History UsefulNotes / Hawaii

* '''Niʻihau''': "The Forbidden Isle", located just southwest of Kauaʻi and part of Kauaʻi County, with a population numbering just under 200, mainly in one settlement on the western coast (Puʻuwai). Privately owned and a RealLife example of a HiddenElfVillage, it's difficult for tourists to secure permission to visit. A preserve for traditional indigenous Hawaiian culture and the Hawaiian language (of which it has a distinctive dialect), only native Hawaiians (meaning the Polynesian natives, not just natural-born citizens of Hawaiʻi) are allowed to travel to Niʻihau for anything longer than a brief tour. It's looked upon by many Hawaiians as the state's hidden gem.

[[caption-width-right:340:Way, way more than simply HulaAndLuaus, pineapple, pork, rum, macadamia nuts, ukuleles, golf, Pearl Harbor, fire dancers, excess consumption of SPAM, and linen pants.]]

* '''Hawaiʻi''': "The Big Island", for being... [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin big]]. The southeasternmost island in the entire chain and larger than all of the other islands combined, it's the largest Polynesian island outside of UsefulNotes/NewZealand, and is also bigger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined. It shares its name with the rest of the chain because of King Kamehameha the Great, who first united the islands under his rule at the turn of the 19th Century, was originally a chief from this island. To avoid confusion, it will usually be referred to by its nickname or as "the island of Hawaiʻi". It is home to three of the five remaining active volcanoes in the Hawaiian chain: Kilauea, currently the most active volcano in the world, Hualālai, and Mauna Loa (the fourth, Kamaʻehuakanaloa,[[note]]renamed from Loʻihi in 2021[[/note]] is currently building itself up on the seafloor roughly twenty miles off the Big Island's southeast coast and is predicted to breach the ocean surface sometime between 10,000 and 100,000 years from now). A dormant volcano, Mauna Kea, is the location of one of the most important astronomical observation sites in the world, and it is the highest mountain in the state (also the world, if you measure it from the seafloor--TakeThat, Everest). It is also the source of the world-famous Kona Coffee blend.

The state has a unique governmental structure. Specifically, it has no cities. The only legally constituted governments below the state level are its five counties. And actually, only four have locally run governments. Kalawao County, which consists of a former leper colony, is run by the state's health department, with most public services provided through Maui County, and it's part of a judicial district that includes the City and County of Honolulu.[[labelnote:Aside]]The colony was officially closed in 1969, once antibiotic treatments for Hansen's disease (the affliction commonly referred to as leprosy) allowed it to be managed on an outpatient basis. Most of the residents, fearing ostracism due to having been disfigured by the disease, wished to stay. The state agreed to allow existing residents to remain. No new residents are allowed, and those younger than 16 are prohibited from visiting unless they're relatives of residents.[[/labelnote]] Speaking of Honolulu, the area that most people think of as "Honolulu" is merely the main urban core of the City and County... which not only includes Oʻahu, but also all of the state's smaller islands that lie northwest of Kauaʻi and Niʻihau. All populated places in the state are classified by the U.S. Census Bureau as "census-designated places" ([=CDPs=]). Another quirk about Hawaiʻi is its [[UsefulNotes/AmericanEducationalSystem K–12 education system]]. Unlike the other states, where public education through the secondary level is operated by local school districts (or, in Virginia, an arm of the local government), the state government directly operates all public schools. Geography side-note here: Hawaiʻi is unique among the states in having no straight-lines anywhere on its boundary (due to just being the shores of the islands) and for being the only state not geographically located in North America (it's technically part of Oceania). Still another unique quirk is that all gambling is banned, a policy that existed prior to statehood. The only other (state-level) US jurisdiction that does not allow gambling in any form is UsefulNotes/{{Utah}}.

