Saturday, July 7, 2012

This Day in History August 7, 1898

I had no idea that today's feature happened, and it really doesn't sound like it was a very nice thing that the U.S. did to Hawaii.  It was on this date that President McKinley signed the joint resolution called the " Newlands Resolution" (named after the Congressman who wrote this resolution (who was a noted racist!).  This resolution annexed Hawaii to the U.S., and that ended Hawaii's freedom and monarchy.  The picture above depicts what Hawaiians did when this happened--they mourned their freedom.

But a few days later on July 12, the flag of the Hawaii was lowered so that the U.S. flag could be raised.  I am not too familiar with everything surrounding this issue, but it somehow does not seem very nice.  It seems like we tended to think that we had the right to do such things to other peoples.  We did things like this to the Native Americans, African Americans, and so many more.  It seems to me that we forgot why we came to this country originally.  We came here for freedom from tyranny.  So why did we go around and subject other peoples to the kind of tyranny we tried to escape?

I will admit that I don't know everything about our history, but when I read about some of the things that the U.S. did (especially white Americans), I feel very ashamed of my heritage.  I would love to say that racism and prejudice are over, but I know that unfortunately, these things still exist in our country.  The best thing we can do is teach our young people about what really happened so that things like this never happen again.

For more information, please check out:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii#Annexation.E2.80.94the_Territory_of_Hawaii_.281898.E2.80.931959.29
http://www.chemistrydaily.com/chemistry/Newlands_Resolution
http://hookele.com/non-hawaiians/newlands.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territory_of_Hawaii
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_G._Newlands
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annexation_of_Hawaii

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