Want to be less racist? Easy - just stop looking so hard to find it!
20
I find this article somewhat amusing.....Hawaii
2
Hawai’i people are a beautiful diversity of Indo Pacific mixes. Please don’t send racists here. Terrible title.
13
The article's title implies that everyone is racist to some degree.
9
I grew up in a mostly white suburb of Chicago, where we asked one another what we were. Half Irish, Half German? All Polish? Mostly German?
Want to be less racist? Stop assuming that white people are putting you "in a box" when they ask you what you are.
14
Yeah, Caucasian’s and African Americans feel pretty blatant, socially acceptable racism daily there. I moved after taking 4 years of it.
18
What a joke, the Hawaiian people do not like outsiders, especially whites, on their islands at all.
27
Make sure you have a job that you can afford to live there.
2
That's all well and good. But perhaps native Hawaiians would like their country back now.
14
They should also put my face in the article haha.
I'm
Scottish/Irish/Kenyan/Sierra Leonean/Nigerian/Serbian/ Greek/Indian.
5
If you are white you will get to have the experience of a minority. Hate always directed at you, in Hawaii I had to sit in the back of the bus If they allowed me on the bus. Then there's howlie day where the white kids all get beat up in schools and no one seems to mind. So IF you are NOT white Hawaii is a great place IF you are rich.
19
Since the author surely knows what goes on in Hawaii, I conclude that he thinks it is good for whites to be beaten up and be insulted for being haoles, and he thinks this is good because it makes whites less racist.
What other conclusion can be drawn?
16
Bravo to the 31 year old german lady captain of Sea Watch ship who forced the interdiction of Italian right wing minister to debark rescued migrants in the port of Lampedusa.
Enough of the money greedy selfish racists who don't care about the ecology and the life of poor people.
2
Live on Maui almost 20 years, it’s not for everyone,
Population 1.2 million total, Maui about 160 k.
Like most islands very transient for most new comers ,they last about a year or two than go back.
Maui is extremely racist, I’m white so I didn’t come here to tell the locals what to do.
Seeing all these white tourists with such attitudes and entitlement, I can see why the hard core locals don’t like whites.
Here on Maui time share factories have ruined the island, especially on the west side, bringing in dead beat mostly white and Indians dot’s not feathers, a lot of hidden resentment .
11
Hawaii? You mean the nation where in 1893 whites from the US took over at gunpoint and instituted regime change? Multiculturalism at the point of a gun, you mean.
12
Come to New Jersey -- We got your diversity, right here!
13
I spent time in Hawaii. Hawaiians referred to us disparagingly as Haoles. It was not a compliment. It was specific to white people. It was racist.
23
I spent time in Oahu doing construction work and as a white person found the area very racist. Spend some time away from the campus and tourist areas and you will get the feel of what is means to be a Haole. There was a very hostile attitude towards whites in the small beach communities. I learned real quick where to surf and not to surf as a white. I guess I can understand their attitudes towards whites considering the history of oppression and exploitation.
25
VERY naive- racism is widespread. Start by reading Jewel's experience growing up there; her's is typical.
15
We have an Obama today, and - who knew? - this one is a woman: TULSI2020
4
So the writer confessed to being in two not race categories.
But the entire premise is races are real.
And the photo caption lists races such as “Spanish.” I wonder if it includes the basques? The Catalans?
Gibberish.
Race is not real. Beagles and basset hounds are not two different races of dogs. They sure are different but still just dogs. People are people. Now if you find the yeti we can talk.
8
Is there a different Hawaii that the author is writing about? the one I visit seems to be just as racist as anywhere else.
14
" Want to be less Racist ? Move to Hawaii ."
"Less racist than ________?!"
I'm not racist now. How will moving to Hawaii make me less
of that which I am not ?
Will moving to Hawaii make my curly hair "Less straight " ?!
5
It seems to me that there's quite a bit of anti-white racism in Hawaii. Off the beaten track in Hawaii, you'll hear 'haole' shouted at you if you're white, quite frequently. No doubt this animus is partly based on the European-American takeover of Hawaii but it's there.
14
this is mostly true...it's still racist but just not in a traditional, white person glasses, type of racism. The Japanese are pretty darn racist. The caste system starts with the Japanese for economics but white people ('haole' or 'without soul') because of the U.S. state connection then goes to Chinese, Korean, Viet, etc. Then to Hawaiians. Then to the Micronesians who are viewed as almost sub-human. Try applying to a mostly local business as a white guy and if you don't have a Hawaiian middle name indicating that you grew up there, forget about being considered for the job. Go to the wrong couple of beaches to surf, you risk getting ran out of the water and possibly robbed or get in a fight. it's still racist. Just not in a malahini/Mainland sort of way. Aloha.
13
Why do we always look at race from the perspective of the targets of racial hostility but never from the perspective of the originators of it?
The focus should be on the parents of the 4- to 11-year-old white children, who already harbor horrible stereotypes about people of color. My spouse and I see it all the time in the grocery store. You can immediately tell which children are being trained to be racist. If they toddle into you in the aisles, as you smile and say, "Hi, sweetheart. Aren't cute?" Mom will wordlessly swoop over in alarm to snatch the child away as though you were a hot stove or worse. Children will stare from their carts, slack-jawed, as though you have horns, and won't respond to your smile or goofy face. Clearly, Mom and Dad are schooling them at home about the scary black people they'll encounter in daily life.
So, please, let's stop making the black/Asian/Jewish person the problem and begin asking white parents what in the heck are they teaching their children about our multiracial world.
21
Do I really have to move to Hawaii to become less racist. I think that I am doing fine in the diverse society of Manhattan.
8
I have been reading the NYT for years. It’s rare that, after I read this article, I felt so much blathering was said, with so little objective facts that made any sense.
11
That’s good to hear. Word in the 80s was move to Hawaii as a haule, get beat up.
7
"Want to be Less Racist"? The suggestion is to move to a colonized island where the Native Hawaiians are still fighting to protect their land, language and culture? No! Don't encourage more people to settle there. This headline is racist itself.
5
The extensive comments for this piece outline the true level of prejudice and racism in Hawaii.
This evidence based on the personal experience of many visitors to Hawaii, including this writer, completely refutes the title of this article.
The aloha spirit is an advertising gimmick promulgated by the Hawaii Visitors Bureau years ago to encourage tourism.
It’s sad that journalism in a democracy like America includes so much fabricated information fed to young naive readers.
13
Stress contributes to racism no doubt.
1
PLEASE DO NOT MOVE TO HAWAII. We don’t need any more people here it’s backed could take hours just to get 20 miles depending on time of day everything is overpriced because of the colonizer. If you wanna move to Hawaii for your own selfishness gain, DON’T. If you want to move here for paradise, DON’T because it’s not paradise it’s stolen land that’s continues to be oppressed on the daily. If you come for a vacation make sure to return to where you came from. Don’t bother thinking of moving here unless you plan in submerging yourself in the native Hawaiians culture, ways of life, way so of doing things and language if not you’re a waste of space and the reason for skyrocketing prices. Hawaii was never here for your convenience. If come to Hawaii and expect to be treated as you do in America you’ve mistaken and should brush up on the history of Hawaii. We Hawaiians will fight for our land back no matter what it takes. It’s was never America’s to take.
11
Why no mention of "Kill a haole day"?
