Yay!!!! Obama is spending his holiday vacation in Hawaii!

The President and his family are spending their holidays in Hawaii, which is fitting as he spent much of his childhood and high school years there. In 1999, Obama wrote, "The opportunity that Hawaii offered -- to experience a variety of cultures in a climate of mutual respect -- became an integral part of my world view, and a basis for the values that I hold most dear."

But there are some other things about Hawaii that make its history more complicated and are worth mentioning.


Throughout the 1800's, the Hawaiian Kingdom was recognized as fully independent, legitimate nation state. But in 1893, a group of elite white American men led a bloodless coup against the Hawaiian state with the support of U.S. Marines. In an environment of extreme racism and belief in Manifest Destiny, the U.S. government annexed the island nation in an illegal 1898 joint congressional resolution, against Hawaiian will. This colonized nation was already largely owned by the U.S. plantation elite, but the third of the land that was still directly belonged to the Hawaiian "crown" came under the trust of the U.S. federal government. Indigenous Hawaiians continued to fight as they suffered from continuing disease and dispossession that wreaked havoc on their population and ways of life.

The islands became the site of strategic U.S. military presence in the Pacific, today hosting the largest military complex in the world: the U.S. Pacific Command. Indeed, it was the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941 that led the U.S. into World War II, though it wasn't until 18 years later in 1959 that Hawaii was "granted" statehood (giving the Union that nice round number of 50, making the DC statehood fight that much harder - awkwardness of 51 states, etc). Teresia Teaiwa uses the following word to describe the islands' subsequent history under U.S. rule: MILITOURISM,"a phenomenon by which a military or paramilitary force ensures the smooth running of a tourist industry, and that same tourist industry masks the military force behind it" (p.252). Voila. Here we have Hawaii, the perfect home for militaries and tourists.

And here we have Obama, commander-in-chief and tourist extraordinaire.


He hugged Honolulu mayor Mufi Hannemann. That's pretty cool right! Male politicians hugging each other.


Of course, he paid his respects to soldiers stationed in Hawaii. As of 2000, there were 11,827 Marines stationed in Hawaii (and that's just Marines).


Tourist got as close as they could to the Obama beachfront, and did what tourists do: take photos of themselves.


A surfer, after he was just escorted away by the Coast Guard for drifting to close to the ObamaZone.

Hawaii is also the only state that has never had a white majority and where indigenous struggles continue to be fought against the United States government. In 1993 the US congress passed a "symbolic" resolution apologizing for the annexation of Hawaii, and ever since indigenous activists have been pressing claims for the return of the one third of Hawaiian land that U.S. federal government current owns - about 1.2 million acres (the rest is privately owned). After DECADES of litigation over this single claim, the Supreme Court unconditionally DENIED their claim THIS YEAR. Sovereignty struggles continue, though, in all their diversity and complexity.