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The Killing of Joseph Kahahawai: Native Hawaiians and Stories of Resistance

John P. Rosa

in Local Story: The Massie-Kahahawai Case and the Culture of History

This chapter examines how Native Hawaiian struggles in the early decades of the twentieth century often allowed Hawaiians to align themselves on the side of working-class Asians, Portuguese, Puerto ... More

This chapter examines how Native Hawaiian struggles in the early decades of the twentieth century often allowed Hawaiians to align themselves on the side of working-class Asians, Portuguese, Puerto Ricans, and other locals. The death of Joseph Kahahawai in January 1932 at the hands of four mainland haoles was seen as more than merely an injury against the Native Hawaiian community. His murder was cast as a story of local oppression, revealing to Native Hawaiians that they had more in common with working-class peoples of color and were part of an emerging local culture. These common interests challenged the tenuous and contradictory alliances that Native Hawaiian elites had sometimes formed with white merchants, planters, and governing officials who sought desperately to preserve their oligarchic control of territorial Hawaii.Less

Legal Detours of U.S. Empire: Locating Race and Indigeneity in Law, History, and Hawai‘i

Amy L. Brandzel

in Against Citizenship: The Violence of the Normative

This chapter uses Rice v. Cayetano (2000), a Supreme Court case involving a white citizen's challenge to Native Hawaiian representation, as a springboard to explore how race and coloniality are set ... More

This chapter uses Rice v. Cayetano (2000), a Supreme Court case involving a white citizen's challenge to Native Hawaiian representation, as a springboard to explore how race and coloniality are set up as oppositional, anti-intersectional politics. Kanaka Maoli and other indigenous scholars and activists have been quite vocal in critiquing the ways in which the discourse of civil rights and racism serves to obscure and undermine sovereignty claims and critiques of colonialism. The chapter adds to these critiques by demonstrating how the combination of legal and historical discourses sets up a battle between the recognition of racism and the recognition of settler colonialism. It illuminates how discourses of citizenship, law, and history collude to (re)produce the misrecognition and disaggregation of anticolonialist and antiracist endeavors.Less

Community and Research Together

Claire Townsend Ing, Rebecca Delafield, and Shelley Soong

Winona K. Mesiona Lee and Mele A. Look (eds)

in Ho'i Hou Ka Mauli Ola: Pathways to Native Hawaiian Health

Hawaiians have faced historical and cultural traumas leading to modern day inequities in the social, economic and political realms. These inequities contribute to poor health status that many Native ... More

Hawaiians have faced historical and cultural traumas leading to modern day inequities in the social, economic and political realms. These inequities contribute to poor health status that many Native Hawaiians experience. Two groups have attempted to improve these health outcomes, Academic researchers and the Native Hawaiian community. However, often times the approaches and goals of these two groups are at odds. Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR) is an approach that seeks to combine community goals, action, and priorities with those of academic research. This chapter illustrates the evolution of CBPR in Hawai‘i, and its meaningful principles that have been effective for both the Native Hawaiian and research communities in their promotion of health.Less

‘Īlio‘ulaokalani: Defending Native Hawaiian Culture

Momiala Kamahele

in Asian Settler Colonialism: From Local Governance to the Habits of Everyday Life in Hawaii

This chapter defines Hawaiian culture as a “contested culture under colonial domination.” It describes the formation of ‘Īlio‘ulaokalani, a coalition of Hawaiian hula practitioners who joined forces ... More

This chapter defines Hawaiian culture as a “contested culture under colonial domination.” It describes the formation of ‘Īlio‘ulaokalani, a coalition of Hawaiian hula practitioners who joined forces in 1997 to oppose efforts by Asian and white settler legislators like Randy Iwase and Ed Case to revoke Hawaiian statutory and constitutional rights to access and gather resources of the land. Although the coalition successfully opposed Senate Bill 8, the chapter concludes that “no matter how hard we work, if we don't have our own nation, if we don't achieve sovereignty, then we will never, never have clearly defined lands or clearly defined rights to practice our culture.”Less

“This Land Is Your Land, This Land Was My Land”: Kanaka Maoli versus Settler Representations of ‘Āina in Contemporary Literature of Hawai‘i

Ku‘ualoha Ho‘omanawanui

in Asian Settler Colonialism: From Local Governance to the Habits of Everyday Life in Hawaii

This chapter focuses on the differences between the representations of ‘āina (land) in the contemporary literature of Hawai‘i, popularly referred to as “local literature.” It argues that there is a ... More

