By Monica Moorehead - Worker's World - May 26, 2007 8:01 AM
The Hawai`i Solidarity Committee and the International Action Center sponsored a May 21 forum featuring Kai`opua Fyfe and `Ehu Kekahu Cardwell representing the Hawaiian Independence Movement at the Solidarity Center in New York City.
Speakers explained how the U.S. government illegally annexed Hawai`i back in 1898.
Five years earlier, in 1893, the U.S. overthrew the reigning monarch of Hawai`i, Queen Lili`uokalani, on behalf of big business interests like Dole that wanted to super-exploit Hawai`i's resources, especially sugar cane.
This colonial domination laid the basis for the U.S. making Hawai`i the 50th state in 1959.
The film, "We Are Who We Are: From Resistance to Affirmation," presented archival photos and footage of the legal and historic background to the annexation of Hawai'` and how the current independence movement, led by Indigenous people, is carrying out a struggle for self-determination.
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