Ethics in Song: Becoming Kama'āina in Hapa-Haole Music 1

Ethics in Song Ethics in Song: state of mind while participating in the destruction of a host people in a Native Becoming Kama‘āina place (1999, 137). Her essay hammers out 1 in Hapa-Haole Music hard statistics of material conditions that support her condemnation of tourism as “the major cause of environmental deg- Aiko Yamashiro radation, low wages, land dispossession, University of Hawai‘i-Mānoa and the highest cost of living in the Unit- ed States” (1999, 144). USA It is no accident that Trask borrows her essay’s title, “Lovely Hula Hands,” from the name of the hit song written by Just five hours away by plane from Califor- R. Alex Anderson in 1940 about a beauti- nia, Hawai‘i is a thousand light years away ful, graceful hula dancer. For Trask, this in fantasy. Mostly a state of mind, Hawai‘i song signifies not only the feminized is the image of escape from the rawness and and sexualized stereotypes of Hawai‘i violence of daily American life. Hawai‘i— the word, the vision, the sound in the that were promulgated and are perpetu- mind—is the fragrance and feel of soft kind- ated by U.S. popular culture, but also ness. Above all, Hawai‘i is “she,” the West- these stereotypes’ power in the American ern image of the Native “female” in her imagination. As documented in work by magical allure. And if luck prevails, some Elizabeth Tatar, Adria Imada, and Charles of “her” will rub off on you, the visitor. Hiroshi Garrett,2 among others, Hawaiian (Trask 1999, 136-7) music, via sheet music, the new technolo- gies of records and radio, and live trav- elling performances, was a driving force n “‘Lovely Hula Hands’: Corporate for the “Hawaii Craze,” that besotted the Tourism and the Prostitution of Ha- U.S. during the first half of the 20th centu- waiian Culture,” Native Hawaiian ry.3 A new musical genre also grew out of Iactivist, poet, and scholar Haunani-Kay this period—“hapa-haole” music (“half- Trask critiques mass, corporate tourism foreign”)—a hybrid genre that mixed as “cultural prostitution,” an exploita- American jazz and dance rhythms (swing tion that depends on figuring Hawai‘i as and foxtrot), Hawaiian instrumentation a complicit, inviting, exotic female. Trask (such as the steel guitar and ‘ukulele), underscores the power of popular culture and lyrics in both English and Hawaiian- to perpetuate these debilitating stereo- languages. Through national (U.S.) song- types and argues that these representa- hits like “Lovely Hula Hands,” “My Little tions lead to real and devastating effects. Grass Shack,” “Hawaiian War Chant,” In her cutting words, the “attraction of and “Sweet Leilani,” hapa-haole music Hawai‘i is stimulated by slick Hollywood solidified and perpetuated U.S. mainland movies, saccharine Andy Williams mu- caricatures of Hawai‘i as a place of grass sic . Tourists flock to my Native land shacks,white sandy beaches, lovely hula for escape, but they are escaping into a maidens, and happy dancing natives. Cultural Analysis 8 (2009): 1-23 © 2009 by The University of California. All rights reserved 1 Aiko Yamashiro Ethics in Song I argue that these sweet and tanta- cal structure and the disruptive potential lizing songs also played a significant of a performer’s ethos. Ultimately, I aim role as reassuring and enabling texts in to demonstrate that in the case of music, the larger project of settler colonialism, settler texts are entirely captivating yet through their appropriation and breezy not static; and that through performance translation of the Hawaiian concept they can be directed and re-directed for “kama‘āina.” Kama‘āina is often trans- overlapping and conflicting purposes. lated literally as “child of the land” and The use of music can raise some unset- can also mean local, native, “old-timer,” tling questions about what we may call or host. Its linguistic counterpart is “ma- “settler texts.” lihini,” a foreigner or newcomer, a guest, or a “tenderfoot.” Today, kama‘āina is a Kama‘āina and the ethics of settler colo- Hawai’ian term valued by businesses as nialism theory an easy way to advertise local-ness, fa- Settler colonialism theory often depends miliarity, and belonging. For example, on a hard-and-fast distinction between many businesses employ kama‘āina in Native/indigenous and non-Native/ their names to show a connection to the settler. This distinction is designed to do community (Kama‘āina Pest Control, the ethical work of undermining settler Kama‘āina Kids Day Dare, Kama‘āina claims and recognizing and restoring in- Pizza Hut, etc.). The term is also com- digenous peoples’ unique rights to land. monly used to label a type of monetary Kama‘āina and malihini have often been discount (e.g., the admission price to defined along this binary by supportive a theme park may have