This year Hawaii celebrates fifty years of statehood.

This year, Public Policy Polling found that six percent of Americans do not consider Hawaii to be part of the United States.  And four percent are not sure.

Ten percent of Americans are not sure of Hawaii’s status as a state.

I have seen several of Leno’s Jaywalking segments demonstrating that there are plenty of people who are unaware of what most of us consider to be common knowledge, but ten percent?  Surely the sample size was too small or some other factor skewed the results.  I just have a hard time with ten percent.

Why?

Because Hawaii and Alaska are the easy states.   When learning about the states back in grade school, Hawaii and Alaska were the easiest to remember.  There they were set apart from the other forty eight states, each in its own little box, looking nothing like each other.  After learning your own state  wasn’t Hawaii and Alaska next?

I understand that there are people who cannot name the fifty states.  Most of my life I could not do it myself.  Today I can.  But I made a point of correcting the deficiency.  (Don’t ask me about capitals!)   I do not see it as a problem that there are Americans (probably lots of them) who cannot name the fifty states.

But that ten percent cannot correctly identify that Hawaii is part of America when asked?   Yikes!