16
Not my experience. Hawaii 1965 - 1968
6
That surprises me. I lived in Hawaii in 2000's for two years and I found it to be the most racist place I had lived in my life. I grew up in a working class neighborhood where white people were the minority so being a minority in Hawaii was not a new experience for me. The violence and discrimination aimed at white people(Haolies) was. I had never seen a person beaten to a pulp due solely to their race although I knew it happened on the mainland. I saw it happen three times on Maui. I made friends at work and asked if I could play in the pick-up basketball game in the highland the always talked about and one of the natives explained it wouldn't be safe for me or them if they brought me into the gym. Getting housing was near impossible with most realtors blowing me off so as not to show me rental properties. Coming back from work at night I would always need to be on the alert and would often be jeered at from passing cars yelling Haole. At the restaurant , native clients were so cold it was palpable. I was told by old school mainland ex-pats to get a tan as fast as possible when I arrived and keep a low profile. The level of violence about to pop off because someone disapproved of your race was so intense, I had to leave. I grew up on the border of a city(Camden, NJ) that was considered one of the most dangerous in the United States and yet I had never experienced the violence and hatred around race as I did on Walaka St in Maui.
21
My daughter is Chinese/mixed White. Hybrid vigor lives in her.
1
I lived in Oahu 2003 to 2009. It was interesting to live someplace where being hapa or mixed was desirable. Even so, I was definitely subjected to anti-white (Haole) sentiment, sometimes subtle sometimes overt. My wife and I were also verbally gay bashed by neighbors.
I was taken aback by the frequency in which people asked each other “What are you?”, the overt racial pecking order in which certain groups were belittled and the butts of jokes (Portuguese jokes a favorite), the “Kill Haole Day” a colleague’s Caucasian daughter endured at school.
I tell people Hawaii is a beautiful place, a great place to visit but a difficult place to live. If you are Haole you will never belong.
14
I see some take issue with the title. I find it to be perfectly appropriate. The culture surrounding us affects our outlook and behavior, though if David Duke moved to Hawaii, I do not think he would be affected, though his moving to Hawaii is inconceivable.
2
Why are all the photos purporting to represent diversity leave out any one over the age of 30?
10
I had heard the locals who descend from native populations of the South Pacific hate the foreigners from the US mainland.
4
At some point the list of racial backgrounds gets so long it becomes a bit ridiculous. I have about six purported regions of origin in my racial background but more recently I have just started saying I am American. Much simpler, much truer. I was born in the Americas and raised here in the United States. I am not of the Old World, no matter what my genes have to say about it.
1
Been to Hawaii numerous times and, in the places off the beaten track on the Big Island (Hawaii), being white can get you hassled and threatened.
Doesn’t mean you should avoid the island. It’s breathtaking. Just know that the corrosive effect of ‘progressive’ identity politics has taken its toll there.
7
NB re use of the terms “Hawaiian” and “Hawaiians” – “In Hawaii, the word Hawaiian is understood as an ethnic designation for a native person of Polynesian descent, and its use in the more general sense "a resident of Hawaii" is considered an error.” [Definition of Hawaiian at www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Hawaiian]
1
Starting in the 1990s, many marriages in our family were bi-racial. I expect many more. The future is here and we are living it.
1
Racists hate Hawaii though because it's reliably Democratic. I loved Hawaii and I'd be happy to retire there. But it's too gentle, loving, beautiful, and tolerant for Republicans to be able to deal with it.
2
You move to Honolulu, leave your car on the mainland. Crawling on your hands and knees is faster. It will take so long to get anywhere, you won't have time to be concerned about the race of the person on the sidewalk next to you.
2
I have a friend who is a white female tall with blond hair who said she was continuously racially discriminated against when she lived in Hawaii. She says that people generally did not like her Scandinavian looks
6
I lived and went to school (grades 6-8) on Oahu for three years around 1970. My locker was burned twice, broken into and belongs stolen three times. I was threatened several times and warned not to come to school, or else... The principal told my parents that he couldn’t help and that maybe I should transfer. I was one of the few white kids at the school. No racists in Hawaii? Not my experience.
11
I’m white and live in Hawaii. I love being a minority here. Great for perspective.
2
Many interesting and original concepts expressed in this article...Thanks
Regardless of the diversity in Hawaii, that does not mean Hawaii has less racism. I think it is okay to be Caucasian, since I am. I like to imagine living in a place which truly embraces diversity rather than have “trends.” Like now it is not cool to be white. Soon there will be another “trend” where it will not be cool to be Asian (because Asian culture stresses education and Asians have proven to make non-Asians feel Asians are more competitive for admission to elite colleges.).
The focus on race is unfortunate.
Race does not ultimately define a person anymore than gender, BMI or eye color. One has to meet and get to know a person to know them. Only then do you know a person. All these descriptors are superficial. How does it define both Michelle Obama and Tenia Campbell (who killed her twin daughters in NY this week.) One African American woman is an exemplary mother and the other is a mentally ill woman whose life stressors drove her to the brink and she murdered her 2 kids. Race does not describe either woman except to tell us their skin tone group. Nothing else. Nothing else.
Al Sharpton and Barack Obama are both African Americans. That tells me nothing about either man. No two men could be more dissimilar.
7
The biggest issue in the US is anti-Black racism. There are only very few Black people in Hawaii. That's why the argument brought forth here falls short.
6
This is what my family looks like. In our neighborhood here there are more mixed race kids than the other kind. In light of the racism that ties Trump so inextricably and happily to his base, how could we ever countenance even the most qualified support for that demagogue and his bad-faith, immoral, white nationalist, fascist party?
1
No. Don’t move to Hawai’i. I was born and raised in Hawai’i and lived there for most of my adult life. Hawai’i is bursting at the seams with one the nations largest homeless populations—mostly Micronesian and POC, btw. There is also a mental heath crisis there, oh and crystal meth. Oh, and some of the nation’s worst traffic congestion. This isn’t the Hawai’i you see in the movies, son. So yes, while you’ve painted Hawai’i into some sort of race utopia, which btw, it’s not—there’s just less white people there. Most places with a MINORITY white population tend to be looked upon as a place with less racism, and it’s simply bc the culprits of racism aren’t there. With that said, there are streams and remnants of anti-blackness in Hawaii (thanks again to wypipo) which the article points out. If you’re white, please don’t mistake Hawai’i as a place to go if you want to be less racist. The days of white exploration and “discovery” are over and you really don’t need to be there—because it wouldn’t be for anyone but yourself. You get to go to Hawaii to “feel” less racist, maybe even “look” less racist but that doesn’t make you less racist. For once, stop to think about what your presence does to everyone else there. Often your racial harmony looks and feels nothing like ours.
6
"Want to Be Less Racist? Move to Hawaii."
Or Toronto.
More than half us weren't born here and we get better for it every day - good people get better when they see more and more other good people who don't look like them.
3
Interesting here the several posters who say that it's ok to beat up white people because of what their ancestors may have done. I suppose that is the "woke" reasoning. Following that logic, I should go out and beat up a young black man because one of his kind killed my neighbor.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
5
So people have to be of mixed-race in order to not be racist? That itself is racist.
7
While Hawaii may be a paradise for some races, it's not for others. I have a black friend who lives on Oahu who says she's never been treated with such racist contempt as she has been in Hawaii by native Hawaiians and Asians. Ask any white person in Hawaii how easy it is to get a job in local or state government if you're not either Asian or native Hawaiian - you may just want to forget about applying. There's always a dark side to everything, no matter how bright the bright side is.