a “kama‘āina Hawai‘i scholars4. For example, in his discount”for people who can prove, 1999 book Displacing Natives: The Rhetori- through a Hawai‘ian driver’s license for cal Production of Hawai‘i, Houston Wood example, that they live here.) Historically, argues that kama‘āina in the Hawaiian this value placed on belonging—of being language originally meant “Native-born” kama‘āina—has also been a cornerstone or indigenous Hawaiian and that this of settler colonialism in Hawai‘i. Settler meaning changed over the early 1900s colonialism has drastically refigured the into “island-born” or “well-acquainted” concept of kama‘āina in various popular with Hawai‘i. He uses Mary Louise- cultural texts, hapa-haole music being Pratt’s idea of “anti-conquest rhetoric” one of many examples, putting focus on to explain that a kama‘āina identity was the idea of becoming kama‘āina as an eas- taken up by white missionaries’ children ily attainable possibility. This paper will (who were born in Hawai‘i, as opposed trace some of the history of how the term to their parents who came to Hawai‘i kama‘āina has been transformed in the from New England) to do the “dual service of settler colonialism. I will also work of asserting innocence while secur- explore some musical examples that ar- ing hegemony” (1999, 40). Tracing the gue that outsiders can become kama‘āina, transformation of the word, Wood sur- and consider the unique ethical prob- veys the popular tourist and white set- lems of posing this argument through tler publication Paradise of the Pacificfrom music: the embodied experience of musi- 1909 to 1910, concluding that quite liter- 2 Ethics in Song ally, kama‘āina had gradually come to re- before legendary battles in deciding who place the words “white” and “foreigner” was to strike the first blow” (Pukui 1983, (1999, 41): “By the 1930s, at least for the 124). It is unlikely that the malihini in the mostly Euroamerican writers in the pag- context of “legendary battles” referred to es of Paradise of the Pacific, kama‘āina re- non-Native foreigners, and very likely ferred to Caucasians who had lived long that it referred to a person from another in the islands, or who claimed to know island or another part of the same island. much about ‘island ways’” (1999, 41). In addition, Hawaiian-language songs Linking the processes of colonialism and like “Wai Punalau” (1897) and “Akaka tourism, Wood’s argument identifies the Falls” (1934) use the word malihini in white settler’s/visitor’s very real desire a non-ethnic, non-nationalistic way to to become kama‘āina as a colonial desire simply describe unfamiliarity with a par- and appropriation of indigenous iden- ticular place in Hawai‘i (the waters of tity.5 His reassertion of kama‘āina as Na- Punalau and Akaka Falls, respectively). tive (indigenous) thus attempts to undo These kinds of sources assume that a colonial claims and lead to an ethical for- person is kama‘āina or malihini by their mulation based on recognizing impossi- knowledge and relationship to place. A bility: If you are not Native, you cannot be- kama‘āina has specific knowledge about come Native, and can therefore never have the a specific place that a malihini does not. same claims to land.An ethics based on this Along with this knowledge require- polar understanding between kama‘āina ment, the possibility of becoming kama‘āina and malihini relies on responsibly recog- is already culturally inherent to the con- 6 nizing impossibility. cept. The saying “E ho‘okama‘āina! Yet this irrevocable distinction be- Make yourself at home (said to strang- tween Native and non-Native contra- ers)” (Pukui 1983, 124) suggests that, dicts what is found in cultural material even if meant figuratively, kama‘āina can in other Hawaiian-language folklore become a verb and an imperative in the sources, namely ‘ōlelo no‘eau (wise/po- context of hospitality8. Strangers are wel- etical sayings or proverbs) and Hawai- comed into this identity, but the welcome ian-language songs that use the words is bound by responsibility. For example, kama‘āina and malihini.7 Although ma- the ‘ōlelo no‘eau “Ho‘okāhi no [sic] lā o lihini was used to refer to white foreign- ka malihini” is translated as “A stranger ers and newcomers to Hawai‘i, the word only for a day” and explained, “After was not exclusively reserved for non-Na- the first day as a guest, one must help tives. In the standard Pukui and Elbert with the work” (Pukui 1983, 115). Based Hawaiian-English Dictionary, malihini is on this Hawaiian cultural knowledge, a more broadly defined as a “stranger, for- more difficult ethic emerges in which it eigner, newcomer,” “one unfamiliar with is not only possible to become kama‘āina; a place or custom” (Pukui and Elbert further, one ought to.

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