US and our kūpuna were not allowed to vote for that President. We had only a non-voting representative in Congress. Wasn’t there a US war over such taxation without representation?VIII. We did not invite 3 years of Martial Law during WWII. All civil rights and habeas corpus suspended, nightly blackouts and curfews, and our Japanese neighbors and family members interned or sent to Japan.IX. We did not invite statehood. But we were only offered continuing colonial status or statehood to vote upon. The other choices offered by the UN decolonization were never made public in Hawaiʻi nei. We had also by that point suffered half a century of colonialism and its attendant racism. We are still feeling the effects of some of our kūpuna having internalized those terrible things.X. Last but not least, we did not invite tourists. They call Kanaka ʻŌiwi the host culture, but someone told me (with apologies to whoever said it first that I can’t remember) that “host culture” sounds like something scientists would grow a virus in. Aren’t most hosts the ones who invite their guests? We do not invite 6 to 7 million tourists here every year to cause traffic, pollution, and a host of other environmental ills. Tourism creates an economy that prices our people out of the ability to pay rents and buy homes. It directly creates homelessness among Kanaka Hawaiʻi and other people of color and all those not fortunate enough to earn high salaries. It also causes a huge out-migration of our people to the US. It is fair nor right that Kanaka ʻŌiwi should have to leave our homeland.We did not invite any of this and so we are not celebrating 50 years of statehood. Rather we are protesting and organizing to change these so that our people now and in the future may thrive here in our homeland.Resources:Anthony, J. Garner. Hawaii Under Army Rule. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1975.Coffman, Tom. Nation Within. Kāneʻohe, Hawaiʻi: EpiCenter Press, 1998.Fujikane, Candace and Jonathan Y. Okamura, eds. Asian Settler Colonialism: From Local Governance to the Habits of Everyday Life in Hawaiʻi. Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2008.Kamakau, S. M. Ruling Chiefs of Hawaii. Honolulu: Kamehameha Schools, 1992.Perez-Wendt, Māhealani. “Host Culture (Guava Juice on Tray),” Uluhaimalama, Honolulu: Kuleana ʻŌiwi Press, 2007, p. 32.Silva, Noenoe K. Aloha Betrayed: Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism. Durham: Duke University Press, 2004.
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