11
Hawaii produces nothing but tourism, and they import everything. Nothing gets done in Hawaiian organizations because the most senior person, especially a senior native Hawaiian or Japanese, can never be challenged, lest disharmony result. Be careful of using Hawaii as a model for places that actually need to make things.
8
What a short sighted and uninformed opinion of Hawaii. You are correct in that Hawaii does import a lot from the mainland and from other places, but Hawaii is also the home of one of the largest cattle ranches and beef suppliers in the USA. It is also large producer of vegetables/potatoes and other crops. Not to mention Kona coffee.
Hawaii definitely is known for tourism and also expensive real estate (driven by tourism and its constant mild weather) but it is so much more; and the people, spirit and inclusiveness are the reasons. Even if tourism were the only thing it produced, there’s a reason that tourism exists and people want to come here and keep coming here! I don’t want to knock any other parts of the continental USA, but can you say the same about them? If Iowa, Indiana, Nebraska SD, ND and other states didn’t produce dairy, wheat, corn, etc - what would their draw be? What would their contribution/production be?
I just moved to Hawaii from NYC in 2018 and am incredibly happy and proud to call this place my new home. Just because it’s not a center of finance and arts, don’t discount it!
10
@Amanda -- Hawaii was doing just fine for hundreds of years before we "discovered" it and moved in to take over and "improve" things.
1
I think the elements of Christianity that searched for justification for bigotry need to be called out. The perennial Easter passion plays that single out Jews as the killers of Jesus or that people of color are the decedents of Ham cursed by Noah. Or even the creation of the Southern Baptist Convention before the Civil War to facilitate its use of the Bible to justify chattel slavery. Add that variable into the analysis and that becomes a very clear unifying thread.
3
Can somebody explain the liberal media's obsession with racism, gender, and sexuality? Hawaii is a melting pot and that's wonderful. So is New York City and for that matter so is my own city of Pittsburgh. Virtually everyone I know is indifferent to others' race, gender, & sexuality. It seems they're an issue of study & debate only because the media deems them so.
12
When bigotry is no longer an issue, we can then stop focusing on race, gender, sexuality.
6
This majestic gallery of human diversity is born of human beings loving other human beings.
1
I have been told by other Alaskans who vacation in Hawaii they were uncomfortable being Caucasian in Hawaii and felt a sense of discrimination. This has not been my experience at all and the people who expressed this opinion I also note could be considered "uncomfortable" among anybody who doesn't look like them.
2
People of Hawaii... Live Aloha!
The word "ALOHA" has means much more than "Hello" and "Goodbye".
1
Hawaii’s the only state where the indigenous play a part in day to day life. Thus, the white people have a greater sense of understanding of this islands history and who came before them. On the mainland American history is still taught for the most part of being a creation of the European settler.
3
Aryans came to India to settle down in 2000 B.C. Over the centuries with many invasions from different countries, India is multi racial through all these centuries. Eventually the aryans all turned to have brown skin, black hair. But do Indians call themselves aryans? No. They have other different languages, cultures, but essentially they are Indians. About time America stops unconsciously addressing everyone as black or white or by age in any statement. Just look at any media news, a black male age so and so did this. A white senator said this and that. Stopping segregation and racial bias starts from the use of words.
4
An article about race in Hawaii that never mentions the term "haole"? That's Hawaiian for "white." The word wouldn't exist without the reality.
6
Hawaii is a multiracial paradise in many ways, yes, but that does not hold true for Native Hawaiians. One of the key problems in Hawaii is the US Census Bureau's category of "Asian/Pacific Islander". Native Hawaiians (an economically disadvantaged group) and Japanese/Korean/Chinese-Americans (economically and politically powerful) are thus bundled together, and the disparities are thus less easy to see. Native Hawaiians should be categorized like Native Americans, as they are the indigenous inhabitants of the 50 states.
5
I'm a bit confused. The author talks about being unhappy when people at Dartmouth asked about her ethnicity. But then the captions on the pictures identify what ethnic ancestry the individuals have. Which is it?
7
If you really hanker to be less racist, no need to move to Hawaii (although I can imagine all kinds of other reasons to move there).
Try Queens, NY. It's been that way for a long time; it's not a secret. Better still, try riding the 7 line at any time, day or night -- if you're demographically white American, you will be a minority. Except during the three weeks in August of the USTA Open (then you might have to, unlikely, share the car with affluent Asians, mostly Indians).
The best thing, most of the year, on the 7 line? No group can legitimately claim a majority. Interesting, huh?
7
Long and winding road of pedestrian journalese to establish that, because of its history, race is not a detminant o social values. Boring photos, too.
4
If there is a paradise on Earth it is Hawaii and the South Pacific. Yes,there are issues, life is not perfect but when the white Christian missionaries arrived they wanted to bring shame, hate and exploitation. Fortunately they weren't able to destroy the Hawaiian people sense of pride, and love for life.
Humanity and love doesn't come with a vacation to Hawaii it comes with self awareness and a realization that there is more to life than just the white race and there beliefs.
2
Tank you for the brilliant piece.
There was a striking omission that anyone who has spent any real time in the islands will know, that is the term ”haole”. At it’s most benign it means ”outsider” but it is typically applied to whites and meant as an insult, a racial slur. This is not isolated and it is not healthy or positive and I did not see it addressed. The open arms are not universally open - haole’s not so much. Let's keep it real.
- M
10
Please change the name of this article. Completely takes away the message of the research and assumes that simply moving can change racial biases
1
Isn't it time that we all begin to realize that there are kindly and vicious people, smart and stupid people, open-hearted and prejudiced people, and lazy and enterprising people, among all social classes, colors, and creeds? That all those different types of good and bad Americans inhabit various areas in the United States?
Neither poverty nor wealth nor color confers virtue. Religiosity is double-edged. No one has a monopoly on being nice.
2
Hawaii is paradise in yet another way.
As a freshman in college in 1967, I read Norman Podhoretz's essay published in Commentary Magazine. It was, "My Negro, and Ours," which concluded that the problem was color, and that the only solution was miscegenation. I despaired that the way out of human limitation in asessing difference is to make it disappear -- to erase outward signs of race altogether. I did not know as an 18 year-old, that I would never forget (now 52 years later) that essay and its troubling solution to the dehumanizing and dismissive, "Negro Problem." What troubled me then (and perhaps the reason why I've never forgotten it) was that I feared that he was right; outward signs of racial identity needed to disappear to bring about non-discrimination among humans. The research summarized in this article is similarly troubling e.g. blacks in Hawaii, it concludes, still have difficulty. Yet those whose race eludes categorization live without racial stigma. And just as I had thought back in college, perhaps Podhoretz was prescient.
3
Racial and ethnic hatred thrives in multiracial racial and multicultural societies. Hawaii is no exception to the rule.
The Southern Poverty Law Center documented Hawaiian racial and antic animosity in a report titled “Hawaii Suffering From Racial Prejudice.” Among other things, it notes that in Hawaii
“The last day of school has long been unofficially designated ‘Kill Haole Day,’ with white students singled out for harassment and violence.”
The SPLC also notes that “few people outside Hawaii realize the state has a racism issue. One reason: The tourism-dependent state barely acknowledges hate crimes. that Hawaii covers up racial violence by barely acknowledging hate crimes.” Hawaii is the only state that refuses to provide data for annual FBI Hate Crime Report.
However, the Hawaiian Attorney General’s Office does report the number of hate crimes it prosecutes each year. In 2017, Hawaii prosecuted 29 hate crimes motivated by race, ethnicity or national organ bias. Of these, 58.6 percent were for bias against whites, who make up 21.6 percent of the population. But only a tiny percent of hate crimes are prosecuted.
