Not "A Nation of Immigrants": Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy, and a History of Erasure and Exclusion

by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

The US occupied the Philippines until 1946, while Puerto Rico today remains a colony. The US imposed statehood on Hawai’i and Alaska in 1959. Since that time, the Kanaka Maoli indigenous Hawaiians have challenged the legitimacy of statehood and organized for independence. As an island colony, Hawai’i was on the 1946 United Nations’ list for decolonization with the right of self-determination and independence, as was Puerto Rico. The US government sat on the committee at the UN in 1953 that removed Hawai’i from the list. At that time, prior to the 1960s and ‘70s independence movements in Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, the UN was primarily European and funded mainly by the United States, where its headquarters are located.