I was on a flight from Honolulu to Los Angeles a while back. The flight had originated in Sydney, Australia, with a stop in Tahiti....I boarded in HNL with many passengers, and a Hawaiian youth baseball team going to the mainland to play in a tournament in Texas...upon arrival in L.A., the plane captain announced to all the Australians on board.."Welcome to the U.S.". Some members of the baseball team were upset....told some of the Aussies on board that they had been in the U.S. when the plane touched down in Honolulu...my question: Is it a sore point when a mainlander makes a really stupid comment like: Back in the U.S., we do this or that...just wondering. Are tourists that ignorant about our 50th state?

-- Randy Shaffer (rshaffer@efortress.com), January 16, 1999

Answers

To some people, it matters and to others, it doesn't.

-- Billy Bosnoda (bosnoda@lava.net), January 17, 1999.

Primarily because of its geograpic isolation, Hawaii is very often excluded when speaking of the US. Local residents also regard themselves distant (culturally, geographically...) from mainland Americans. However with all of this said, I do find it annoying when there is a lack of awareness of our 50th state, especially blatant facts.

-- R Toguchi (xizhen@click2asia.com), June 20, 2001.

The thing is that when mainlanders come to Hawaii they have to lower there standards by far. Simple fact lowest SAT scores in the nation. Along with this ~ obviously the worst schooling in the nation, people are not very friendly, people do not know how to drive at all, the more you talk to locals the dumber you feel. I hope no one is offended, but I speak the truth.

-- jimmyjam (moorwes@yahoo.com), December 04, 2004.

they say that hawai'i is the 50th state and that we are apart of the u.s. but sometimes to some local people it doesn't feel like that... there are some really stupid people who think that we live in grass shacks and us girls wear coconut bras and it's really stupid... hawai'i isn't that much more different than the mainland... but we are nicer than the people in the mainland...

-- kalehua (kAw3n1_07@hotmail.com), January 17, 2005.