Protesters drowned out an Admissions Day celebration at 'Iolani Palace last year but for the most part have refrained from public comment as the state starts planning to commemorate its 50th anniversary in 2009.

Last year's demonstration was a relatively small protest at a low-key ceremony.

With plans for a much larger event in 2009, the state will have to tread lightly to avoid touching off a protest.

The state House Tourism and Culture Committee unanimously approved a bill yesterday to create a 12-member commission to plan and coordinate the 2009 event, which could cost $250,000.

There hasn't been a lot of noise at public hearings on the measure, but rumblings have already started among independent-minded Hawaiians, a vocal minority that sees statehood as a painful reminder of what they have lost in terms of culture, language, land and sovereignty.

"They shouldn't be celebrating it," said Haunani-Kay Trask, a professor of Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawai'i. "It's celebrating a tragedy that befell the Hawaiian people, which was the overthrow and annexation."

At the hearing yesterday on Senate Bill 1438, testimony was sparse. Two opponents sent in written statements, and state tourism liaison Marsha Weinert spoke in favor of the celebration. She was the only one to testify in person.

Vincent Pollard, editor of the Hawai'i Politics WWW Virtual Library, suggested changing the word "celebrate" to "investigate," in his written testimony.

"The verb 'celebrate' ... is premature. It prejudices the discussion," he wrote.

Weinert advised the committee to make sure the 12-member planning commission is balanced for gender and ethnic equality. She also requested $250,000 to fund the celebration.

"We must not lose the opportunity to ensure that the 50th state marks its 50th anniversary in a style and manner befitting our unique culture, our diversity and our people," Weinert said.

In 1959, 93 percent of Hawai'i residents voted for statehood, and it is unlikely large numbers of residents would renounce their citizenship today. The transition from territory to state afforded the rights and protections of U.S. citizenship to Hawai'i residents, who had been disenfranchised under a territorial government led by presidential appointees rather than elected governors.

Opponent Rickard Kinney of the Hawaiian Political Action Council of Hawai'i put an ironic twist on this viewpoint in his written testimony, arguing that only Hawai'i's wealthy have benefitted by statehood while many Hawaiians have been forced into homelessness and have died while waiting for promised homes on the Hawaiian Homestead waitlist.

"Like the Territory of Hawai'i, the State of Hawai'i is just an ongoing perpetuation of the wrongs that (were) committed against a friendly nation, its constitutional sovereign and the indigenous native Hawaiian people whose only fault may have been in having too much trust in the United States," he wrote.

Trask said she is not sure what would be appropriate in lieu of a celebration.

"We don't need any more apologies," she said. "People who celebrate statehood are proud to be a state. We're on opposite sides. Any time there's any commemoration of that sort, it reminds people like me that we were once an independent country and we are no more."

Reach Treena Shapiro at tshapiro@honoluluadvertiser.com.