A world where each American state is a free country in the 1930's.

Less than half the population of Hawaii was native Hawaiin in the 1930's. Unless there's a revolution going on, then the White dominated territorial government would be controlling Hawaii when this break up of the Union went down.

I'm not sure exactly how big the population was in comparison to its food producing capabilities back then, but current Hawaii can't sustain its population now without importing food. Not to mention defense of the islands against any of the big players would be impractical even if Hawaii claimed the entire Pacific Fleet. An independent Hawaii would be no better off that an independent New Jersey, they'd both either forever be at the mercy of their bigger neighbors.

Kind of? British influence doesn't seem to be very strong, since James Cook only visited the islands twice. And the second time ended in trying to hold the king of Hawaii Island for ransom because he was sick and not thinking right, so he got himself killed.

Edit to add: Everyone seems to be thinking in terms of "all the countries must be absolutely self-sufficient right at the moment of splintering to get a shot at sustainability." Surely it would take a decade or two for the states to "settle" into their new status as nations.

Plus, I didn't mean they'd tell EVERY white person to fuck off—just the ones that leech off their economy and resources. Plus, they have a HUGE Asian population that would help out a lot with numbers—this is why the Japanese-American internment wasn't feasible in Hawaii, because it was going to wreck the economy.

Plus again, trading for food is what EVERYONE would eventually have to do without being really tiny or low-population agrarian states. I don't think EITHER half of California could sustain their populations without a lot of food imports.

edited 7th Sep '16 8:09:54 PM by Sharysa

It's not that big countries are better, its that big countries are better at defending their territory against other big countries. Hawaii's history kind of bears this out. It was an independent nation only when some larger power wasn't paying the wrong kind of attention to it. It's not that they couldn't eventually be self sufficient, either, it's a question of whether or not the world powers in question want to give them the time. It'd be kind of iffy for them to have Imperial Japan looking askance at them when they don't have the US (or England, or whomever) to fall back on.

Yeah, I've heard that about the internment issue, that they felt Hawaii's Asian population was too large to inter. To add further irony, the only recorded incidence of sabotage of any kind by a Japanese-American was in Hawaii.

Remember as well, though, that Asians and Polynesians are two different groups. They had quite a bit of racial animosity between them in the 30's (and still do, for that matter). Asians have exploited Polynesians nearly as much as Europeans have.

aren't we gonna talk about what op posted? where did this Hawaii hoopla come from?

Hawaii is a US state.

Yeah, these are problems likely to crop up when the individual states no longer have the support of a larger nation.

Robbery: Oh, irony.

On a cultural standpoint, while Asian exploitation isn't that fun, American colonization has had a REALLY strong impact. Caucasians are actually a minority in Hawaii, yet they're still building too many fancy hotels, getting most of the revenue from said hotels and the tourism industry in general, and throwing commercialized "Hawaiian" cultural events that actually make a lot of Native Hawaiians ignore their heritage.

Ewolf: You can't really do a basic formula of "these states would be independent nations because of X or Y, and these states would cease to exist because Z." There's a LOT of factors to take in, like Hawaii's insidious problem with colonialism.

And I just remembered Texas and Arizona would get some problems with Central America/Mexico potentially trying to "get them back."

edited 8th Sep '16 8:57:52 PM by Sharysa

A lot of native Hawaiians have emigrated to the mainland US, because, as a Samoan/Hawaiian co-worker of mine told me, it's now very difficult for working people to live in Hawaii. Cost of living is pretty high, and property values are such as to make it difficult for most people to own land.

That, too. I have a lot of Hawaiian friends as well and I found out a few years back that a lot of natives can't even get jobs in their own damn homeland. It's fucked. :(