New Hampshire has about these same population as Hawaii. It reported eighth crimes motivated by race, ethnicity, or national origin in 2017. These weren’t just the number prosecuted, but the total number of complaints. New Hampshire is 90 percent white.
4
A wonderful article. The social constructs of race and ethnicity were a puzzlement to me growing up as someone who is Italian, German, English & Ukrainian (with a touch of Mongol per my father via my Ukrainian Grandmother). When young I thought of myself as a "United Nations" child, something wonderful. But during the 60's with the emphasis on hyphening your ethnicity as fill in the blank-American, I could not relate and thought the tribalism associated with that trend unsettling. Worse, growing up it interfered with being welcomed in groups that tended to be made up of people from similar backgrounds. Ethnic prejudice was and still is a problem.
1
I keep hearing about "racial" diversity in communities that still practice sex stereotypes. When various races co-mingle and they all maintain the same sex stereotypes, it just makes it that much harder to make the sort of progress we need to make about regressive gender roles as we are making with regard to regressive racial stereotypes. Yes, all races and all SEXES should be free from cultural segregated norms. Can you please write an op-ed about where we can find communities in which women can be strong and men can be sensual?
Just to mention that my therapy clients -- white, black, Filipino, Irish, Korean, German, and all the mixes -- they all have depression, anxiety, social phobia, personality disorders and the countless symptoms and defenses that flow between the discrete so-called disorders. No one is different, at the serious level.
2
Since the dawn of civilization, humans have been slowly coalescing into a common culture - economically and racially. Today, we share basically one judicial system, English is the language of global commerce, the US dollar the most widely accepted currency and most countries drivers stick to the right side of the road. These are institutional creations we take for granted. Modern air travel and the relative ease by which we can experience other cultures has accelerated this cultural assimilation. Racial, and to some extent, religious blending (I prefer to use this term), is the inevitable result of increased intimacy between previously alien human ethnicities.
Where will this lead us? Currently, in the US and in many European countries, there's an ugly yet inevitable backlash to the wave of immigrants seeking a better life - or even trying to escape their countries of origin in order to simply save their lives. Which trend will prevail?
Look back a few years. The entire globe was at war - a conflict that was defined by Axis powers (German/Italian/Japanese) on one hand, Western alliance (English/French/American) on the other. Now these previously warring factions are united more or less by their economic interdependence. We each need each other for commerce to better everyone's standard of living. Now, it's quite common for a family to be formed by members of different European/American/Asian groups.
3
What seems to be happening regarding faith is that the more tolerant groups/beliefs are in decline and the more rigid, less tolerant types are growing. Episcopal and Congregational churches seem to be declining and the socially conservative groups seem to be on the rise. In much of Europe, church attendance is almost non existent while one wonders about the assimilation of newer migrants from less tolerant societies that hold to very conservative or repressive social norms and doctrines.
As an agnostic, I would hope that we all learn to be tolerant and get along, but the more conservative elements of almost all faiths seem to be determined to force it upon others. That is true from Israel to Alabama, Kenya to Milton Keynes.
3
@Norm Levin . I believe religion is part of the problem - they don't preach tolerance and inclusiveness of other races - a major impediment for racial blending.
1
What wonderful, joyous photographs. Thank you!
2
In HawaiiNei there are only two types of people, those who like a side of white rice and those who choose brown, everyone gets the mac and potato salad. At the farm I worked we combined our two 15 minute breaks with our lunch break, a full hour to share food and story. The people of these islands is the best part of Hawaii.
4
Race, race, race. Enough with this four letter word. It means nothing at all, just a rather shorthand way to find innate differences among us. Yes, we have differing ethnic histories, and we've learned all sorts of stories and fables and presumptions about each other, but to elevate these to the level of a word like race is simply an easy but entirely mistaken process.
25 years ago I, too, moved from lily white small town New England to the very diverse and complex place called Oakland, California. What a revelation! I had no idea what fun it was to be relieved of so much junk in my head about arbitrary groups of people. Like other addictions I had to deliberately quit presumptions and to recognize what I was doing but it's gotten easier over the years.
4
A very flippant observation from someone who has clearly always been in a position of racial privilege.
5
Two years after I graduated from college, a college buddy and I spent 10 days in Hawaii visiting a friend studying there. He himself was English and dated a Japanese student whom he eventually married. The racial mixing and harmony in Hawaii is one of its blessings and joys for visitors to immerse themselves in. I had read the book “Hawaii” and that had given me a sense of the place before I arrived. (As a holder of a Geography decree few things do, that book is quite an achievement). I loved wondering thru the grocery stores there seeing all the different variety of foods they sold that you wouldn’t be able to get back where I lived in the Midwest.
Given that he was from Hawaii, I was totally unsurprised by Obama’s demeanor but that demeanor could only come from Hawaii in our current context.
Hawaii is an important and blessed part of the United States, just like Puerto Rico is. I hope we don’t treat Hawaii the same way we’ve treated Puerto Rico under Trump, indeed I hope we treat Puerto Rico better moving forward.
5
If not for love, all these beautiful mixed "race" people would not exist. Love should be given more credit.
I was also happy to see that the word "white", was not used to describe these peoples' backgrounds, but instead all the possibilities of ethnic heritage that are perceived as "white". I'm sorry that for the most part African-Americans are unable to specify their exact heritage country.
The San Francisco Bay Area is very similar to Hawaii in its mixing of races and tolerance for racial differences. I hope all of the United States will eventually follow.
3
Thank you for the great piece—the photos made me so homesick. I was born and raised in Hawaii, graduating from Waipahu HS, very much a minority haole. I loved the mixed ethnicity, but felt my Irish-German-English heritage to be rather plain vanilla compared to my exotic friends and classmates. My teenage fantasy was to fall in love with a Hawaiian-Chinese man and have beautiful children!
Because of my experiences, I have forever since been curious and asked about other people’s ethnic backgrounds. Diversity is something to champion and take pride!
I haven’t lived in Hawaii for 40 years, married a wonderful man of Norwegian-English ethnicity, but will still unconsciously lapse into a bit of local-girl pidgin English when around people of mixed race and ethnicity. It’s my comfort zone. Our son married a woman of Persian descent and have made their own blend of humanity.
This is the hope and future of our planet.
8
It is time to replace the vague meaning of "diversity" with inclusiveness and tolerance. Hawaii is diverse
on how people look but not diverse in religion i.e. Christian, shared culture i.e. "aloha spirit", and language i.e. English. Most Hawaiians have assimilated into this shared culture and are therefore not diverse other than how people look.
2
Lived in Honolulu for 9 years. First time, I felt no discrimination based on race. But they do discriminate based on whether you are local or not. Having said this, Hawaii was too small for me, and I felt stifled after 9 years.
5
This reminds me of receiving high school yearbooks and wondering if I went to the same school as everyone else.
The pictures, summaries, special interest sections, etc. were filled with far more photogenic, socially connected, stylish or simply wealthy people. Full page color spreads with paragraphs of personal details, quotes, and wonderful stories were par for the course for those people who had contributed nothing but superficiality.. Academic achievement was barely recognized.
If you're attractive and popular the world probably feels like the Hawaii this article describes. For the rest of us there's the insulting names, exclusion, and bullying that we are so fond of. Par for the course for the rest of us who live in the real world and not fantasy island.
