My favorite sentence from Hawaii’s Story is “So it happens that, overawed by the power of the United States to the extent that they can neither themselves throw off the usurpers, nor obtain assistance from other friendly states, the people of the Islands have no voice in determining their future, but are virtually relegated to the condition of the aborigines of the American continent.” I chose this sentence because in reading the text of Hawaii’s history and learning how it became a part of the US, I greatly sympathized with the victimized and even kidnapped people of Hawaii. However, being a native-born American citizen I have long been exposed to and believed the hoopla surrounding the peaceful and mutual joining of the two nations resulting in a fantastic travel destination for Americans. However my attention was drawn to this particular sentence because it utilized the common sentiment of modern times that European settlers greatly mistreated and stole from the Native peoples who were inhabiting this land prior to their discovery of it. I thought it was genius on the part of the Queen to play on this sentiment because not everyone, due to the misinformation given out to the public as expressed by her in previous chapters, may have felt any sympathy for the people of Hawaii and they may have even gone as far as to think they were doing Hawaii a favor by taking it on as a fellow state. But to compare the experiences of the Hawaiian natives to that of the indisputably cruel treatment and land theft experienced by the Indians of America may have evoked a second thought in the minds of those in support of the US taking control over the island. Even the choice of calling the “Indians” aborigines, meaning the original or native flora of a region, evokes some type of emotion to reconsider one’s position on the subject matter of the US’s greedy, power hungry ways.
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