Former President Bill Clinton signed an official apology to the State of Hawaii on November 23, 1993. The drastic overthrow of the Hawaiian government on January 17, 1893 led to a century of rough tensions between native Hawaiians and American cultivators. The United States Government saw Hawaii as a financial investment along with a strategic location for global expansion. Instead of a typical democratic transition, the American government employed a vicious business takeover.The consequences of these actions caused many influential Hawaiians to bitter towards American politics and foreign investors. When the 100 year anniversary loomed, a Hawaiian state Senator demanded an apology from the government. Bill Clinton was the president at the time and therefore was the leader at the time to sign the official document.
Although symbolic, many felt that this did not heal all the wounds and was merely an easy out for the government to forget and move on. I know from traveling to Hawaii that there is still a lingering bias for Americans from native Hawaiians. Many of their beaches are ran by "locals" and will physically cause harm to tourists for trying to enjoy the water.
The apology itself seemed genuine and in the end, there might not be much more that America could really do to apologize. Nonetheless, the apology was needed, this was an action very much out of the ordinary of common American politics and was a product of the time and a creation of the industrial complex forming within American society.
For More Information: http://www.hawaii-nation.org/publawsum.html
This is a very interesting topic that I never knew about before. Were there any reparations made to Hawaii at this time or was it simply a document of apology?
ReplyDeleteive been to hawaii a lot and have not noticed any of the bias towards americans and certainly never the threat of physical harm. i never realized they were still so upset about this.
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