This chapter focuses on the differences between the representations of ‘āina (land) in the contemporary literature of Hawai‘i, popularly referred to as “local literature.” It argues that there is a distinction between representations of ‘āina in Kanaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) literature and Asian and other settler or “local” literature. The main differences in representation between these two literatures center on how ‘āina and Kanaka Maoli are described and portrayed, as well as the inclusion, use of, and attitudes toward language—‘ōlelo Hawai‘i (Hawaiian language), English, and Hawai‘i Creole English (HCE, commonly referred to as “pidgin”) in particular. These differences in representation exist because Kanaka Maoli and settlers are operating from different cultural paradigms and different language bases.Less

Satisfied with Stones: Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization and the Discourses of Resistance

Jodi A. Byrd

in The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism

This chapter focuses on how the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2007 has been framed both within Hawai‘i and on the continent as a way to understand how the United States uses ... More

This chapter focuses on how the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2007 has been framed both within Hawai‘i and on the continent as a way to understand how the United States uses discourses of Indianness to solidify its presence in the Pacific as it develops and contorts federal law to colonize indigenous nations. It studies how the continual transformation and revision of federal Indian policy becomes a coherent and inevitable expansionist discourse orchestrated by a seemingly static United States. In the face of colonial processes that seek to hide the fractures within U.S. boundaries among American Indian nations, it is important to investigate how discourses of Indianness are used both by the imperial U.S. government and by those Native Hawaiian activists who frame “Indianness” as an infection threatening their rights and status as an internationally recognized sovereign state.Less

Native Hawaiians: Kānaka Maoli: Pacific Smoke Inhalation Case Study Number 3

Mac Marshall

in Drinking Smoke: The Tobacco Syndemic in Oceania

This chapter focuses on the negative health effects of smoking on “Native Hawaiians,” also called Kānaka Maoli. Among Hawaii's different ethnic groups, Native Hawaiians ranked highest for a variety ... More

This chapter focuses on the negative health effects of smoking on “Native Hawaiians,” also called Kānaka Maoli. Among Hawaii's different ethnic groups, Native Hawaiians ranked highest for a variety of cancer risk factors, including tobacco and alcohol use, obesity, and a diet high in processed foods and calories, with substantial amounts of saturated fat, total fat, and cholesterol and low in calcium, folate, vitamin C, and fiber. Research also shows that “overall, lung cancer rates have remained markedly higher for Kānaka Maoli than for the other ethnic groups in both sexes.” In addition, a recent article, noted that cardiovascular disease rates were higher for men than for women and that those with diabetes had four times the rate of nondiabetics.Less

Sovereignty out from under Glass?: Native Hawaiian Rhetorics at the Bishop Museum

Lisa King

in Huihui: Navigating Art and Literature in the Pacific

This chapter examines the ways in which the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum of Honolulu has recognized Native Hawaiian rhetorics through which it has maintained and displayed its collections. In ... More

This chapter examines the ways in which the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum of Honolulu has recognized Native Hawaiian rhetorics through which it has maintained and displayed its collections. In particular, it considers the 2006–2009 renovation of the museum’s Hawaiian Hall facilities as an attempt to decolonize the rhetorical habits of the institution regarding its relationship with the Native Hawaiian community. The chapter first traces the history of the Bishop Museum before discussing the role of museums as rhetorical sites that may provide counternarratives to colonial representations or even to postcolonial representations. It then turns to the Hawaiian Hall exhibit to illustrate the problems the Bishop Museum has had in its relationship to Native Hawaiians. More specifically, it also explores how the participation of the Native Hawaiian community in the Hawaiian Hall renovation has created opportunities for ongoing “rhetorical sovereignty” in specifically Native Hawaiian terms while simultaneously revealing the problems and ambiguities of trying to do so within a traditionally colonial framework.Less

Mauli Ola: Pathways to Optimal Kanaka ‘Ōiwi Health

Joseph Keawe‘aimoku Kaholokula

Winona K. Mesiona Lee and Mele A. Look (eds)

in Ho'i Hou Ka Mauli Ola: Pathways to Native Hawaiian Health

This essay explores the social and cultural determinants of Kanaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian) health and the pathways to Mauli Ola (optimal health and wellbeing). Future opportunities for enhancing ... More

This essay explores the social and cultural determinants of Kanaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian) health and the pathways to Mauli Ola (optimal health and wellbeing). Future opportunities for enhancing Mauli Ola explored are the demographic changes in the Kanaka ʻŌiwi population, continuing cultural revitalization efforts, participation in the larger society, and self-determination and the larger international Indigenous movement. Several shared Kanaka ʻŌiwi aspirations important to Mauli Ola are highlighted to include supporting a strong Kanaka ʻŌiwi identity and space, strengthening ‘ohana (family) relations, and ensuring the practice of mālama ‘āina and aloha ‘āina.Less

