Muted commemoration as Hawaii turns 50 as a state

HONOLULU (AP) - Hawaii welcomed its entry as the 50th state with a new postage stamp Friday but independence supporters marked the day with passionate protest - including an effigy of Uncle Sam being beaten and Hawaii's star cut out from the U.S. flag.

State leaders called Friday's events a "commemoration" of Hawaii's 50 years of statehood rather than a "celebration" out of respect to Native Hawaiians and their unresolved claims since the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom.

A few hundred Native Hawaiians marched through the street of downtown Honolulu with an effigy of a 15-foot Uncle Sam holding machine guns and riding in a tank made of cardboard. They chanted in Hawaiian, blew on conch shells, waved ti leaves, carried upside-down Hawaii state flags and yelled, "We are not Americans! We want our country back!"

At the end of the march, protesters knocked off Uncle Sam's hat, which contained a U.S. flag from which they cut out a star that represented Hawaii. They lit the star on fire and held it up to a crowd yelling "freedom."

"We were never the 50th state," said Kaleo Farias, one of protesters that cut the U.S. flag. "It was an illusion, fabrication, something that was told to us that never happened. ... We're not part of the United States."

The events commemorating Hawaii's 1959 admission into the union have been light on flag-waving and parades. Instead, they have focused on the state's economic future with panel discussions on tourism, alternative energy and Hawaiian rights.

Outside the Hawaii Convention Center, the protesters argued that Hawaii's statehood was never legal and that the islands should return to its status as a sovereign nation.

Lynette Cruz, an organizer of the march, said the demonstration was recognizing that, "the United States has engaged in imperialism forever. The idea of building a state on top of a wrong doesn't make sense."

President Barack Obama, who was born in the state, signed a proclamation marking the anniversary and said that in his youth he learned from Hawaii's diversity and how different cultures, blended together into one population, were made stronger by their shared sense of community.

The proclamation said: "The Aloha Spirit of Hawaii offers hope and opportunity for all Americans."

The postage stamp, available nationwide, shows a painting of a longboard surfer and two paddlers in an outrigger canoe.