Maine Coast Book Shop and Cafe

Jon Olson: Liberating Hawaii

Aloha! Skidompha Library’s “Chats with Champions” committee and Sherman’s Maine Coast Book Shop & Cafe featured Jon Olsen as the featured speaker on Tuesday, March 20th in the library’s Porter Meeting Hall.

Jon is the author of Liberate Hawai’i! Renouncing and Defying the Continuing Fraudulent U.S. Claim to the Sovereignty of Hawai’i, published in 2014.

Jon grew up in Maine and is a graduate of Lincoln Academy and Bates College, where he earned a degree in philosophy. After teaching high school for a year he was drawn to Hawai’i, attending the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Honolulu, earning a Master’s Degree, also in philosophy. This was during the Vietnam War, and he was active in opposing what he believed was an unjust war. There, he was a founding member of Students for a Democratic Society and Draft Resistance, along with a short-lived Peace and Freedom Party. Twenty years later he was a founding member of the Hawai’i Green Party.

Olsen was drawn to various “anti-imperialist” efforts, including, gradually, the Hawaiian effort to regaining full effective sovereignty, paying close attention to Hawaiian activists who had deep knowledge of the subject matter. He returned to his Maine homestead in 2001 as his father was turning 90, bringing with him books and documents pertaining to Hawaiian sovereignty, which became the basis of his book.

In Hawai’i, Jon met a newly arrived Filipino immigrant woman, Lilia. They married in 1981 and are the proud parents of two adult children and grandparents of two grandchildren. Jon lives on the family homestead adjacent to Damariscotta Lake where he has spent many enjoyable hours fishing. He is a member of the Maine Green Independent Party, serving twice on the State committee, serving currently as co-chair.

Chats with Champions is a free community offering from your national award-winning Skidompha Library and is sponsored by Sherman’s Maine Coast Book Shop. For more information call 563-5513.