Introduction

Gregory Rosenthal

in Beyond Hawai'i: Native Labor in the Pacific World

This Introduction applies broad brushstrokes to place the story of Hawaiʻi’s nineteenth-century indigenous migrant workers in the context of Hawaiian and Pacific historiography, as well as theories ... More

This Introduction applies broad brushstrokes to place the story of Hawaiʻi’s nineteenth-century indigenous migrant workers in the context of Hawaiian and Pacific historiography, as well as theories of labor history, environmental history, the history of capitalism, and the history of the body. The introduction explores the discursive construction of the “kanaka” as a racialized and gendered laboring body type; the concept of a “Hawaiian Pacific World”; and the unique characteristics of nineteenth-century Hawaiian capitalism. The introduction also explores the methodological and ethical issues involved in conducting research in Native Hawaiian history, and includes concise chapter summaries.Less

Local Japanese Women for Justice (LJWJ) Speak Out against Daniel Inouye and the JACL

Ida Yoshinaga and Eiko Kosasa

in Asian Settler Colonialism: From Local Governance to the Habits of Everyday Life in Hawaii

This chapter challenges popular assumptions about the ways that Asian settlers like Daniel Inouye have “helped Hawaiians.” It shows that Inouye, who has accrued an extraordinary amount of political ... More

This chapter challenges popular assumptions about the ways that Asian settlers like Daniel Inouye have “helped Hawaiians.” It shows that Inouye, who has accrued an extraordinary amount of political power for himself as a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, including the Subcommittee on Defense and Military Construction and the Subcommittee on Veteran Affairs, and of the Committee on Indian Affairs, is an institution backed by highly visible community organizations like the Japanese American Citizens' League (JACL). This chapter challenges Inouye and the JACL for their participation in a smear campaign against Native Hawaiian nationalist Mililani Trask, who had criticized Inouye's attempts to control the process for a self-determined sovereignty for Hawaiians.Less

Accommodation, Adaptation, and Resistance to Leprosy and the Law

Kerri A. Inglis

in Ma'i Lepera: Disease and Displacement in Nineteenth-Century Hawaii

This chapter considers the ways Hawaiians and those afflicted with the disease resisted the 1865 Act to Prevent the Spread of Leprosy and its application. At the same time the chapter reveals Western ... More

This chapter considers the ways Hawaiians and those afflicted with the disease resisted the 1865 Act to Prevent the Spread of Leprosy and its application. At the same time the chapter reveals Western anxieties about the disease. Native Hawaiians responded in a variety of ways to both the epidemic and to the Hawaiian Kingdom's response to it. While there was some accommodation and adaptation to the Board of Health policies, there was also resistance, which came in many forms and which was at times violent. Above all, these various reactions demonstrate that Native Hawaiians were not merely victims, but active participants in this disease experience that affected so many.Less

The Art of Kingship: Kalākaua’s Coronation

Stacy L. Kamehiro

in The Arts of Kingship: Hawaiian Art and National Culture of the Kalakaua Era

This chapter examines the coronation and regalia. The orchestration of Kalākaua's coronation in 1883 speaks to the relationship between power and spectacle and how these are integral to political ... More

This chapter examines the coronation and regalia. The orchestration of Kalākaua's coronation in 1883 speaks to the relationship between power and spectacle and how these are integral to political processes. The king and his advisers crafted a ritualized space and selected the coronation regalia, which, infused with the solemnity of the ceremonial, formed a signifying complex communicating the legitimacy of the Hawaiian leadership to local and foreign audiences. Facing increasingly overt and hostile threats to his administration by a predominantly haole opposition and questions regarding his genealogical claims to the throne posed by some of his Native constituency, Kalākaua integrated visual markers of Native Hawaiian chiefly leadership and Western authority to affirm the modernity of the Hawaiian nation and the legitimacy of its ruler and chiefly institutions.Less

Landscapes

John Ryan Fischer

in Cattle Colonialism: An Environmental History of the Conquest of California and Hawai'i

After the introduction of cattle to California and Hawai‘i, the establishment of the species depended on ecological resources and native responses. The second chapter examines the ecological changes ... More

