KE AUPUNI UPDATE - AUGUST 2025
No Celebration for Statehood
In 1959 President Dwight Eisenhower signed an official proclamation purportedly making Hawaiʻi the 50th state of the United States. There was dancing in the streets, parties, news coverage, speeches and fireworks at Iolani Palace.
But today, 66 years later, other than state and county workers having the day off, and a few perfunctory ‘sales’ by stores, there is no wide-spread celebration or even minimal acknowledgement of what should be the State’s most important holiday!
The last real celebration was in 2009, when Linda Lingle was Governor. She could not avoid it because it was the “50th anniversary of statehood”. But even then, the state-appointed commission to coordinate the jubilee celebration, fearing counter-demonstrations by angry Hawaiians to any large-scale celebrations, downplayed the event reducing it to a closed-door joint session of the legislature, a few TV and radio public-service announcements; a few speeches and proclamations; and an invitation-only conference at the convention center to “envision the next 50 years”.
Meanwhile, advocates for Hawaiʻi’s independence conducted numerous, highly public events exposing the “Fake State of Hawaii”, hijacking the State’s sorry events and generating news coverage about the State’s strange 50th Anniversary non-celebration in over 130 mentions in papers wire services and broadcasts around the world (including the New York Times, USA Today, Reuters, AP, and so forth).
The 2009 50th Anniversary Celebration was such a debacle that the State never mounted another official celebration.
Why were state leaders reluctant to make a big deal about celebrating statehood? Is the State suffering from “buyer’s remorse”? Or is it perhaps that the truth about the illegitimacy of Hawaiʻi’s statehood has come home to roost? And they know their days are numbered?
A basic principle of law, ex injura jus non oritur, means unjust acts cannot create lawful ones. This applies to Hawaiʻi. Since the initial seizure of the Hawaiian Islands in 1893 was unlawful, each successive government in the Hawaiian Islands, the “Republic of Hawaiʻi,” the “Territory of Hawaiʻi” and the present-day U.S. “State of Hawaiʻi,” were and still are, categorically unlawful.
This explains the reluctance to celebrate Statehood. The truth is people, both locally and in the international community, are realizing that Hawaii wasn’t adopted into the U.S. family; Hawaii was kidnapped!
No wonder the State is nervous.
Aloha ʻĀina —
“Love of country is deep-seated in the breast of every Hawaiian, whatever his station.” — Queen Liliʻuokalani
Ua mau ke ea o ka ʻāina i ka pono.
The sovereignty of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.
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Malama Pono,
Leon Siu
Hawaiian National
