1 Local Haole?

1 To appear in Beyond Paradise: New Racial I lived in Hawai'i for a long time and I continue Politics in Hawai'i, ed. Camilla J. Fojas, Rudy P. to have many ties there. I go back when I can, Guevarra, and Nitasha Sharma (University of and often I wish I lived there still. But I am Hawai'i Press, forthcoming). reluctant to be one of those White people who write stories about Hawai'i—who tell people, "This is what Hawai'i is like."7 Because I Local Haole? respect the editors of this volume I will talk in Whites, Racial and Imperial Loyalties, and this essay about being White in Hawai'i; yet I Membership in Hawai'i1 do so with a tentativeness that I cannot escape. For an insightful and theoretically and Paul Spickard experientially informed treatment of Whiteness in Hawai'i, I urge the reader to White people and other outsiders who come to consult a book by Judy Rohrer, Haoles in Hawai'i have been known to write stories Hawai'i.8 about the islands and the people of Hawai'i. Captain Cook's men, who came in the 1770s, The History that Frames the Present wrote stories of heathen savagery and sexy women about the islanders they encountered.2 There are four kinds of White people in Hawai'i. Succeeding generations of visitors and By far the largest number are tourists, who longterm residents wrote stories of trials and come in the millions each year to experience triumphs during their time in the islands. For paradise for a few days or a few weeks.9 Next instance, an early English missionary named in number come the thousands of military and William Ellis published A Journal of a Tour naval personnel and their families who live in around Hawaii, the Largest of the Sandwich the islands during their tours of duty for a year Islands, in which he described "the History, or two.10 There are also longer-term residents Traditions, Manners, Customs and Language of who have moved to Hawai'i permanently from the Inhabitants." An American, Sarah Joiner other places, primarily the continental United Lyman, kept a diary from 1830 to 1885 (it was States. All these are people who grew up later edited and published) in which she unfamiliar with the word Haole. Haole is a detailed the missionary work that she and her combination of two Hawaiian words: ha family conducted in Hilo. Sanford Dole and (without) and ole (breath). The term originally Lorrin Thurston, leaders of the racially-tinged applied to all foreigners, but it has functionally 1893 coup against the Hawaiian monarchy and come to mean White people. The term Haole advocates for Hawai'i to be incorporated into suggests that this particular kind of outsider the United States in 1898, wrote Memoirs of the may not understand the ways of Hawai'i and of Hawaiian Revolution. 3 More than a century Kânaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians).11 Finally, later, the writing about Hawai'i continues. the smallest number of White people in Hawai'i People who go to Hawai'i to be married, to are local Haoles—people who grew up in the honeymoon, or simply to vacation in Waikiki or islands, who practice local culture, who speak Kihei come back with pictures and stories of Pidgin (the native common language spoken by tropical paradise and South Seas romance. 4 Hawai'i's peoples), and who, though White, are The archetype of the White outsider story is part of the everyday fabric of island life. James Michener's novel Hawaii, which told a lot of Hawaiian history through the lives of the The experiences of all White people in Hawai'i people he designated as the Golden Men—the are framed by a long history of encounters polyglot, multiracial people whom he imagined between White outsiders and Kânaka Maoli.12 to be the harbingers of an idyllic post-racial Together those encounters constitute a familiar future.5 Inevitably, such White people's stories narrative in the islands. The first encounter probably tell more about the storytellers than was the coming of the British explorer Captain they do about Hawai'i.6 Hawai'i is a story James Cook in 1776 and 1778. He and his crew object. made the first contact between Europeans and 2 Kânaka Maoli; after their visit, other Europeans, Native Hawaiian membership, thus taking and later Americans, kept coming. They away further land and autonomy from the brought several things that are important for Hawaiian people.20 this discussion: disease, Christianity, transport out of the islands, embryonic capitalism, a All this was cloaked in what historian Lori colonizing mentality, and Euro-American ideas Pierce calls "the discourse of Aloha." The of racial hierarchy. White people's diseases Hawaii Tourist Bureau and business interests resulted in a greater than 90 percent decline in promoted the islands as "the Paradise of the the Kânaka Maoli population within three Pacific." In this fantasy, Hawai'i was a happy generations. 