Reconnecting Our Roots

Cultural reciprocity, sharing, and trust between Native Hawaiians and Micronesians, which began in the 1970s, has flourished to this day, as most visibly illustrated with the continued voyaging of the Hōkūleʻa. However, this relationship contrasts starkly with the groundswell of anti-Micronesian sentiment underlying recent discriminatory healthcare policies for Compact of Free Association (“COFA”) residents in Hawaiʻi. These are the turbulent waters community advocates must navigate in the new politics of race in Hawai‘i. This chapter argues for a revisiting of the deep Pacific Islander cultural values inherent in the lessons of Grand Master Navigator Pius “Papa” Mau Piailug, whose sharing of traditional wayfinding knowledge helped establish a deep relationship of respect and cooperation between Hawaiians and Micronesians, and made possible the ongoing progress of the Hōkūleʻa in uniting the Pacific, and the world. Contrasting these values with the rhetoric- and stereotype-based approach of the U.S. and Hawaiʻi in establishing discriminatory healthcare policies for COFA residents, it offers suggestions for a more progressive and mutually beneficial policymaking approach through culturally-grounded foundational themes, and suggests principles for better engagement among COFA communities in Hawaiʻi, Hawaiʻi’s larger communities, and government leaders.

Local Haole?

Spickard expresses hesitation to speak definitively about Haoles (Whites) in Hawai‘i, but offers these thoughts. Every action by a Haole in Hawai‘i is framed by the history of colonialism, dispossession, and continuing racialized stratification of power, wealth, and opportunity. There are four kinds of Haoles in Hawai‘i. By far the majority are tourists and military people, both of whom, however much they may enjoy Hawai‘i, are not part of the fabric of local life. A second group is made up of longterm residents who retain a Haole identity, however much they may know about Hawaiian culture. There is a smaller group of genuine local Haoles, most of whom grew up in the islands, speak Pidgin at least some of the time, and adopt a local lifestyle and view of the world. The major divider between the local Haoles and the rest is the ultimate location of their loyalties—with the colonizers or with the colonized.

Local Boy, East Coast Sensibilities

This chapter was written from the perspective of a Hawaii resident who identifies as Black and local. My upbringing is explored including the cultural forces that shaped me and the impact that the portion of my upbringing on the East Coast has had on rounding out my Black worldview. This chapter also address challenges to the growth of the Hawaii based African American community including a lack of education about the pre and post-missionary presence of Blacks in Hawaii, the geographic isolation, the transient nature of the State’s largest portion of the Blacks: Service Members in the United States the Military. The struggle of local Black folks to connect to the Black Military population secondary to isolation fostered by base housing and the impact of the Military’s role in historical trauma related to the illegal overthrow of the Hawaiian Monarchy. Solutions to the issue of Black community cohesion are explored throughout the remainder of the chapter. They include a Cultural Mentorship program for Hawai‘i’s Black Youth, connections to Black art and popular culture and it’s adaption in Hawaii (with a particular focus on reggae and Hip-Hop as the key conduits for identifying and facilitating Black Cultural impact in Hawaii).

Race and/or Ethnicity in Hawai‘i

This chapter argues that ethnicity is the dominant organizing principle of social relations in Hawai‘i since the 1970s when it superseded race. This contention is based on the social construction of Hawaii’s constituent groups as ethnic groups rather than races, on the consequent lesser construction and assertion of racial categories and identities commonly invoked in the continental United States, and on the ongoing regulation of differential access to socioeconomic status by ethnicity and not race (or class). The chapter first discusses the conceptual difference between race and ethnicity, outlines the historical transition from race to ethnicity as the foremost structural principle of island society, reviews persisting ethnic inequality evident from 2010 U.S. Census data, and analyzes the racial dimensions of the shooting death in 2011 of a young Native Hawaiian by a U.S. State Department agent in Waikīkī. The argument that ethnicity is more significant than race as the primary principle of social organization in contemporary Hawai‘i is consistent with multiculturalism being the dominant ideology related to race and ethnicity in the islands rather than colorblindness as in the continental United States.

Afterword

Hawai`i matters, despite the commonplace notion of its insignificance, this Afterword contends. This reminder adds to the collection's centering of the islands' racial formation, indigeneity, and their consequences for a new politics.

“Eh! Where you from?”

Race and ethnicity are important analytical categories in Hawai‘i, but the issue of place can at times be more important to an individual in declaring his or her social/cultural identity. Outside observers may initially assess another person visually according to race/ethnicity – but follow up questions, often in Hawai‘i Creole, frequently ask about place of origin, neighborhoods, schools attended, and other matters inherently related to place. Such questions are indirect ways to ask about how long one’s family has been in the islands and whether or not a person has a working knowledge of Hawai‘i’s Native Hawaiian and local ways of life. As a geographically isolated archipelago, Hawai‘i had limited interactions with the outside world until the arrival of Captain James Cook in 1778, American missionaries in 1820, and the immigration of sugar plantation laborers since the 1850s. This essay argues that the islands’ current population consists of four broad groups that are partially defined by race/ethnicity, but also strongly determined by matters of place and historical circumstances. Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians), Haole, Locals, and Others are four groups in contemporary Hawai‘i seeking to understand their individual and collective histories and place in the islands.

Introduction

Behind the veneer of Hawai‘i’s myth as a melting pot paradise are complicated and historically rooted cross-racial dynamics. Race, however, has not been the primary paradigm through which Hawai‘i has been understood. Racial inequality is disruptive. It ruptures the image of tolerance, diversity, and happiness...

“I no eat dog, k”

This chapter explores the social, cultural, and ideological contexts as well as identity consequences of Filipino (dog-eating) jokes and more generally, ethnic joking and humor in the islands. I examine what dog-eating jokes say about Filipinos in Hawai‘i and Hawai‘i society and their impact on identity formation at the individual and collective levels. I suggest that these types of jokes are a kind of racial hazing that constitute Hawai‘i’s (neo)liberal multicultural form of settler colonialism. This racial hazing functions as both definitional and terminological obscuration and disparaging in-group activity. Lastly, I introduce the metaphors of racial volcano and racial vog to help shed light on local discourses around race, ethnicity, indigeneity, language, power, and representation.

E Micronesia

I don’t want you here your gold-riddled teeth and foreign betel-stained tongue bright quilted skirts sashaying down the sidewalk across the sand your sun-darkened children skin glistening with salt water look like mine their musical laughter echoing across blue Pakipika waters calling to reef and surf beyond...

“Latino Threat in the 808?”

This chapter examines the Latino population of Hawaiʻi, one of the oldest yet least explored settler groups to migrate to the islands. I begin by examining what I call the “Tam incident,” in which Local Chinese Hawai‘i councilman Rod Tam referred to Mexican workers in Hawai‘i as “wetbacks.” This incident reveals both the understudied history of Latinos in Hawai‘i as well as current racist stereotypes of Latinos on the islands, which I contend both illustrates the influence of continental U.S. racial thinking, as well as the limits of the “aloha spirit.” Utilizing Leo Chavez’s “Latino Threat” narrative, I demonstrate how Mexicans become racialized in Hawaiʻi and what this signifies within the larger narrative of citizenship and belonging in “the Aloha State.” Their racialization highlights the forms of marginalization, stereotypes, labor oppression, shifting hierarchies and social exclusion faced by Latinos in Hawai‘i. I argue that race, not ethnicity highlights structural and institutional processes that continue to reinforce the idea that Latinos do not exist in the islands, are newcomers, and take people’s jobs, rather than see them as one of the oldest settler communities that has contributed significantly to the economic, social and cultural fabric of Hawaiʻi.