This journalist should go undercover and work a job in the service industry to meet the real Hawaii.
4
I was expecting a series of sand, crystal clear blue water with swaying trees on beach photos. Instead the article had images of something much better! Thank you for sharing this enriching information and it’s very positive, too! Fantastic photos as well. Made my day.
4
I have lived on and off in Hawaii for forty years. Yes, it’s a place of mixed marriages and ethnic diversity but it’s far from a cultural ideal. If anything it’s rigid in its racial, ethnic and native Hawaiian identifications and the island of Oahu is close to tribal in its social caste ways. Good luck if you find yourself off the beaten path. Better place to visit. Not a great place to live.
8
What does the "Aloha Spirit" say about the super rich living in gated communities separated from the rest of us on the beloved islands of paradise? How's the homeless problem in Honolulu? Poverty on the islands?
Aloha!!!!
6
My mother related to me that when her family emigrated to the USA in 1949 they went to the movie theater. Presumably this was in DC. This Chinese family entered and everyone turned around and stared at them! Why? Because, unbeknownst to them, they were in a movie theater designated for colored people. What happened? They sat down and watched the movie.
I sometimes think about my mother's generation which saw the horrors of WWII, then racism and ultimately Obama's election. She's disgusted at the current state of affairs under Trump the racist.
6
love this,, photos,, everything, thank you
3
I got to spend a good part of the summer one year in Oahu as a teenager. That's when I learned the term Haoli, and got told on certain beaches that this is where haoli's drowned.
Don't delude yourself into thinking that even in paradise people aren't racist.
13
The author is information-deprived. The lessons of Hawaii have been with us for 150 year,s from the point when we absorbed millions of new immigrants. Was it painful, sure (ask my Dad), but it worked. Hawaii is "tolerant" at a time when the economy booms and during the past 75 years when opportunity has been abundant.
We have nothing to learn there. Take in a million illegal immigrants who don't speak English and see how tolerant you are.
5
The back country Hawaiian native's still derisively call white people haole. My 9 year old nephew was nearly killed when a truckload of 'natives' ran him off the road while yelling epithets. My niece and nephew lived there for years and didn't want to raise their boys around the general backwards ignorance, racial animosity, and meth mouths of Kauai.
14
Hawaii is a terrible place to raise kids. I know, I tried. Moved to California where the education where we found the schools a a hundred times better and people are far more racially and ethnically tolerant.
2
Want to be less racist? Move to Queens, New York.
https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/queens/queens-diverse-places-earth-new-figures-show-article-1.430744
Queens has more languages than anywhere in the world:
https://www.businessinsider.com/queens-languages-map-2017-2
Employees at Queens Borough Hall are equipped to speak in resident-clients in 200 languages.
Residents of Queens use their libraries more frequently than just about any other place in America.
Hawaii is an appetizer of diversity. Queens is the main course, plus dessert.
10
We were hiking on an approved trail in the Iao Valley and were screamed at by a group of Mauians in such a manner than my 8-year-old was scared, so we turned around. This was not the only incident in Maui. Perhaps it's more of an anti-tourist thing than a racist thing. Funny part is that my wife loves Hawaii and has learned the rudiments of the language. In my experience, Houston is more tolerant than Maui.
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2009/hawaii-suffering-racial-prejudice
15
“Traditions of hospitality toward the stranger central to Christianity”? Boy did that train derail big time. It seems Christianity is buried in hatred toward the stranger.
1
Racism towards me and my Caucasian siblings was quite palpable in Honolulu. In the rougher Oahu neighborhoods, there was "Kill Haole Day." Prejudice towards whites is a problem throughout the islands, including Maui as noted in this August 2009 Southern Law Report:
https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2009/hawaii-suffering-racial-prejudice
Sorry, but this Times article just does not ring true for me after having endured racism because I was white ("Haole").
19
This article reminds me of the movie "Bulworth,' a scene where an interviewer asks Bulworth for his opinion on combatting racism, and he replies "We should just all have sex with each other until we're the same color." I saw it the week it opened and was screening at only one theater in Los Angeles, almost a thousand seats. Attendees were every race, age, social class, cultural affiliation...and at that line, the entire audience stood and cheered.
5
"neither of which, I should point out, is a race"
Love that quote.
The subject of this article -- that "mixing" races confuses the racially focused -- is really the thing that drives the supremicists completely bonkers. It dilutes all assumptions. It invalidates all conclusions.
How can we accuse entire classes of people of being "line cutters" if we cannot put them in a box? (If you scratch the skin of many Trump supporters, the accusation "line cutters" ,jumps out at you. They find it particularly offensive that women and gays "cut in line.") How can we insist that "every white man is better than ANY black man" if so many black men are half white. Like Barack O'Bama. Very confusing.
Which is why we need to keep doing it. Keep mixing, people. My own mother, a liberal Democrat from Connecticut, told me she found it off-putting that so many television commercials contain images of mixed race couples. "Do they have to do it EVERY time?"
Seems to me they do. To be innured is to be truly free.
7
Whenever ther is an article celebrating “mixed race” people their is always a very narrow group of people who have certain visual characteristics: Medium skin tone , curly hair. Slightly slanted eyes. Anyone who falls outside that visual parameter are not considered mixed race.
The majority of “black” people in the US are “mixed race” due to th long history of masters impregnating black women during slavery. Yet Yet Black American rarely get to use this supposedly enlightening identity.
7
"Kristin Pauker still remembers her uncle’s warning about Dartmouth. “It’s a white institution,” he said. “You’re going to feel out of place.”
Ironically enough, Dartmouth College was chartered as a frontier school for the local Native population.
2
I am interested to know how it strayed so far from its mission.
2
In the context of this article how does one explain the continued existence an reverence for the Punahou School which requires proof of Hawaiian ancestry to attend?
3
@Frenchy you are mistaken. Punahou School does not require proof of Hawaiian ancestry to attend. You are probably referring to Kamehameha Schools. Here is a Tidbit about "Kam Schools" from a 2009 Southern Law Poverty Center article concerning racial prejudice in the State of Hawaii:
One of the more protracted legal battles involved a lawsuit filed in 2003 by a non-Native Hawaiian student against the hugely wealthy and influential private Kamehameha Schools. Kamehameha operates three campuses for the benefit of children of Hawaiian ancestry. The student's attorneys contended that violates civil rights laws. As the U.S. Supreme Court was about to announce last year whether it would hear the case, Kamehameha paid $7 million to settle it out of court.
3
Hawaii is a lesson of both the great possibilities of multiracial societies AND the seemingly inescapable assumptions tied to visual differences. I appreciate that Velasquez-Manoff briefly acknowledges the negatives, but she spends the majority of the article doing exactly what a professor she acknowledges warns against: placing Hawaii on a progressive pedestal.
As an identifiably black teenager, I attended middle school and high school on Oahu in the mid-90s. I was a military kid who’d been called more racial epithets in Hawaii than in Arkansas or Virginia combined (0-times). Teachers encouraged me to let it go because the offenders didn’t understand what they were saying. At an, all-make Catholic school, several teammates told me they couldn’t wait to see if the myth was true when we hit the showers after practice. I brought trunks.
I’m unfamiliar with the Micronesian racism, but I’m very familiar with the Portuguese (Portogee) jokes. I remember whites being called Haole (not in a loving way). And I also remember something about the native Hawaiian population being over-represented in the prison system.