Hawaiʻi is, by most metrics, the most racially diverse state in the U.S., and its residents are generally divided into three categories: Native Hawaiians, the indigenous population of the islands; Locals, which refers to the descendants of those who were brought in to work on the sugar plantations (Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos, Portuguese) as well as ''other'' Polynesians (whether descended from sugar workers or not); and Haoles, which is a mild slur for non-local Caucasian people, the connotations of which imply a lack of connection with the land and its culture. People of Asian descent comprise the largest racial demographic in the state. Hawaiʻi is home to a sizeable Japanese American community, thanks mainly to its relative proximity to {{UsefulNotes/Japan}}, which also sends over lots of tourists (and the reason for the prevalence of the aforementioned tropes in Japanese media as well; most Japanese who talk about having been to America mean they once went to Hawaiʻi on a package tour). Since the early [[The20thCentury 20th Century]], [[UsefulNotes/{{Philippines}} Filipino]] Americans have also made the islands their home (second only to California in terms of total numbers), thanks in part to the Philippines' past as U.S. territory. As a result, Tagalog and Ilokano have become one of the most widely-spoken languages in the State (alongside Japanese) outside English. Despite being largely rural, Hawaiʻi is generally politically liberal and is one of the only states without a marked disparity between the politics of its rural and urban areas.

Hawaiʻi is, by most metrics, the most racially diverse state in the U.S., and its residents are generally divided into three categories: Native Hawaiians, the indigenous population of the islands; Locals, which refers to the descendants of those who were brought in to work on the sugar plantations (Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos, Portuguese) as well as ''other'' Polynesians (whether descended from sugar workers or not); and Haoles, which is a mild slur for non-local Caucasian people, the connotations of which imply a lack of connection with the land and its culture. People of Asian descent comprise the largest racial demographic in the state. Hawaiʻi is home to a sizeable Japanese American community, thanks mainly to its relative proximity to Japan, which also sends over lots of tourists (and the reason for the prevalence of the aforementioned tropes in Japanese media as well; most Japanese who talk about having been to America mean they once went to Hawaiʻi on a package tour). Since the early 20th Century, [[UsefulNotes/{{Philippines}} Filipino]] Americans have also made the islands their home (second only to California in terms of total numbers), thanks in part to the Philippines' past as U.S. territory. As a result, Tagalog and Ilokano have become one of the most widely-spoken languages in the State (alongside Japanese) outside English. Despite being largely rural, Hawaiʻi is generally politically liberal and is one of the only states without a marked disparity between the politics of its rural and urban areas.

While Hawaiʻi residents[[note]]The term "Hawaiian" almost exclusively refers to Native Hawaiians, rather than just anyone who's from or lives in the state.[[/note]] consider themselves to be as American as those from the Continental 48, they tend to avoid many of the Eagleland tropes. The 44th President of the United States, UsefulNotes/BarackObama, was born and raised in Hawaiʻi. Given the general distaste for the circumstances of the annexation, there is an active movement for Hawaiian sovereignty, with advocates emphasizing the illegality and colonialism of the annexation. [[WeAREStrugglingTogether However, disagreement over exactly what sovereignty would entail or how to achieve it has prevented much significant progress in this direction.]]

Despite these feuds, Hawaiʻi stayed as an independent nation... that is, until 1898, when the Hawaiian monarchy was overthrown by sugar barons backed by the [[SemperFi U.S. Marines]].[[note]]In 1993, the U.S. Federal Government formally apologized for their hand in the overthrow.[[/note]] The island chain was then annexed by the United States, who decided they weren't going to let this much-desired Pearl of the Pacific get into the grasp of anyone else. Spending about six decades as a U.S. Territory, the most notable event that transpired upon the Islands was being the site of the Pearl Harbor Naval Base, whose bombing by the Japanese brought the United States into UsefulNotes/WorldWarII. The stories of the islands brought home by U.S. servicemen in the Pacific War sparked a CyclicNationalFascination with Hawaiʻi (and Polynesian culture more broadly) from the late '40s to well into the '60s. [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiki_culture "Tiki culture"]] took off with the 1947 ''Kon-Tiki'' expedition and the 1948 Creator/JamesMichener short story collection ''Literature/TalesOfTheSouthPacific'' (loosely adapted the following year into the musical ''Theatre/SouthPacific'') and continued with the pseudo-tropical "exotica" music genre and a slew of "fun in the sun" movies set on Pacific islands. This popularity contributed significantly to the islands gaining statehood in 1959, which combined with the rise of cheap air travel to embed Hawaiʻi in American pop culture as a pleasure resort, a status that managed to outlast the Polynesian craze. (The trope of the former GI running a tiki stand in paradise can still be found in some works.)