It's because Hawaiians are considered to be little brown people and Alaska is 95% white? Just out of curiosity, when one hears the word "Southerner" do you think of Strom thurmond or do you think of Martin Luther King? I would bet my house that Strom comes to mind first. Penn's memo whispers about and seeks to exploit the 800 pound elephant in the Democratic living room. That people of color, including those who greeted the European explorers to this continent, are not considered "real" Americans. Whether he was brainstorming or channeling Jesse Helms it is interesting that they were so willing to use that xenophobia as an issue with which to subcert the fortunes of a rising Democratic star.

Thanks for raising that issue, Greg B. The majority of Hawaii's residents are ethnically Asian or part Asian. After the tragic decimation of Native Hawaiians due to introduced diseases by foreigners, the population had to be supplemented by immigration from China, Japan, the Phillippines and numerous other nations so that white opportunists could grow sugar and get rich off the backs of cheap labor.

The legacy of this turn of events has led to Hawaii's multicultural makeup, in which, by popular opinion, people of a wide variety of ethnicities live together and get along quite well. Its citizens, both native and those whose families have been in the islands for many generations, started businesses, served in the military, etc deserve better than having their worth as Americans questioned.

mondaygirl:

Thanks for raising that issue, Greg B. The majority of Hawaii's residents are ethnically Asian or part Asian. After the tragic decimation of Native Hawaiians due to introduced diseases by foreigners, the population had to be supplemented by immigration from China, Japan, the Phillippines and numerous other nations so that white opportunists could grow sugar and get rich off the backs of cheap labor.

The legacy of this turn of events has led to Hawaii's multicultural makeup, in which, by popular opinion, people of a wide variety of ethnicities live together and get along quite well. Its citizens, both native and those whose families have been in the islands for many generations, started businesses, served in the military, etc deserve better than having their worth as Americans questioned.

Hawaii's history doesn't make Hawaii any worse a place than the heartland of America, but it does make it culturally distinct and atypical of mainstream America.