With all of that said, I agree that living in a place where you can’t readily identify a person’s race changes the way you view people, but it doesn’t necessarily change the way people view you when your race is readily identifiable. What Velasquez-Manoff inadvertently demonstrates is that multiracialism can be another form of racial hierarchy. Is that better?
11
The issue of Race has always haunted me. I’ve done some research , but still can’t understand how did it come about that Whiteness has been associated with superiority and Darkness with inferiority, and why white people despise black people so much. Never seen a white person seek the company of a non white, even the liberal ones. I think it’s a new phenomenon in the last few hundred years , that has its origin with the Renaissance in Europe. This needs to change.
1
You mean the Hawaii where the indigenous population lives in poverty and the rich upper class mostly are outsiders?
4
As the author notes, "...assumptions we inherit about race without really thinking." Yes, that is implicit bias. Once you crack that in your own self you will begin to destruct the habit and rebuild a new you. It matters not whether we are in Hawaii or Idaho as we do so. It is painful. You do have to admit to yourself that you carry negative assumptions and perhaps even outright racism. If you really want to rid yourself of the concept of "the other," you can confront yourself and then change yourself wherever you are.
2
Don’t move to Hawaii. As a local resident, it is too crowded and inflation is ridiculous. Stay where you are and create your own utopia.
7
These are some of the best portrait photos
3
If you're already rich or ready to retire, you'll love Hawaii.
Otherwise, you're going to spend the bulk of your time whining about the cost of living. You get what you pay for. If you can't afford to move there but go anyway, you might understand why Honolulu is famous for its massive homeless problem. Hawaii is horrible and mean toward homeless people. Look it up. Good luck
2
I'm a mixed race kid, born and bred in HNL, graduated high school three years ago. "Kill a Haole" day is not a thing (anymore) - I have a bunch of white friends who didn't experience any particular discrimination for being white. My white mom's been here 21 years and counting and wouldn't give it up for the world.
6
Great essay, thank you! I can only write, who knew.
I don't have to be Hawaiian to appreciate this joke, "Here’s one from the well-known Hawaiian-born comedian Frank De Lima, who himself has Portuguese ancestry: “Why did the Portagee water half of his lawn? He heard there was a 50 percent chance of rain.”
That can be translated into hundreds of variations in every country around the world. One of these days I might even go to Hawaii even if they eat an abnormal amount of Spam.
1
I really thought we'd all be here by now. Since the age of fourteen, I've answered "human" to the question of "race" on every form I've ever filled out. I often ask this question, "If hearing rather than seeing was our predominant sense would "races" be altos, sopranos, tenors, bassos?" Race is a ridiculous construct to me. I've just discovered a half-sister. She has more Sicilian DNA than I do. If you look at her, you'd call her "Black". She never knew her biological father was "white". We share more similarities than differences. Why can't we all just grow up and move on?
4
Eventually, the world will be Hawaii. Aloha!
(Unless Trump gets another term)
2
Perhaps there is something to learn here about Tulsi Gabbard, the Congresswoman from Hawaii running for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency. She seldom if ever focuses on her "race" --she is Samoan, "white", and with some Maori I believe (her husband is part Maori) -- although supports through legislation, issues that effect indigenous peoples, people of color generally and African Americans who came to the US through the slave trade. She often references "aloha" as central to her being and was taken aback when she came to Congress by the tribalism. Her nature seems inclusive by default.
4
@jack
I am a born and bred Hawaii person and have never trusted Tulsi. If she is so enlightened why does she refuse to share any aspects of her religious life that seems to dictate nearly everything she does? The last straw was her attack on Senator Maxie Hirono that seemed to come out of nowhere. Tulsi has a very serious agenda that she is strategically hiding.
1
Every one unique. Every one beautiful. How can anyone with any level of intelligence see anything but?
2
One problem with the recommendation to move to Hawaii - residents there despise mainlanders and are notorious for their aggressive localism.
9
I'm sure the native Hawaiians and long-time residents will appreciate more people deciding to live there, driving up prices and the cost of living even more and driving them to have to move to (ugh) the mainland.
1
Are the monochrome pictures a homage to the notion that color doesn't matter or is just an artistic tweak?
The heavy military presence, the tourist industry, and the general acknowledgment that the kingdom of Hawaii was attacked and stolen by US & British merchants in coordination with the US Military are other reasons why if you look like an outsider in Hawaii, "local" people might react less positively towards "Haole" directly translated as "foreigner".
The couple of white people that tell me they've experienced racism in Hawaii are partly experiencing what it's like to be a minority in a world of minorities. I guess it may be as culture-shocking as me moving from Hawaii to the mainland. Being an "other" amongst other "others" can be an amazing experience if you're willing to be open about it and think complexly about where the other person/people are coming from.
I think this piece alludes to but still misses the elephant in the room. There's still racism, but it varies in intensity depending on what race you're talking about. Hawaiian is majority Asian, and as the article states, there is a positive stereotype of Asians being hardworking citizens. That in itself leads to fewer racial conflicts between Asians and whites, for better or for worse. The article also states that there is still pervasive anti-black stereotypes in Hawaii, but the population if black people is very low, at 3% at most. Let's hypothesize a situation in which the black population approaches 40% in Hawaii. Do you think Hawaii would still remain "less racist"?
2
Anyone can experience racism, not just black people. As noted in many of these comments, white people have had extremely bad experiences in Hawaii as have Micronesians and Koreans depending on who is doing the judging. It seems that your world is black and white.
Wonderful story, and made me wish I had grown up in Hawaii. Raised "white" in a racist rural area with a father who was taken as Mexican whenever he left town, but was half Azorean Portuguese and one fourth Cherokee, and from my mother's side which had been in America since the early 1700s various European ancestry and, more recently, her mother was the daughter of immigrants from Australia and Mexico. Yet they both wanted to be accepted as white.
1
It is long past time for the USA to free its foreign overseas colonies of Hawai'i and Puerto Rico. Each needs to be freed and accepted into the UN as nations in their own right.
2
Agree about Independence for Hawai'i and Puerto Rico. I found it odd that in this article about the nuances of race, Puerto Rican was treated as a racial identity, when in fact most Puerto Ricans are a mixture of native Taino, African and European inheritance.
@Burton
Perhaps we should give Austin back to the Commanches.
2
Unfortunately throughout history humans have created an "other" on which to place blame for everything they might hold evil. In future generations (should our species survive), when we are all mixed race, there will be some way to define otherness as a vessel for hated. It is the human way.
2
Here's a perspective that is even broader than the racial angle. Raised in the deep south racism was common. Also was the term citified which meant you were from the "city". Another term "up North" meaning you were a yankee. If you went to college you could be labeled as "educated". The list goes on and on. Any one of the tribal labels could and would be exploited politically.
3
I've visited Hawaii twice and I marveled at seeing different people in all walks of life there, from barbers, to farmers, to bus drivers, to new anchors.
In contrast, growing up in NYC, professions were often associated with race, as in the laundry was Chinese and newsstands were Indian.
1
I went to Wahiawa Middle School in the early 70's as a white military brat. What I don't see reflected in this article is the kind of race based hostility to white people I experienced. On a daily basis I was called a "haole boy" in a pejorative manner by the administrators, teachers and students at school. My friends and I from the near by military base were regularly subjected to race based violence. My experience in Hawaii is that while there is a honorable tolerance of mixed ethnicity that same tolerance was not afforded to me. It disappointing to not see this perspective reflected in this article.
13
@Charles
Discrimination against whites doesn’t fit The Narrative.
