The Racialization of Hawaii
Historical narratives of Hawaii, from 1893-1941, have long obscured the truth of the conspiratorial efforts of the Oligarchy to maintain political, economic and societal superiority. It’s vital that light is shed on this turbulent time; to know the systemic measures taken through the settler colonial framework that was to reshape the racial hierarchy of the islands. By exposing the mechanisms that created and maintained inequality, exploitation, and oppression, perhaps then the hilahila (shame) that is held by many Native Hawaiians towards their ancestors will be quelled and a new appreciation towards the resilience of their cultural identity will be realized.
It is hard to understand how, in less than fifty years after the “Overthrow,” the Kānaka Maoli found themselves strategically positioned to be the most destitute people in Hawaii. How did the drastic transformation take place? From landed to homeless? From franchised to disenfranchised? From a nation that was 95% literate to that of only being 20% literate.[100] To the adoption of a racial hierarchy where none had been before, with Kānaka Maoli at the lowest rung of the economic ladder? In order to better understand this period of transition, and the severe affect it had on Kānaka Maoli identity, an examination of this history requires a multi-layered theoretical approaches. First, Racial Formation theory allows an analysis of the political, economic and social forces that constructed and continue to construct, at both the micro and macro levels, but as the the scholars Joe Feagin and John Elias argue, relying on it alone risks dismissing or ignoring the actions of white peopleʻs dominant role in constructing and sustaining Hawaiiʻs racial heirarchy. [101] However, as Feagin and Elias point out, utilization of this theory alone masks the white man’s role in creating racial oppression.[102] Secondly, Systemic Racism Theory illuminates the foundational role the white patriarchy and materialism plays in creating racist policies and laws.[103] Finally, Settler Colonialism Theory, first introduced by Patrick Wolfe, allows us to uncover the construction and implementation of universal principles of Imperial motivations to control lands and resources, thus identifying the methods at which this power was attained and upheld through the application of racilization.[104] Andrea Smith emphasizes that it is “important to conceptualize white supremacy as operating through multiple logics rather than through a single one.”[105] By applying these three frameworks, this project will explicate the role of the oppressors, by tracing the many ideas, laws, policies, and practices created to promote white male dominance and American interests in Hawaii. Understanding the specific, multiple and intersecting mechanisms of white colonial power is a necessary step toward decolonization.
The Creation of Hawaiiʻs Racial Heirarchy
Prior to the overthrow, Kānaka Maoli had lived for centuries under a stratified social structure, the aliʻi (the chiefs, royalty) and the makaʻāinana (the commoners), yet they held a respected understanding of their mutual support for one another, no one starved unless they all starved.[106] This concept can be seen in the ʻōlelo noʻeau (traditional saying, proverb), “he aliʻi ka ʻāina; he kauwā ke kanaka,” which means the “land is the chief; man is its servant.”[107] As Haole (white foreigners, lit: without spiritual breath) came to Hawaii’s shores, in 1778, many maneuvered their way into the Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian, lit: original people) elite society, either through commercial, religious or political influence, or by marriage. Capitalism was slowly introduced, first in the trade of sandlewood (1810-1820), then with the coming of whalers (1819-1870s), but neither market had changed the subsistence traditions that supported Hawaii’s people for centuries. It was not until sugar was established in the islands (1835-2016), that Hawaii’s subsistence traditions were threatened. As sugar planters gained wealth, they consolidated political influence and control over large portions of lease lands and water also increased. Simultaneously, Kānaka Maoli population continued to decline drastically due to the many diseases imported by the influx of new arrivals daily. As a result, in order to resolve the labor shortages on their sugar plantations, the planters began to import contract laborers (1860’s – 1890ʻs), from China, Japan, the Philipines, Korea, Scandanavia, Portugal and the Azores. This would begin the structuring of what would become Hawaii’s racial hierarchy. Those laborers of European descent, were the Luna (overseers), assigned positions of authority and skill over the Asians and Filipinos who were placed on the lowest rung of the social status. These events laid the groundwork for what would become the oligarchy, aka the Big Five, the Haole businessmen that conspired to overthrow the Hawaiian Kingdom, with the aid of the United States military.
