Because you asked your listeners to respond I'm doing so, HPR
"I was in my early 20's in 1959 when Statehood was declared. It would take 40 years afterwards to discover and to understand how the Statehood event had impacted my life.
You won't like what I'm going to say next. The proclamation of the Hawaiian Islands as an equal in the 50 member federation of domestic states in the union that makes up the country of the United States of America is a farce.
This fact I've been learning from records that go back as far as Queen Liliuokalani's 'Hawaii's Story By Hawaii's Queen' and the Blount report. Furthermore, current day scholarship and active assertion of right - both which continue to evolve - such as the 'Complaint Against The United States of America By The Acting Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom Concerning The American Occupation Of The Hawaiian Kingdom' which the United Nations Security Council accepted in 2001 to be filed within its jurisdiction, brings the matter of U.S. grossly misguided and manipulative treatment of Hawaii to the fore. In other words, to treat the Hawaiian Islands as one of the political sub units within its domain is in opposition to legal fact. In reality, the United States should be fulfilling its obligations to a colleague, a member state within the international community of nations which it recognized as such in the 1840's along with France and Great Britain. There is a substantial difference in the definition of these islands as Nation-State which it is or as State of Hawaii which it is not.
The so-called Statehood of Hawaii has impacted my life, changed it, modified it so that far from being a happy camper under U.S. affiliation I am someone who must straddle the great divide as best I can.
I am grateful, Hawaii Public Radio, for the invitation you have presented me to express my convictions, even though they may seem politically incorrect to our Islands-wide community radio station, its staff and its board of directors."
Keahi Felix
Keaau, Island of Hawai`i