1
I went to Hawaii in 1976 to lecture on the American Revolution. Particularly on the Big Island, they taught me. Race was gone there and the crowd at the junior college was light years ahead in exploring what further revolution might be appropriate. As I went back to the mainland I felt a joy and freedom not otherwise available in the US. What a relief! I told everyone to go to Hawaii to see how it could be. But there may be no cure for such inveterate racism. As we all go under to the greenhouse effect, we might remember that we could have tried harder, with race and to save the planet. We were not born stupid, we let ourselves be made that way. Choices were ours that we passed up.
KL
1
I was asked to perform a wedding on Friday night. A lovely couple, friends of mine. When I heard that leis were being flown in from Hawaii the beautiful lyrics to “Ke Kali Nei Au” ( The Hawaiian Wedding Song ) came to mind. Along with a few words on the true spiritual meaning of “Aloha” those lyrics were my poetic prayer for them and for their friends and families. Such a beautiful word, “Aloha.” I use it all the time but I will try to do so with a greater reverence I think from now on. All night long people told me how touched they were and I heard it used over and over throughout the evening celebration.
Damon Winter’s magnificent portraiture captures the smiles and faces of the human family. Everyone in this fractured mess that is our American Family would do well to look deep into these beautiful faces and summon their “sweet Aloha.”
Thank you for such a stunning Sermon this fine Sunday Morning.
1
This is an interesting article. If accurate, it would be lovely. As it pertains to the article, there are more people here on the mainland with multi ethnic and national backgrounds but because of mainland perspectives, you must choose and it’s usually based on how you look. Here no one cares if you are Italian, German, Finnish and Polish, because you are expected to say white, thereby adopting all of the attitudes(including racist) a white person should have. It doesn’t quite matter if you are African, Native and Scottish because in this world, you are black-periodt. I don’t agree with it, but it is too deep.
My husband and I live in NYC. We have been married for one week and together for three years. We met while both out with friends after work, bumped into each other at the bar and fell in love. We are both professionals with advanced degrees who work a lot but spend our remaining time with each other. Simple right? Except that, he is Bulgarian American and I am Black of America. Consequently, we are frequently other-ed, observed like a museum exhibit(by adults), and/or literally shamed. People are constantly trying to figure us out. I personally don’t see anything wrong with asking, where someone is from/background questions. It shows genuine interest in the human experience and it’s what made the people in the article interesting. This is different than excluding someone because of what they look like or staring, ugh!
2
I find it interesting that people of Caucasian background describe themselves as things like German/Italian/Polish but then we have those who describe themselves as either African-American or Black as if no differentiation exists between people from that continent. Has that aspect been researched in any depth?
1
I don't know if my experience is relevant to the topics raised in this excellent article. However the insider/outsider dynamic was alive and well in Norway where I lived for the first 6 years of my life. My father was Norwegian, mother was Danish and I was born in Sweden as father was a refugee on the run from the Nazis. When we returned to Oslo and I started to play with the local children, it was strongly impressed upon me that mother was a "dumb Dane". Further , my best little playmate was a child born with a German father, one of the occupying troops . We were both left alone to get along as best we could. When I turned 6 we emigrated to Melbourne and there we were ostracized on an industrial scale: stone- throwing, ambushes, etc. PPS now in my 70's, after 15 years in the Bay Area, happily call Australia home.
1
There is no place like the Sandwich Islands--I lived there in the 60s and have been back many times--but to say it is free of racial and ethnic strife is not the truth. There used to be, may still be, an annual Kill a Haole Day, and though it was never doled out in the extreme that I know of, it carried a certain amount of weight in some quarters, school yards for example. Don't get me wrong, I loved the diversity, loved being in a minority for a change, having arrived from Minnesota, which trafficked in Swedes vs. Norwegians jokes.
2
I remember hearing that kids (my age, anyway) would avoid going to school on certain days when howleys (sp, white kids) were fair game for getting beat up. Is/was that a real thing? Maybe it was great for others and not so great for all... I do appreciate the Obama experience and have known many hawaiians of native and japanese origin and it seems good...
Yes, and I was fortunate to be born and raised in Hawaii as a second generation Chinese-American. Known as the melting pot of the Pacific, race was taken for accepted and seen as a positive with diverse cultures especially food and music as catalyst for fellowship. Furthermore, not having a majority race where everyone lives, works and plays together makes a difference. Of course, the location, climate and beauty of the islands are positive factors for a peaceful society. Aloha.
P.S. The another island I love is Manhattan.
2
I would be fascinated to see research of this type performed about the attitudes and stereotypes of age, and of age + gender. As a middle aged woman I am daily astonished at the biases and assumptions I experience moving through my day.
2
This wonderful article defines the feelings I have had since as a teenager in 1966 I spent the entire summer on Kauai. I was 16 and easily made friends with the local kids. That summer was a defining period for the person I have become. The racial melting pot among those kids and me (Caucasian) made me realize and appreciate our differences. Hawaii made me a better person then and has continued to influence my thinking today
3
So many beautiful photographs! Thank you.
3
Hawaii is certainly a melting pot but no more so than much of the United States. Racism, sadly, is alive and well on the islands. Most times it manifests itself as a "Haoles not welcome at this beach" mentality. The intimidation and threats of violence are no different than venturing into the wrong neighborhood of Boston in the 70s or 80s when I was growing up.
We visit Hawaii regularly and love the people and generally laid back lifestyle. But just like living in urban, mainland US, we are careful to avoid the protectionist enclaves.
8
While at a conference in Hawaii (my first time there), the local newspaper was delivered to my hotel room door. I found it fascinating, enlivening, enriching, to see the vibrant items, notices, ads, about the multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-cultural local community. It seemed like a local paper that represented the world, and made me realize how many different people from different parts of the planet had come to and settled on these islands, and how bland and mono-tonal were the other places in the states I had lived in.
3
I lived in Hawaii for three years in the 1990's. I found Hawaii to be one of the most "race conscience" place I've ever lived. Alaska being second. As someone who looks like I could be a local mix, people were always asking me about my race.
I also imagine it's one of the few places in the world Portuguese did not seem to be considered Caucasian. Twice I pointed this out to people and it seem to upset them.
However, it was a good learning experience for me to see what it's like to be a minority for time and to be called a haole like it was curse word.
10
@Teresa Alsept
Hi! Were they asking about your race or were they asking about your ethnic makeup?
For me in Hawaii, it's less a microaggression and more a genuine question people ask almost EVERYBODY. Because you can't assume what somebody is just by looking at them, especially in Hawaii, so might as well ask. It can also be a great way to find common ground and talk about your ancestors, I've found anyway.
Living in Hawaii, which I did for 17 years, gave me dear friends of various backgrounds. A Tongan saved my life. A Chinese-American remains one of my dearest friends. They and other friends-- Hawaiian, Indian, Japanese, etc. in heritage-- led me to like complications of culture and outlook. Differences were evident, noted, and appreciated; our common humanity was also clear. Ethnic jokes could and did shock outsiders, but in a society where every ethnic group is a minority, and fair game, poking fun is less mean, more inclusive. Hawaii doesn't lack racial antagonism-- I experienced it-- but there's nothing better than living in a community where, overall, who you are is valued over what you look like.
7
@MDM
You said it succinctly. Which is why I always thought "post-racial" and not seeing "color" is a problematic way to view issues of race. In Hawaii, the question, "What are you?" is much less a microaggression coming from an ignorant person as it is an imperative to know the other person in a complex way, cause honestly, with a lot of Hawaii people's answers, they'll go down to the great-great-great-great-great ancestor from the 1700/1800s to explain their ancestral breakdown.