It was on Hawaii’s sugar plantations that Hawaii’s racialization was first introduced, with the importation of contract laborers. Originally only single males from China, then later Japan, arrived to work the sugarcane, many of which sent their earnings back to their homeland. While some intermarried within the native community leaving the plantation, many others returned to Asia or continued on to the United States upon the completion of their contracts.[108] This practice was not conducive to the stability of production on the plantations, therefore, picture brides were initially provided which made it more logistically difficult for laborers to leave.[109] By the 1900s, whole families traveled the long distance to Hawaii to find themselves bound by poor wage contracts and indebtedness to the company store.[110] Not only did they fill the void for labor, they’re purpose was to increase the wealth of the sugar planters.[111]
Equally important was the strategic nature of how the Hawaii Sugar Planterʻs Association (HSPA) formed racial spaces, spaces created to fortify a perception of Haole authority.[112] They were what became to be known as the “Big Five,” “a closed society,…that forced mandates, ….often ruthless and always self-serving, paternalistic and racist.”[113] First, they contracted “skilled” northern Europeans to become managers and white-Portuguese to be the Luna (the overseers); thereby, establishing the start of the racial hierarchy. This stratification of labor was further buttressed by the Master’s and Servants Act of 1850, which not only allowed the planters to import contract laborers, but also to employ their Luna to enforce those contracts by force if necessary.[114] Racial segregation was also initiated on the plantations through a camp system: Pukikī (Portugese) camp, Kepanī (Japanese) camp, Pākē (Chinese) camp, and so on.[115] The white management community, with the exception of the Portuguese of the Azores, were separated from the camps, living in large plantation-provided homes set on the hillsides looking down at the laborers ramshackled cottages.
Conversely, unlike mainland non-white segregated communities, the close proximity the camps had with one another resulted in far more social interactions among the diverse ethnic groups and the Kānaka Maoli.[116] Pidgin became the mode of communication among the camps and on the fields, grammatically grounded in the Hawaiian language, it combined a blend of the languages of the camp and ʻōlelo Hawaii with that of English, eventually becoming the first language spoken by many second generation children.[117]
“Afta school, we would play with our friends, but first we when go one Kepanī (Japanese) aunty, she would tell us come inside and she when give us sushi; den we when go to one Portugee aunty and she would give us bread, was ono fresh out of da oven; den we when go my Pilipino aunty and get some ono goodies.”[118]
Camp life was a community, although separated by ethnic groups, they were drawn together through work, church, school, entrepreneurial efforts, and a plantation social life: baseball, fighting cocks, tug-of-war, and other team activities.[119] Thus a “local identity” came out of the camps; yet, marginalized and stigmatized by the Haole community, thereby “strengthening the colonial mentality.”[120]
The Evolution of the Racial Hierarchy within the School System
In 1851, the Hawaiian Kingdom was the first nation in the world to provide a public education for children six to fifteen; as a result, 95% of all Kānaka Maoli were highly literate in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, and about 30% were also literate in the English language.[121] This would quickly change, however, after the overthrow, as a result of the laws and policies that were systematically put in place to limit the voices and authority of Kānaka Maoli. First, Hawaiian language publications were banned, then a prohibition of its use within the false Republic. Finally, in 1896, Act 57 of the Republic of Hawaii designated English only as the medium of instruction in all of Hawaiiʻs schools.[122] Any student that was caught speaking ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi was severely punished, this in turn caused many Kānaka Maoli parents to protect their children, thus encouraging them to speak English only.[123] The loss of the language, consequently, broke the link to their ancestors and the ability of the younger generation to access the cultural knowledge, and genealogies that only the language could illuminate. It was just one step in the Oligarchyʻs strategic plot to confiscate the lands and resources of Hawaii through the attempt to erase Kānaka Maoli identity, rendering the new generationʻs inability to decipher the expansive wealth of historical knowledge written in ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi.
