{"id":401064,"date":"2019-03-24T01:18:22","date_gmt":"2019-03-24T00:18:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/60-years-ago-racists-in-congress-nearly-cost-hawaii-statehood-consortiumnews\/"},"modified":"2019-03-24T01:18:22","modified_gmt":"2019-03-24T00:18:22","slug":"60-years-ago-racists-in-congress-nearly-cost-hawaii-statehood-consortiumnews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/60-years-ago-racists-in-congress-nearly-cost-hawaii-statehood-consortiumnews\/","title":{"rendered":"60 Years Ago, Racists in Congress Nearly Cost Hawaii Statehood \u2013 Consortiumnews"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Racism in the U.S. Congress nearly derailed Hawaii becoming the 50th state, as Sarah Miller Davenport reports. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

By Sarah Miller Davenport<\/span><\/a>
<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>University of Sheffield<\/a><\/em>
<\/strong>The Conversation<\/a>\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

S<\/strong><\/span>ixty years ago, Dwight Eisenhower<\/span><\/a> signed legislation making Hawaii America\u2019s 50th state. The Hawaii admission act followed a centuries-old tradition in which American territories \u2013acquired through war, conquest and purchase \u2013 became fully integrated states of the union.<\/span><\/p>\n

But Hawaii was not an ordinary United States territory and would be unlike any other American state.<\/span><\/p>\n

For one, Hawaii was not actually in America, at least not physically. Its islands lay in the Pacific, some 2,000 miles from the U.S. west coast.<\/span><\/p>\n

And Hawaii would become the first state with a majority of people of Asian descent. Many had been ineligible for U.S. citizenship<\/a><\/span> only a few years earlier, before the end of racial restrictions to naturalization.<\/span><\/p>\n

These two defining characteristics \u2013 of Hawaii\u2019s geography and demography \u2013 had led Congress to dismiss earlier bids for statehood before World War II. Hawaii was too far away and too Asian to be joined with the continental United States.<\/span><\/p>\n

Asian Migration Conduit<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

Hawaii was annexed as a U.S. territory in 1898. That was five years after white settlers in the islands overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy<\/span><\/a> to establish an American-led government.<\/span><\/p>\n

Americans had first arrived as missionaries in 1820<\/a><\/span>, and stayed on to establish sugar and pineapple plantations throughout the islands. A shortage of Hawaiian labor led them to seek workers from Asia<\/a><\/span> \u2013 first China and later Japan and the Philippines.<\/span><\/p>\n

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