Conclusion

The United States is an unusual country because it has been home throughout the years to people of many ethnicities beginning with Native Americans, through those who were brought in and those who immigrated here from across the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. Each ethnic group has shared its culture with the whole to create richness and diversity that make Hawai‘i unlike any other place in the world. Our ideal America, even though at times it seems hard to achieve, embraces many different national and ethnic groups working and living together in harmony, with equal rights for all.

Hawai‘i has been settled by peoples of many nations, although most of them came from the Pacific and Asia, not Europe. Many of them have married those of other nationalities. Their children say, “I am Chinese-Filipino,” or “Hawaiian-Japanese,” or “Hapa,” generally meaning half Caucasian and half something else. Hawai‘i has the highest rate of marriage between people of different ethnic groups of all the states; many people are of mixed backgrounds and of two or more ethnicities.

People from Hawai‘i have worked together. As you remember, the mixture of groups began when foreign explorers landed upon the Hawaiian Islands and then when immigrants came to work in the sugar and pineapple fields. These people of different ethnicities now have children who work together in banks, stores, offices, hotels, and government.

Hawai‘i has always looked upon the education of its children as being very important. Hawai‘i became one of the first countries in the world where almost every person could read and write. The children of the various national groups have learned the language, the history, and the culture of both Hawai‘i and the United States. Through the schools, children of various ethnic backgrounds meet on common ground, study together, and learn to get along together. The schools teach ways to be good citizens through respect for the customs, life, history, and arts of Native Hawaiians and for those who came to Hawai‘i from other places. This is your history. It is for you to write the next chapter.