Remembering Hawaii Statehood in Hawaii's English-Language Newspapers: How Biased Newspaper Coverage Affects Historical Narrative Creation

Abstract

The overthrow of the Hawaiian Monarchy in 1893 set off a series of events that ultimately resulted in Hawai’i becoming known as the 50th state of the United States. One of the last of these events was a referendum, a vote by residents of Hawai’i, on the Hawaii Admission Act that was signed into law by President Eisenhower in 1959. Given only the choice of accepting the act and becoming a state, or rejecting it and remaining a territory, an overwhelming majority voted in favor of the act. Over 50 years later, Hawaii Statehood remains controversial due to a belief that Hawai’i never legally became a state and that it has been illegally occupied by the United States since 1898. Although there is a consensus among scholars that the two main English-language newspapers in Hawai’i were biased in favor of Hawaii Statehood, there is little scholarship on how this media bias affects the public memory of this event.