For Hawaiian Statehood Day: A Tribute to the Aloha State

The third Friday in August is celebrated annually as Hawaiian Statehood Day. This year it just so happens to fall on the 80th anniversary of V-J Day, reminding us that the war with Japan began with that nation’s attack on Pearl Harbor.

Hawaii was the most recent state to join the union, becoming the 50th one on August 21, 1959. This was six years before I was born, and it has always driven me crazy that the politicians seemed to cap it off after that, which has always felt to me like an unspoken declaration that the nation had stopped growing. There are numerous obvious candidates for future states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico in particular (both of which the current President has egregiously insulted and worse over the course of his two administrations). Most of the remaining territories are too tiny to merit senatorial representation, I should think! But perhaps they could be bundled into a single entity. Purely as a talking point, formerly occupied that could have been on the table in the past theoretically for potential statehood have included Cuba, The Philippines, most of the nations of Central America, parts of Canada and Mexico, and other islands in the Pacific and the Caribbean. There have been times in the past when some of these regions might have been glad to have partaken of some of the benefits of American statehood. I doubt that now would be ones of those times (in fact, to the contrary, in recent years many within the present borders of the U.S. have been howling for secession! But I digress.)

Today we add Hawaii to our series of posts devoted to particular American states, joining the motley, seemingly random collection that currently includes New Jersey, Florida, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Iowa, Ohio, and Wisconsin.

I have already written a bit here about the ukulele and its importance in American pop culture.

This is a good place too to celebrate Joseph Kekuku (1875-1932), born 150 years ago this year. Kekuku was the inventor of the steel guitar which, like the uke, is a Hawaiian adaptation of a Spanish instrument that later became wildly popular in American music. He performed in vaudeville during the oughts and teens with Kekuku’s Hawaiian Quintet. Starting in 1919 he embarked on an eight year European tour as a musician with the 1912 play The Bird of Paradise, which was later adapted into Hollywood movies in 1932 and 1951.

Hawaiian guitar and uke are staples of what is called hapa haole, a hybrid of Hawaiian and American styles. Its influence can be heard in all kinds of American pop music, especially Tin Pan Alley, jazz and blues of the ’20s and ’30s, country music, and western swing. Some early hapa haole artists include Sonny Cunha and Johnny Noble.

Movies with Hawaiian themes and settings came in phases. In the classic era there were Hula (1927) with Clara Bow; Waikiki Wedding (1937) with Bing Crosby, Bob Burns, and Martha Raye; Charlie Chan in Honolulu (1938); Honolulu (1939) with Robert Young, Eleanor Powell, and Burns and Allen; and Honolulu Lu (1941) with Lupe Velez and Leo Carrillo. And who can forget “Honolulu Baby”, the big song from Laurel and Hardy’s Sons of the Desert(1933) as performed by Ty Parvis? What’s that? You did? You did forget that?

Around the time of statehood and afterward there were such things as Ma and Pa Kettle at Waikiki (1955), the Elvis Presley movies Blue Hawaii (1962) and Paradise Hawaiian Style (1966); and Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961); as well as dramas like Diamond Head (1962) with Charlton Heston; James Michener’sHawaii (1966) with Julie Andrews,Richard Harris, and Max Von Sydow; and The Hawaiians (1970), also based on the Michener book, with Heston again starring.

The detective show Hawaiian Eye (1959-63) seemed to hitch itself to the buzz around statehood, later to be followed by Hawaii Five O (1968-1980, with a reboot 2010-2020) and Magnum P.I. (1980-88). And let’s not forget where the three hour cruise on Gilligan’s Island originated from! Wait! You did? You did forget that?

Just two days ago, I posted about a singer who was tasked for decades with representing Hawaii in mainstream pop culture, crooner Don Ho.

The first season of White Lotus did a terrific job of reminding us Hawaii’s colonial past, and how it manifests even now. Disney has produced Lilo and Stitch (2002, 2025) and Moana (2016). There is even a form of Hawaiian hip hop called Nā mele paleoleo. And even as I pen this, there is a brand new tv series on Apple TV called Chief of War (2025) starring Jason Momoa as warrior Kaʻiana.

This little squib hardly does justice to the great state of Hawaii or the people native to those islands, but, hey, this is primarily a show biz and pop culture blog, and one aimed at a general readership at that. If you’re looking for “deep dives”, talk to these guys: