Today in Hawai‘i is Statehood Day or Admission Day. It is a holiday for the State of Hawai‘i set for the third Friday in August. It is supposed to commemorate the anniversary of when Hawai‘i was admitted to the American Union in 1959.

On March 18, 1959, the U.S. Congress enacted a statute called An Act To provide for the admission of the State of Hawaii into the Union. This Act of Congress began the process where Hawai‘i would eventually be admitted into the Union. On August 21, 1959, the third Friday of August, U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed a proclamation making Hawai‘i the 50th State. With the unveiling of a more accurate and objectively true history, the State of Hawai‘i never legally existed in the first place.

In 1999, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, in Larsen v. Hawaiian Kingdom, recognized the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom as an independent State since the 19th century. And in 2024, Oxford University Press published a chapter by Dr. Keanu Sai “Hawai‘i’s Sovereignty and Survival in the Age of Empire,” in H.E. Chehabi and David Motadel’s book Unconquered States: Non-European Powers in the Imperial Age. In this chapter Dr. Sai covers: the legal and political history of my country—the Hawaiian Kingdom; the evolution of governance as a constitutional monarchy; the unlawful overthrow of the government by United States troops in 1893; the prolonged American occupation since 1893; the restoration of the government of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1997; and the recognition, by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in 1999, of the continued existence of the Hawaiian Kingdom as a State and the Council of Regency as its provisional government. Because the Hawaiian Kingdom currently exists as a State under international law, the State of Hawai‘i cannot simultaneously exist as a State under American law.

In a recently uploaded interview on the podcast called KalikoVision, with host Kaliko Castille, Dr. Sai explains why Hawai‘i was never acquired by the United States and why the State of Hawai‘i does not legally exist.