Palintology

Did Asians Scare Palin Out of Hawaii?

Father says she left school because of them.

The Palin story of the day seems to be her semi-endorsment of the birther movement, but there's another question now being asked: Why did Sarah Palin leave Hawaii after one semester when she was an 18-year-old student? The New Republic draws attention to a startling passage from Sam Tanenhaus’s recent New Yorker review of Palin’s book: In Going Rogue, Palin says “Hawaii was a little too perfect. Perpetual sunshine isn’t necessarily conducive to serious academics for 18-year-old Alaska girls.” But Tanenhaus then flags another passage from Scott Conroy and Shushannah Walshe’s biography of Palin, in which Palin’s own father says she left because she was uncomfortable around Asians and Pacific Islanders: “They were a minority type thing,” her father says, “and it wasn’t glamorous, so she came home.”