Using Map in Java

I need to translate some strings (state abbreviations for example) into corresponding integers.  There is a way to use Map to simplify this, but the examples that I am fjnding are less than clear.  There are three different tables that I need to do lookups in, and each table is static.  I am guessing that the method is something like:

public class Lookup {
    public int LookupTable(HashMap(String, Integer) table, String toLookup)
        return (table.get(toLookup));
    }
}

But how do I statically define the HashMap that I will pass to this method?
This ought to do it, I think.

    Map states = new HashMap();
    states.put("AL", new Integer(1));

But I still get errors  about syntax error on the semicolon on the states.put line.  Every example that I can find looks like this:

    HashMap states = new HashMap();
    states.put(1, "AL");

So why does my put call fail syntactically?  Not in a method.