After the introduction of cattle to California and Hawai‘i, the establishment of the species depended on ecological resources and native responses. The second chapter examines the ecological changes prompted by cattle and the effects of these changes on indigenous subsistence strategies. California Indians intensely managed the California environment in order to attain significant yields and sustain a large population through hunting and gathering. Hawaiians utilized plants and animals brought through Polynesian migration and trade, and they developed their own agricultural regimes to support a large organized population. Cattle grazed on Hawaiian crops and items gathered by California Indians, and they also facilitated the introduction of new species that competed with more familiar resources. Thus, cattle presented a clear challenge to native lifeways. At the same time, introduced diseases and military conflicts destabilized indigenous societies, exacerbating the effects of livestock introductions.Less

The Racial Setting of Hawai‘i in the 1920s

Jonathan Y. Okamura

in Raced to Death in 1920s Hawai i: Injustice and Revenge in the Fukunaga Case

This chapter situates the Fukunaga case in the racial setting of Hawai‘i during the 1920s, when the anti-Japanese movement peaked before World War II. It begins by discussing Haole political and ... More

This chapter situates the Fukunaga case in the racial setting of Hawai‘i during the 1920s, when the anti-Japanese movement peaked before World War II. It begins by discussing Haole political and economic power, which resulted from Haole’s enforcing race as the dominant organizing principle of social relations. Also outlined is the anti-Japanese movement, which sought to subordinate Japanese Americans because they were considered the most dangerous threat to Haole domination. The chapter discusses previous racial injustices against Japanese and Filipino labor leaders in the 1920s who had upset the racial hierarchy by organizing plantation strikes. It concludes that the racial setting was demarcated by an uneven racial divide between Haoles and non-Haoles because Native Hawaiians had much greater political access than most of the latter.Less

Reenacting Hawai‘i’s History in the Plays of Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl

Diana Looser

in Remaking Pacific Pasts: History, Memory, and Identity in Contemporary Theater from Oceania

This chapter considers three works about Hawai‘i’s changing colonial landscape produced by a single dramatist, Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl. These works are drawn from two genres of historiographic ... More

This chapter considers three works about Hawai‘i’s changing colonial landscape produced by a single dramatist, Victoria Nalani Kneubuhl. These works are drawn from two genres of historiographic performance arising from her work as a playwright and museum educator: artistic “plays for the theatre” and more documentary “living history programs.” These include two plays dealing with early missionary contact and with incipient US statehood, as well as a major site-specific living history pageant about the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy. While playing an important ethical and political role in the ongoing reassertion of Hawaiian culture, identity, and self-determination, Kneubuhl’s oeuvre also draws attention to art’s tangible social impact in the postcolonial Pacific.Less

A New Religion from Kahiki: Christianity, Textuality, and Exploration, 1820–1832

David A. Chang

in The World and All the Things upon It: Native Hawaiian Geographies of Exploration

The chapter looks at the Kanaka encounter with Christianity from the 1810s forward, and seeks to correct standard narratives of missionary endeavor. It centers Native Hawaiians’ active use of ... More

The chapter looks at the Kanaka encounter with Christianity from the 1810s forward, and seeks to correct standard narratives of missionary endeavor. It centers Native Hawaiians’ active use of Christianity and the to seek knowledge from the outside for Native Hawaiian purposes. It further contends that for Kānaka, exploring the outside world through Christianity meant reconnecting to other Pacific Islanders, not acquiescing to Western colonialism.Less

Race and/or Ethnicity in Hawai‘i: What’s the Difference and What Difference Does It Make?

Jonathan Y. Okamura

in Beyond Ethnicity: New Politics of Race 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 ... More

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.Less

Sites of Erasure: The Representation of Settler Culture in Hawai‘i

Karen K. Kosasa

in Asian Settler Colonialism: From Local Governance to the Habits of Everyday Life in Hawaii

This chapter asks the reader to consider the ways that settlers are involved in the colonization of Hawai‘i and Hawaiians through acts of erasure in the everyday lives and artistic practices of ... More

This chapter asks the reader to consider the ways that settlers are involved in the colonization of Hawai‘i and Hawaiians through acts of erasure in the everyday lives and artistic practices of Native Hawaiians. Such acts involve settlers' visual production of blankness—blank spaces “emptied” of Native peoples to be filled with settler visions of the American Dream. By using collaborative mixed-media projects with photographer Stan Tomita, the chapter engages in “strategies of exposure” that are “crucial exercises in remembering.” It emphasizes that as we question the ways that Asian settlers imagine their place on Native lands, we must critically reevaluate the stories they tell to construct a “multicultural Hawai‘i.”Less