AP’s 2005 edition has this entry under Hawaii: “Residents are Hawaiians, technically natives of Polynesian descent.” This definition has led to decades of Hawaii journalists routinely changing Mainland and foreign references to Hawaiians to Native Hawaiian when it referred to true Hawaiians and residents of Hawaii for everyone else.

AP has finally seen the light, and plans to remedy its decades-long slight by including in next year’s edition of its style book this entry: “Hawaiians are members of an ethnic group indigenous to the Hawaii Islands and are also called Native Hawaiians. Use Hawaii resident or islander for anyone living in the state.”