america is going through an identity crisis. Nationally, early in 21st century, the white population is expected to go from groups- especially Hispanic and Asian are increasing due to immigration, and already there more interracial marriage, especially in such trendsetting states as California and new york Sociologists and others ponder: How will all these people with different roots get along? time magazine celebrated the Fourth of july last year with a cover story about the nations ethnic diversity and asked the questions "Who are we?" and "What Do We Have in Common?" To someone in hawai, all this concern about ethnic diversity seems like so much fuss. For most of this century , Hawai has been a multicultural society a community of different ethnic groups where no one group is the majority Back in 1961, Sociologist lawrence fuchs came to Hawai and wrote "Hawai pono" A very good book about islands march toward statehood. In it, he concluded: "This is the promise of Hawai, a promise for the entire nation, and indeed, the world , that people of different races and creeds can live together, enriching eeach other, in harmony and democracy But not many people beyond Hawai shores have paid much attention to what going on socialy here So when New York based playwright David Henry Hwang spoke at university of Hawai last summer about hawai being a model multicultural community for the rest of the country, it raised the obvious question What could others learn?THE HAWAI MODEL

Gov, John Waihee likes to call Hawai "a market place bazaar". He's made several speechs recently the hawai model to mainlad audiences "In Hawai, You have something a little different, in which people are encourage to be proud of their heritage, "Says waihe. "there's a pride in that kind of society that allows you to pick and choose and enjoy the cultural contributions and uniqueness of different group"

"in a way, we've tried to call that culture which allows everybody to kind of exchange, go in and out of enjoy various things..in its best sense, local culture," he says.. "what glues it all together is the native hawaiian culture" UH professor and political analyst Dan Boylan is an even bigger cheerleader for Hawaii's Multiculturan model, pointing out multicultural societiest in Southeast Asia and the Pacific where ethnic groups dont get along. " We are the nations experiment in multiculturalism. I dont think anybodys paid attention to that at all," Boylan says We get along because no one groups has enough people to be in the majority and the dominate, Boylan adds, and the extends into politics "Our political model is no one constitutes that 50,1 % thats necessary to oppress anyone else." he explains. "Whoever has wanted to governin this state has had to form a coalition across ethnic lines. (Unlike the Mainland) politicians have to appeal to different ethnic groups to win elections