The state House Tourism and Culture Committee unanimously approved a bill yesterday to create a 12-member commission to plan and coordinate the 2009 event, which could cost $250,000.

There hasn't been a lot of noise at public hearings on the measure, but rumblings have already started among independent-minded Hawaiians, a vocal minority that sees statehood as a painful reminder of what they have lost in terms of culture, language, land and sovereignty.

"They shouldn't be celebrating it," said Haunani-Kay Trask, a professor of Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawai'i. "It's celebrating a tragedy that befell the Hawaiian people, which was the overthrow and annexation."
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Vincent Pollard, editor of the Hawai'i Politics WWW Virtual Library, suggested changing the word "celebrate" to "investigate," in his written testimony.

"The verb 'celebrate' ... is premature. It prejudices the discussion," he wrote.
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Opponent Rickard Kinney of the Hawaiian Political Action Council of Hawai'i put an ironic twist on this viewpoint in his written testimony, arguing that only Hawai'i's wealthy have benefitted by statehood while many Hawaiians have been forced into homelessness and have died while waiting for promised homes on the Hawaiian Homestead waitlist.

"Like the Territory of Hawai'i, the State of Hawai'i is just an ongoing perpetuation of the wrongs that (were) committed against a friendly nation, its constitutional sovereign and the indigenous native Hawaiian people whose only fault may have been in having too much trust in the United States," he wrote.

Trask said she is not sure what would be appropriate in lieu of a celebration.

"We don't need any more apologies," she said. "People who celebrate statehood are proud to be a state. We're on opposite sides. Any time there's any commemoration of that sort, it reminds people like me that we were once an independent country and we are no more."