13 Christianity, first brought by "melting pot of the Pacific" where the East and missionaries in the early 1800s, transformed the West could meet in harmony; note that Hawaiian culture: 14 the kapu system (the Kânaka Maoli were left out of this picture. previous mode of law and social organization) Academics and others went along with the was banned and missionaries converted large romance of a happy, multicultural, Asian- swaths of the Kânaka Maoli population. The flavored Hawai'i melting pot.21 Meanwhile, US children of the missionaries married into the colonial power was nearly total: the governor ali'i, or noble class. They (and some of the ali'i) was appointed by the federal government, the clamored for the kingdom to grant individuals military dominated the islands, the oligarchs the right to own land that had formerly been controlled the economy, and the local held in common (they succeeded in the Mâhele legislature was in Haole hands. This power land division of 1848). 15 In time, their was racialized. Not only were Haoles at the top, descendants became wealthy landowners and but they habitually cast Hawaiians, Filipinos, political power brokers and the remaining and other pigment-rich peoples in terms Hawaiians descended in wealth and status. parallel to those continental White Americans The White landowners brought in large used to denigrate American Blacks. numbers of laborers from China, Japan, the Philippines, and elsewhere to work on sugar After World War II, a new coalition entered and pineapple plantations. The plantations politics: Japanese American soldiers returning connected the local economy and its people to from war joined with White Democrats and a the international capitalist market system that few others to wrest control of the legislature was developing in those decades.16 and press for Hawai'i statehood, which came in 1959.22 Statehood brought total incorporation By the 1880s White islanders were mocking into the United States. Many of Hawai'i's the king in racist terms akin to White people began to leave the islands, seeking Americans' mockery of African Americans, and higher education and economic opportunities. pressuring him to cede his powers to the In the islands, racial hierarchy did not populace (more specifically, to the White disappear, but beginning in the 1970s a oligarchy). 17 In 1893 they overthrew the movement arose promoting Hawaiian culture monarchy and established what they called a and consciousness amid the continuing republic. Five years later they engineered the institutional colonialism. The Hawaiian formal incorporation of Hawai'i into the language, hula, and other cultural expressions American empire. 18 The territorial period, made a comeback. By the 1990s strong which lasted six decades, was the high point of demands emerged for the return of some form colonialism and White dominion in the islands. of sovereignty to the Native Hawaiian people. Hawaiian culture such as language and hula At the same time, due to rapidly rising housing declined; in some instances these expressions costs and limited economic opportunities in of Hawaiianness were banned. Many Kânaka Hawai'i, a very large percentage of island Maoli resisted, but Whites came to hold all the people (Native Hawaiians and others) found reins of political and economic power.19 They themselves living in exile.23 introduced a foreign concept—blood quantum—into the islands as the criterion for 3 So over many generations in Hawai'i in a Hawai'i. Most local people have at least part colonial, capitalist setting, a racial hierarchy Hawaiian, other Pacific Islander, or Asian developed. White people came to inhabit the descent. They were born in the islands or at top rung in terms of wealth, status, and power. least received most of their schooling there. The descendants of Chinese and Japanese While racial divisions are manifest in Hawai'i, immigrants come next in the racial hierarchy. the most significant social dividing line is The business elite are mainly White or Chinese, between people who are local and people who although some are Japanese. Japanese- are not local. People who are local speak descended people tend to dominate education, Pidgin as their mother tongue, although they government, and social services. Most of the may also be adept at national standard English. people doing body labor are distinctly They know and embrace the joys of plate lunch. browner: Hawaiians, Samoans, Filipinos, They are automatically a little distrustful of Micronesians (all colonized peoples Haoles. Although there are Haoles who were themselves).24 born and brought up in Hawai'i, it is more difficult for a White person to be accorded local Ways of Being White in Hawai'i status than it is for a person of color.

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