The Aquino boys neither knew nor, to be honest, very much cared that history was in the making when they left their Lusitana Street home that afternoon in 1959 to hawk newspapers Downtown.
They'd no doubt heard the word "statehood" spoken with numbing frequency that year, sometimes with zeal, sometimes with trepidation. And, young as they were, they could still sense the rising anticipation as the Hawai'i Statehood Act neared its historic vote in the U.S. Senate.
Still, they weren't aware that a vote would be held in Washington that day. They wasted not a thought on how statehood would change their lives.
And they had no idea they would become a symbol of that most pivotal moment in Hawai'i's history.
The photograph of Tyrone and Eroll Aquino, then 10 and 9 years old respectively, holding the special-edition Honolulu Advertiser is one of several images (along with a similar photo of Honolulu Star-Bulletin newsboy Chester Kahapea) that have endured as testaments to the excitement and celebration that followed the news of Hawai'i's acceptance to the union.
"Everybody was so excited, but we thought, 'so what?' " said Tyrone Aquino, a bus driver and former restaurateur in San Francisco. "It was a big thing for me when I was growing up, but at the time it didn't really dawn on us what was happening. We were just happy to be selling a lot of papers."
To many who have seen the photo in its various reproductions, the boys were an ideal choice to represent the new state, with its multi-ethnic population and acceptance of Western acculturation.
The Aquinos' mother, Christine, was second-generation Portuguese. Their father, Gregorio, had immigrated from the Philippines to work in the sugar fields, eventually opening Greg's Barber Shop in Pauoa.
"They never taught us to speak Portuguese or Filipino because they didn't want us to get confused," Tyrone Aquino said. "So we just spoke pidgin like everybody else."
Christine Aquino, a devoted cinephile, had named her children after her favorite actors: Eroll after Errol Flynn; Tyrone for Tyrone Powers; eldest son George for George Raft; and daughter Jennifer for Jennifer Jones.
All four children sold newspapers in the morning to earn pocket money and to build the savings accounts Gregorio Aquino felt were so important for their futures.
Tyrone and Eroll were standing on the corner of Hotel and Bishop streets, in front of the old Alexander Hotel, when a man with a camera appeared before them. He said he was from the newspaper. He told them to smile. And they did. Why not? When do paperboys ever make it into the paper?
"We were just kids," said Eroll Aquino, now 59. "We didn't know too much."
The photo is simple enough: Eroll on the left, his tongue sticking out as it sometimes did when he was concentrating, clutching several special editions, and a smiling Tyrone on the right holding a single paper in one hand and a cup in the other. Both are wearing collared shirts but, as Tyrone remembers, their feet outside the photo's frame were probably bare.
University of Hawai'i ethnic studies professor Jonathan Okamura was a fourth-grader on Maui when Hawai'i became a state. Though he does not know the Aquinos or their background, he said the photo is telling on several levels.
"I think the youth of the two newspaper boys indicates they were born in Hawai'i, unlike their very likely immigrant parents," Okamura wrote in an e-mail to The Advertiser. "That and their 'American' names are indicative of their Americanness, something that statehood also represented for Hawai'i's people in terms of their now having full rights as U.S. citizens.
"I think the boys, being Hawai'i-born, also represent all the descendants of the ethnic groups that historically immigrated to Hawai'i, especially to work on the plantations, and not just Filipinos," he continued. "Their youth points to the promise and future of Hawai'i, which at that time was viewed with optimism in anticipation of the benefits and prosperity that statehood would bring."
However, Okamura said the photo is also problematic because it "completely erases" Native Hawaiians.
"Statehood had very different meanings for them, particularly further loss of their rights as the indigenous people of Hawai'i and not necessarily greater rights as American citizens," he said.
For the Aquinos, life as full-fledged American citizens validated the sacrifices their father and maternal grandparents made in leaving their home countries and broadened their opportunities to pursue their own American dreams.
The Aquinos left Hawai'i for San Francisco a couple of years after statehood.
Eroll Aquino returned with his father a few years later and graduated from Roosevelt High School. After a stint working in Kwajalein, he returned again to take over his father's barber shop, where he still works.
He has two children — Wendy, 24, and Greg, 20 — whom he raised with the help of his father and mother-in-law when his wife Rosita died 14 years ago.
Tyrone Aquino stayed in San Francisco ("I talk like a haole now," he jokes), studied culinary arts and owned his own restaurant for 30 years. For the past 10 years, he's worked as a charter bus driver. He has two children, Jason, 40, and Mignon, 37, and four grandchildren.
The brothers first saw their famous photo 20 years ago, when The Advertiser reprinted it as a part of the 30th anniversary of statehood. But they didn't say anything. Their identities were unknown until just recently, when a cousin saw the photo again as part of the ongoing 50th anniversary celebrations.
"We're a part of history," Tyrone Aquino said, laughing. "I guess."
Reach Michael Tsai at mtsai@honoluluadvertiser.com.
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