Happy Belated Birthday, Hawaii

By: Miriam Edelman

On August 21, 2024, Hawaii, the last state to join the U.S., turned 65 years old. There has never been such a long gap between the entry of two states into the United States. The longest time between two states joining our nation was almost 47 years (between February 14, 1912, when Arizona became a state and January 3, 1959, when Alaska because a state). It is time for the U.S. to gain another state, D.C.

In 1959, Hawaii became a state more than 60 years after Hawaii’s monarchy was overthrown. On January 17, 1893, Caucasian planters and businessmen overthrew Queen Lili’uokalani, Hawaii’s last monarch. Although President Grover Cleveland supported the Queen and condemned the coup, the provisional government created the Republic of Hawaii and immediately wanted to be annexed. In July 1898, the United States annexed Hawaii. In 1900,  Hawaii gained self-governance.

Although statehood for Hawaii was on the minds of people since at least 1894, Hawaii did not become a state for more than 50 years. During his inauguration address, Hawaii’s first Governor Sanford Dole discussed statehood. On February 11, 1919, the first bill to make Hawaii a state was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives, but it did not make it past a committee. By 1940, around 66.6 percent of Hawaii voters supported statehood. Eventually, in 1959, Hawaii became a state.

According to scholars, Hawaii did not become a state sooner because of “discrimination against the islands’ substantial non-white population.” As Roger Bell wrote in Last Among Equals: Hawaiian Statehood and American Politics (1984):

After 1957 most Southerners felt it politic to adopt conciliatory rhetoric when opposing civil rights or related bills in Congress. Nonetheless, in 1959 Thurmond and other intractable opponents continued to criticize Hawaii’s admission on racial grounds. He conceded that “the Japanese are as truly moral as any other race of civilized human beings,” and accepted that societies could coexist, despite differences in “heritages” and “outlooks.” However, Thurmond argued, Rudyard Kipling had been correct when he wrote “the immortal words ‘East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.’” As Asians and Hawaiians constituted more than 70 percent of Hawaii’s population, and as these groups had a heritage and culture “fundamentally different” from that of the West, the senator concluded, statehood should not be granted. Some House opponents were equally convinced that Hawaii’s racial composition made statehood impossible. Howard Smith argued simply that Hawaii would be a “foreign state.” “With a population so radically different from the rest of the United States,” another Southerner asserted, “[Hawaii] cannot possibly qualify as one of the United States.” 5 Supporters of segregation and white supremacy remained reluctant to grant full and equal citizenship rights to any Americans who were nonwhite.

Similarly, although a main argument against statehood for Washington, D.C., is that it is a Democratic power play, race plays a role in D.C. autonomy, as Washington, D.C., has a plurality African-American population. According to the ACLU, which labeled D.C. statehood as “a Racial Justice Issue,” Congress conducted racial suppression against African-Americans in Washington, D.C. Congress overrode President Andrew Johnson’s 1867 veto of a bill granting the right to vote to D.C.’s adults. Then, as African-Americans began to vote, Congress turned D.C.’s territorial government to a government of three presidentially-appointed commissioners. During the 1900s, as Washington, D.C., became more African-American, fewer Caucasians supported home rule for the District of Columbia. According to witnesses at Congressional hearings, many Caucasian Washingtonians were scared that “if we get home rule, the Negroes will take over the city.” Some Members of Congress said that racist opposition to home rule was “one of the silent obstacles to passage.”

Racism still plays a role in D.C. autonomy issues. In 2021 in The Washington Post, Kyla Sommers wrote the following, “The continued power of Congress over the District’s affairs is rooted in this same fear of Black power and racist belief that a majority-non-White populace is incapable of independently governing itself.”

Race should be irrelevant in terms of statehood. The racial makeup of states does not make a difference. For comparison sake, in 2022, the United States was 57.7 percent Caucasian, 11.7 percent African-American, 19.2 percent Hispanic, 5.8 percent Asian, 0.5 Percent American Indian or Alaska Native, and 0.2 percent Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. Many states do not look like the U.S. in terms of racial/ethnicity diversity (or lack of diversity). For example:

-          Hawaii is the least-Caucasian state (by percent of population) with a population that is 19.5 percent Caucasian, 1.1 percent African-American, 10.8 2 percent Hispanic, 35.9 percent Asian, 0.1 Percent American Indian or Alaska Native, and 9.49 percent Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander.

-          Vermont and West Virginia are the most Caucasian states (by percent of population). They each have a population that is 90.4 percent Caucasian.

-          The nation’s most populous states in 2023 were California and Texas. In 2022, each of those states had a population that was less than 39 percent Caucasian:

o   California – 33.7 percent Caucasian

o   Texas – 38.9 percent Caucasian

Yet, no one says that those states should not be states because of their racial makeup. Thus, D.C.’s being plurality African-American should not be a reason why D.C. should not become a state.

Racial composition does not seem to affect whether the state is mainly Democratic or Republican. The two most Caucasian states are a Democratic state (Vermont) and a Republican state (West Virginia). The two most populous states, each of whom have a population that is less than 39 percent Caucasian, are a Democratic state (California) and a Republican state (Texas).

It is way past time for D.C. to become the U.S.'s 51st state. Extreme Congressional interference during this Congress, 2023-2024, shows the importance of D.C. statehood. Let’s rectify this civil rights issue before the United States turns 250 years old in July 2026.