So as our state celebrates its 50th anniversary this weekend, the fuss over Obama's birth certificate -- its authenticity and what it might be hiding -- has been kind of perplexing to me. The president's mother is American. His father is Kenyan. Is he an anomaly because he is of American and Hawaiian and Kenyan heritage? Exotic? Because he's from a state that isn't a state because we aren't on the mainland? Because he is from this provincial place that had been a state for only two years when he was born? For a few voices shouting loudly from the fringe, that has been enough reason to raise questions about whether he really is what he says he is.

Here, we have another question: Is Hawaii legally a state? Was the Kingdom of Hawai'i stolen? Some native Hawaiians say that, though Obama is American in the eyes of America, the real issue is that Hawaii is not a legitimate state in the union. We were a kingdom taken by force by the revolutionary Committee of Safety, which was backed by the U.S. Marines. Our queen was forced to abdicate her throne in 1893 to prevent bloodshed among her beloved subjects.

This makes Admission Day, as the statehood anniversary is sometimes known, more complicated. Robert Kanaka`ole Ebanez, one of the founders of the Hawaiian Independence Alliance, a sovereignty group, hasn't been in a mood to celebrate statehood. Ebanez believes that the bickering over the president's birth focuses on the wrong thing. To him, Obama is a legitimate Hawaiian citizen born after the "illegal overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii."