Act of War

“Act of War” is a documentary about how the United States of America overthrew the Hawaiian monarch and how they illegally took their land and mistreat their people. Watching it in class with a bunch of people who have never seen this movie before is interesting to someone who grew up here but it's not considered native. I've seen this movie over five times and each time it's hard to watch the wrong doings of a country I love. It's important to be educated about the past and to talk about these things so it doesn't happen again. Watching this with the group of people I could hear and see how shocked they were to find out what happened but, growing up knowing about this it's almost second nature to be aware of the past and why things are the way they are today with poverty, race relations, and many more issues. It's important to hear the stories and learn from this and to be able to grow from this understanding. Hawaii may be our most diverse state mainly of people with Asian and Polynesian heritage coming from all over. The treatment of Hawaiians is reminiscing of the Native Americans in the mainland both having their land taken and their culture changed drastically. It is sad but in some pockets, you can see people trying to make it right letting people express their culture and some trying to win land back and in some cases winning. I can't say how Hawaii would've turned out without America but, I know also know a few locals here who are proud and serve in the Armed Forces as well as practice their ancestral traditions and help build their communities. This was an atrocity and a black mark on the United States and nothing like that should ever happen again and it's important for people to continue to talk about these types of things and to educate the public on wrongs that have been done to others. I encourage you to look further into this subject it may be hard, unconfutable, or depressing but not doing it leaves us at risk to repeat or forget those who fought for their homes and loved one. There are a lot of places to do research like the libraries, state archives, even going to the ‘Iolani Palace.