Assimilating Hawai'i: Racial Science in a Colonial “Laboratory,” 1919-1939
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Assimilating Hawai‘i: Racial Science in a Colonial “Laboratory,” 1919-1939 A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BY Christine Leah Manganaro IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, Co-Adviser David A. Chang, Co-Adviser July 2012 © Christine Leah Manganaro 2012 i Acknowledgments Completing this dissertation would not have been possible without the support of many, many talented and generous people. My first thanks must go to Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, who has advised this project from the beginning. In addition to modeling scholarly and professional habits that have made me a better historian and writer, Sally took my interests and ideas seriously even as she consistently challenged me to clarify them. Her support was particularly important during the first years when it may have seemed like a dissertation project that took me to Hawai‘i was a bit of a boondoggle. I owe Sally an enormous debt for insisting, when this project sometimes felt too big and too unwieldy to finish, that I simply explain what happened in the clearest terms. All the while, she gave me the necessary room to think through some ideas that I had to sit with for many months to articulate. Sally has ushered an impressive list of historians into their professional lives, and I am fortunate to count myself among her advisees. David A. Chang became co-adviser in practice long before he took on the official title. I thank him for challenging me in his graduate seminars and in our conversations in his office and for encouraging my participation in the American Indian Studies Workshop at the University of Minnesota. My am most grateful, though, for his encouragement and direction when the institutional and intellectual history threads of this dissertation threatened to eclipse the colonial context that interested me in the first place, and which matters to a much broader conversation about American settler colonialism. While working on this project, I have had one foot in the history of human science and the other in a discussion among historians of the United States, American studies scholars, and indigenous studies scholars interested in imperialism and its ongoing effects. David guided me as I developed a ii scholarly voice and a clear understanding my kuleana – my responsibility and privilege – as a historian working on Hawai‘i. In addition to my advisors, I would like to thank my dissertation committee members Mark Borrello, Jennifer Gunn, and Jole Shackelford. Mark provided timely commentary on the first chapter at an October 2011 meeting of the Biology Interest Group (BIG) in the Minnesota Center for the Philosophy of Science. Jennifer spent many hours in her office talking with me about this project in the earliest stages and has been an unfailing advocate since I was a prospective student. Jole Shackelford read drafts of all the chapters, and they are much more crisp in both ideas and language because of his attention. As this project oscillated between going well and stalling, Jole also talked with me about why we do this work in the first place. I cannot imagine a better place to complete this project than at the University of Minnesota. The Department of History graciously welcomed my participation in a number of their workshops and seminars. Tom Wolfe, Kevin Murphy, and Elaine Tyler May socialized me into graduate-level work and influenced a number of the analytical directions this dissertation took. Sincere thanks to Saje Mathieu and Malinda Lindquist for their comments on drafts of chapters two and four (which were one chapter when Saje encountered the text) and chapter five in the Graduate Workshop in Modern History. Mitch Ogden and Katie Levin of the Writing Center worked with me as a teacher and a writer to see how those activities are mutually sustaining. A number of archivists and librarians provided exceptionally personalized support. Jim Cartwright at the University of Hawai‘i Archives welcomed me during the semester I spent in his reading room in 2007 and acknowledged my research efforts with a gift of an iii original (duplicate) archival photo of scholars attending a conference on race relations at the University. Sherman Seki retrieved box after box of materials. Many were un- or minimally processed, and as I waded through a wealth of sources that was almost too much, Sherman helped me use the finding aids most effectively as he also talked frankly with me about life in Hawai‘i. Joan Hori and Stuart Dawrs in the Hawaiian and Pacific Collections of the University of Hawai‘i Library helped me locate hard-to-find materials and learn how to access unfamiliar periodicals. At the Bishop Museum Library and Archives, DeSoto Brown, Charles Myers, Leah Caldeira, Kim Okahara, and