“Economic/political control, cannot happen without mental control: ʻachieved through deliberate undervaluing of a peopleʻs culture, art, dances, religions, history, geography, education, orature, and literature; and the conscious elevation of the language of the colonizer.”[124]
Annexation, however, would entail more drastic measures, since Kānaka Maoli once again were given the right to vote, they threatening the continued authority of the Oligarchy. While voting requirements no longer had property restrictions or the requirement of signing a loyalty oath in order to vote, the territory still stipulated that they had to pass a literacy test.[125] Many of the Haole newspapers of the time demonstrated the oligarchyʻs racial motivations; in the debate over voting rights the Hawaiian Gazette (Apr. 1900) stated that “if color is to rule any sub-division of American Territory, that color will be white.[126] Throughout the Republics rule, and on into the Territorial control, the Big Five and the Haole Oligarchy tried to promote unequal educational opportunities.[127] Haole students were educated in exclusive private schools in which fluency in English was a requirement or sent to the mainland for school; while the Kānaka Maoli and non-white camp students were relegated to under-funded segregated schools again based on English language proficiency.[128] It was thought by the capitalist elite, that “educating people beyond what was needed for a plantation job only created problems….We spend money to educate them and they will destroy us.”[129] As a result, the majority of rural schools did not go beyond a sixth grade education.[130] “I was da first class in Hāna school to graduate 8th grade, that was just before WWII when pau (end).”[131]
With the threat of the Kānaka Maoli majority gaining political power in the early years of the territory, the Oligarchy saw the contiued need to curb their rise and ensure the Americanization of the non-white community. Policies were put in place which would turn to the schools to start the process of forced “brainwashing.” In 1906, after a territorial competition amongst its Haole teachers, the framework for mass patriotization of Hawaiiʻs school children was laid through the mandated use of “Americanization” guidelines.[132] Its primary purpose was to crush the fighting spirit within the Hawaiian people who were still in support of the Queen and Kingdom. The expectations were to have all students daily, both before school started and at the end of day, circle around the American flag in patriotic attention and absolute silence, while music played and the flag was raised or taken down. Then the children were expected to chant, “We give our heads and hearts to God and our Country! ONE COUNTRY! ONE LANGUAGE! ONE FLAG!”[133] They also expected the students during the school day to say the Lord’s Prayer, sing American patriotic songs, learn American patriotic quotes, learn to recite specific American speeches, and learn about US heroes.[134] Teachers were expected to guide students through this process, create curriculum and provide formal instruction on important American historical events and stories.[135] If teachers were unwilling, they were no longer employed. This practice, over the next decades would not only become institutionalized, but uniform in the routine; not ending until the 1970s, well into statehood.
