by Nathan Wada

Created on: August 17, 2009

LOCATION: Lahaina, Maui. August 20, 1959. The day before Hawaii became the 50th state.

CHARACTERS

NATE: a 21-year-old man of Hawaiian-Portuguese descent. Nate subscribes to the legitimacy of the Hawaiian monarchy and is opposed to statehood.

PUNAHELE: Nate's 19-year-old sister. Punahele is back on Maui on summer break from her freshman year at UC-Berkeley.

(The sun is setting on West Maui's Lahaina coast. Nate and Punahele are collecting seaweed for a luau. Nate stops to observe the sunset.)

NATE: (wistfully) When that thing goes down again tomorrow, Hawaii won't be Hawaii anymore. A glorious epoch of gods and kings expires.

PUNAHELE: How you figure? If not Hawaii, what will it be then? Tahiti?

NATE: You know what I mean, 'Hele. I'm being serious. Hawaii will be just some dingy pile o' rocks for Einsenhower and his minions to harvest, plow, flip for a profit and parcel off to the Japanese and to England. Wanton colonialism strikes again in the name of "progress."

PUNAHELE: (soberly) Nate, what do you base all of this on? And what's really going on with you? I mean, Hawaii's been a U.S. territory since 1898, so why have your anti-American rumblings picked up so much momentum recently?

NATE: Yeah, but that's different. Now we belong to America. Now we ARE America. Why couldn't it have just taken Puerto Rico instead and left us as a territory? At least then we'd still be free.

PUNAHELE: Nate, this word you use, this "free," what does it mean to you exactly?

NATE: (warily) Free means free, lil' sis. I don't need to go to your UC-Broccoli to know that.

Freedom means being master and commander of one's own domain. Freedom means that the sun sets on the Hawaiian's Hawaii and rises in the morning on the same. Freedom means I ain't forced to pledge allegiance to no stupid flag and country I decidedly have no allegiance for. Freedom means that the rightful descendants of our kings and queens are still sitting in Iolani Palace and doling out wisdom and prosperity to their people. Freedom means that Hawaii gets to, deserves to - NEEDS to - be Hawaii.

PUNAHELE: (with measured cadence and tone) Nate, just listen to your language: "master," "commander," "domain," "allegiance," "kings, "queens," "their people." You're talking as if Freedom is something to be possessed; a commodity, an instrument, a thing.

Under your terms, Freedom is just something to be bartered between and transfered to the ruling powers that be. By your definition Hawaii was never

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