B.J. Short helped make my time in their reading room as productive and enjoyable as possible. Special thanks to DeSoto and Charley for their willingness to talk with me about the history of Hawai‘i, to DeSoto for sharing pieces from his personal collection, to Charley for inviting me to hear local music among locals, and to Leah for granting me unsolicited access to the staff snack stash. In the Collections department at the Bishop Museum, I thank Wanda K. Anae-Onishi and M. Kamalu duPreez for helping me locate the plaster busts that remain from the collection shown at the 1921 International Congress of Eugenics and for allowing me to see them for myself. At the University of Chicago Special Collections, many thanks to Julia Gardner for relaxing the photocopy maximum several times over to allow me copies of all of the interview material that Margaret Lam sent to Robert Park in the early 1930s. These documents were crucial sources for chapter four. I acknowledge Kristin Mable at the American Museum of Natural History’s Division of Anthropology Archives for granting me access to the collections. Also at the American Museum of Natural History, but in Special Collections, I owe Barbara Mathe thanks and gratitude for her assistance and generosity in the midst of numerous demanding projects. Finally, thanks to Valerie Lutz and the staff of iv the American Philosophical Society and James Green of the Library Company of Philadelphia for making my fellowship month in Philadelphia productive and comfortable. Funding for this dissertation came from several sources. A library fellowship from the American Philosophical Society funded four weeks of research. A travel grant and doctoral dissertation fellowship from the University of Minnesota Graduate School, fellowship funding from the Program in the History of Medicine and the Biological Sciences, and a grant from the National Science Foundation (Dissertation Improvement Grant #0849126) funded research in Honolulu and New York and time to write. Travel grants from the University of Minnesota Graduate and Professional Student Association, the History of Science Society, and the International Society for the History, Philosophy, and Social Studies of Biology allowed me to present works in progress. Thanks, also, to the East-West Center at the University of Hawai‘i for accepting my application for the subsidized and beautiful accommodations that allowed me to live across the street from the library and archives for six weeks in 2009. A number of individuals supported me throughout the process of research and writing by sharing their resources, homes, and time. Professor Karen Jolly in the University of Hawai‘i’s Department of History helped me secure visiting student status during the spring semester of 2007 so that I could use the library and other necessary campus resources. Brian Keoki Faria allowed me to sit in on his conversational Hawaiian language class and graciously shared his wisdom about nineteenth century Hawaiian history resources. My father Bill Manganaro and my mother Dianne Manganaro helped me financially and with the gift of a reliable car just when I needed them most. My mom also gave me the camera that I used in the archives. Thank you, Dad, and thank you, Mom. In Honolulu, Bronson v Shimabukuro offered his friendship as soon as we became roommates and ended up being the single best island guide a haole girl could ask for. My sister Kate Manganaro hosted me during several visits and secured me a temporary job cataloguing historical prints at the art gallery where she worked in 2007, an immersion in the history of art produced in and about Hawai‘i that becomes more important and helpful to me with each passing year. Jole and Frankie Shackelford shared their home and were always there with advice and encouragement as I toiled in the Twin Cities. In Minneapolis, I thank Dave Pollatsek for sharing his house and for helping me raise the spectacular Gompers the Bullmastiff, who took me away from work in ways that helped me keep things in perspective. Kyle Whittinghill, Alex Hobson, and Jason Bant read drafts of grant proposals and inspired me with their own triumphs. Members of the American Indian Studies Workshop at the University of Minnesota read several chapter drafts, and I thank David Chang, Jean O’Brien, Rob Gilmer, Demetri Debe, and Michael Wise in particular for their helpful feedback. Special thanks to Mike Wise for his pitch perfect comments on chapter five, for helping me think big, and for his camaraderie at the West Bank’s best watering holes. I am fortunate to count Megan Raby and Cornelia Lambert as collaborators and friends even though we have never lived in the same place. I look forward to many more years of learning from them and enjoying their good company whenever possible. Jessica Namakkal read chapter drafts and kept me thinking broadly by sharing her own research in progress.