As talk of statehood began to take root, the Oligarchy and business interests expressed their concerns through their newspapers.[136] Statehood would make it more difficult to maintain the white dominant power structure that had been established. Arguments claimed that Hawaii was not ready, the process of acculturation had not been completed.[137] Some in the US Congress were also ambivalent, raising alerts that Hawaii had too many inferior “unassimilable races” and mixed race children who were of “lower moral and mental character.”[138] The need to Americanize the non-white community became the public justification; yet behind closed doors apprehensions were voiced that the non-white majority would be able to influence politics, economics or society within the coming State if they could not delay the action.[139]
Accordingly, due to these debates, the United States Bureau of Education proceeded to conduct a survey of the Hawaiiʻs public education in 1920. Their purpose was to determine the success of training their students in adopting “American ideals.”[140] At its completion, recommendations were presented: “close private foreign language schools, promote “standardized English,” build more secondary schools, provide vocational education, teacher training and higher education.[141] However, when the Hawaii territorial legislature decided to implement the recommendations, territorial education policies aligned with the interests of the plantation economy and the desire to reaffirm Haole privilege.[142] What the result would be was the creation of the English Standard Schools, a segregated public education system in which, only those who could pass a subjective oral language test could attend. Subsequently, the law codified the racially segregated school system that would exist in Hawaii until 1948. Non-white students’ public schools were poorly funded, vocationalized, paternalistic, and strictly promoted Americanization and English-language only education.[143] Courses were further segregated within the school itself by splitting up classrooms according to language and skills proficiency.[144] Grade level classes were labeled ʻA’ class for the smart students, ‘B’ class for the average students, and ‘C’ classes for the ʻdumbest’ students; larger schools went through the alphabet to the letter ‘F’ those that were deemed the troublemakers and educationally slow; this practice of labeling classes did not end until the 1980s.[145] Practices designed to erase Kānaka Maoli identity, culture, and history; assimilate immigrant students, and Americanize all non-white students, began to unfold.
Teacher training and American-values qualifications became a central focus. Originally, many teachers were brought in to Hawaii from the mainland to instruct students in the way of American values, however, the short duration of the new teachers’ stay in Hawaii caused for too much instability within the classrooms.[146] Therefore, it was determined that in order to teach the students democratic values, and ensure the weakening of Kānaka Maoli cultural and political identity, it would equally be important to train territorial teachers as well. The result was a teacher training program, instituted by the newly created college for educators, the Normal School, which would instill American patriotism, the use of standardized English, and American values.[147] While the English Standard School employed primarily Haole teachers; the non-white schools demonstrated a more racially diverse group of instructors: Kanaka Maoli, Haole, Asian, and Portuguese. The multi-ethnic nature of the non-white schools provided for increased interactions and relationships between students, thereby creating a “local” community dynamic. The teachers were relegated to implementing the territorial schools’ goals of “erasing native identity, Americanizing immigrants, and preparing all children for full citizenship” into what would be the state, thereby completing the colonizing process.[148] Nevertheless, concerns over whether the Kānaka Maoli teachers were “forceful enough” in the implementation of English-only and American values education, causing many of them to be replaced; “sacrificed for the general good of the school system.”[149]
Additionally, long-standing racialized stereotyping against Kānaka Maoli had followed many of the teachers into the classrooms. Stereotypes, that had been promoted by the sugar planters’ claims that Kānaka Maoli were “dirty, stupid, and lazy,” which stemmed from the Kānaka Maoli community’s refusals to work under the whip of the Luna on plantations.[150] Yet, territorial educational policies, in which promoted discrimination of Hawaii’s ethnic groups, were masked behind color-blind language that justified the segregation of students because of language abilities or educational skill levels.[151] These biases would soon permeate the classrooms, where teachers ridiculed students for speaking ‘pidgin’ (Hawaii Creole English), enacted corporal punishment, or insinuated that “Hawaiians….are dumb and theyʻre not supposed to succeed,” assigning “C” or “F” classrooms to be majority Kānaka Maoli.[152]
This discriminatory behavior by the adults in the classrooms had a traumatic influence on Kānaka Maoli children’s psyche. Persistant negative responses to student behavior or outright discrimination can damage a student’s self-concept, hence promoting self-hatred of ones own culture, thereby “internalizing negative self-images due to racist beliefs.”[153] Immigrant students, specifically those who were placed in “A” classes, began to “employ tactics of defensive othering to improve self-worth and to avoid experiences with racism.”[154] Thus, students of immigrant ancestry, many of whom were of Japanese ancestry, began to take on the “mental attitude of Americans…identify [students] by race…[engage stereotypes, and] adopt a mentality of dependency,” thereby becoming participants in the colonization-Americanization process.[155] Colonization, thereby, became internalized. Kānaka Maoli students fell to apathy and resignaton, while third generation immigrant students accepted American governing control.[156]