2
You are right about the mental categories. In my parents' generation in an East Coast city, that is 1946-1955, their marriage was regarded as mixed and risky because one was first-generation Polish American and the other was third-generation German-American. I got the Polish surname. It defined how the Irish-American sisters regarded me in the little parish Catholic school. All now "white folks" in hindsight but not equally "privileged" at the time. What I regret is the absence of the friendships I might have had in my early life with kids whom I never met in the egg-carton world into which I was born.
6
Ha! Those Irish-Americans are BRUTAL. In 1994 My my Polish-American cousin married into an Irish-American family and the Irish-American mother-in-law gnashed her teeth and bitterly complained about her son marrying down and accused my cousin of being a gold digger. Fast forward to present day: divorced, hubby can’t hold down a job and cousin killing it in the business world.
I lived in Hawaii off and on from 1966 to 1971, attending and graduating from the University of Hawaii and returning for a year as a lecturer. Growing up in a rural village in southern Maryland in the 1950s, I was raised in a white Protestant world, where even Catholics were rare. I was shocked to learn, in my freshman year at the University of Maryland, that my Jewish friends from New York City didn’t celebrate Christmas.
Living in Hawaii, I believed that I was seeing the future. The diversity was an eye-opening enlightening experience. (Veasquez-Manoff is also right about white mainland students attending UH - all three of my roommates, from Montana, Michigan, and Texas, quit after their first year.) But I loved it, and came back changed forever, eventually marrying a Swede. And experiencing such a culture may make you more creative, as the author suggests…I’m an artist and the author/illustrator of more than 40 children’s books.
The future, like it or not, is coming – if only all Americans could see it.
7
So true. We lived in Honolulu while our children were 2 and 4. They see no color or eye shape. In fact, 10 years later my son was telling me about a sports event as his school, and the accomplishment of a particular boy, using his name. When I asked to be reminded who that child was, my son described him by 6 things until, in exasperation p, he said, “Mom, he’s black”!
I just treasure that.
4
My feelings on Hawaii are complicated. As an 8 or 9 year old white girl, I came over from the Mainland in the early to mid 1970s and lived on Oahu twice for about 6 months to a year each time. It was an eye opener on race and prejudice. Not a day went by that I didn’t feel in danger because there was a gang of kids constantly chasing me trying to beat me up. I was threatened on the walk home from school, at the park, anywhere. My arm was broken. Rocks were thrown for sport from complete strangers. This terrifying time gave me an alternate perspective that likely made me a better adult. But I have never gone back to Hawaii.
16
I lived on a boat in Ala Wai, off and on, in the nineteen eighties, and my girlfriends young daughter had similar experiences to your own. I think Hawaii is great, and maybe things have changed, but the place was not race blind then, and I suspect that it is not now.
8
Those portraits by Damon Winter are absolutely stunning. What a phenomenal way to make a picture say 1000 words.
9
Lived in HI three years from 1981 to 1984. Wife and I, caucasian and civilian. I was working on a Navy contract on Ford Island. Daughter born at Kapiolani in 1982. Lived on Windward side in Laniki/Kailua. We often refer to our time there as the first time we experienced being a minority. Cab driver spit at my wife in a parking lot downtown Honolulu first week. Never ‘graduated’ to Kamaaina although had a could of friends who lived on Leeward side who seems to assimilate better. Neighbors seemed friendly though never felt accepted part of the scene just Haole and temporary (which we were). Maybe our fault, we were young and everything was new, but I consider my wife almost a non-racist. There are racial slur words specific to Hawaii like Haole, Kamaaina, Locals Only and other pidgin that described our situation and how we felt
21
Hawaii may be incredibly mixed ethnically but it doesn’t mean it is not out and out racist ( perhaps the most racist state in the union ) to anyone ( European especially ) who visit or even have lived there their entire lives . As a visitor I was appalled at the the racist abuse hurled at Europeans with the word Howlie ( akin to the N word ) openly used but unlike the N word with absolutely no shame or attempt to moderate . Equally appalling was the fawning manner the local Europeans just accepted this bizarre racist behavior thus encouraging and enshrining this racism as a basic Hawaiian right . Racism as blatant and as openly practiced has nothing to do with the very mixed ethnicity of the peoples of Hawaii where it seems you prove your mixed ethnic Hawaiian credentials by violent racial abuse at those who you perceive to be of less mixed race ( European ) than yourself . Mixed ethnicity in the Hawaiian context is just a code word for one of the most bizarre forms of reverse racism that I have encountered.
2
Hawaii as an example of a place which is overcoming racism by racial mixing and this is the future of the human race?
Racism is probably the greatest sin according to the modern Western, democratic ideal, that is apart from not making money, or more broadly having a highly efficient, successful political economy, therefore we should examine every place in the world where racial mixing is occurring and how closely this correlates with running a successful political economy.
It was the European expansion over the past hundreds of years which was most responsible for the modern conception of race (race one of the many classifications born of natural science) and Europeans placed themselves at the top of the hierarchy. This process has culminated in the modern political economy, but now we are expected to mix the races while simultaneously propelling political economies further to the heights which of course includes addressing a multitude of problems such as the environment, war, disease, etc.
The question is how much will racial mixing affect the trajectory of modern political economy development. It's a painful question, but if places like Hawaii and Brazil, "racial mixing zones" cannot demonstrate pronounced political economic development obviously there will be a backlash against racial mixing. Sadly, places like Hawaii, Brazil, Lebanon are racial mixing laboratory experiments and at forefront of contemplations/projections of human idealism.
Will they, WE succeed?
1
Part of the problem discussing racism is that race itself is a reductive concept--many would argue that it is a social construct, and that is reflected here. Chinese, Filipino, and Jewish are not races; neither is German or Italian. White and Black, by contrast, are typically two of the "boxes" people check for race. The individuals in this article are identified with a mixture of location-based or cultural identifiers and "colors" that are a throwback to our racial binary. What does it mean for me to say I am Acadian, Sicilian, and caucasian? Aren't Acadian and Sicilian themselves caucasian? And what does it meant to say caucasian, anyway? The term was invented by a 19th century German anthropologist who grouped people into five groups by head shape, and included Arabs, Jews, and Hindus in that group. We would make some progress if we stopped using archaic terms as if they have meaning. If race is a social construct, what does "mixed race" mean? In the end, all of it simply means "human."
11
I really enjoyed this article, in part because I've been to Hawaii many times and have in-laws living near Honolulu. As an Irish/Scots/English woman (red hair, blue eyes, pale skin, freckles), I was amazed at the diversity I found in Hawaii. I was lucky, in that, as a young child, my family moved from a rural midwestern town to a city near Chicago; my neighborhood was very diverse and it didn't take long for me to see no difference between me and the other ethnic children with whom I played and went to school.
4
Very interesting read. My experiences in Hawaii over the years have always been good.
I think it is important to keep open the opportunity to ask people questions such as those asked of the author when arriving in Dartmouth. Though in a polite and curious way, and not for the categorization and stereotype reasons at all.
Different cultures and ethnicities have such diverse rituals, and social structures, faiths, concepts, cuisines, languages etc. that it is fascinating to experience and share just a small slice of it.
I often do this, or ask people what language they are speaking, if I am not sure. I do so out of genuine curiosity and have had some striking and wonderful conversations with people, and created friendships which last to this day.
Whether asking questions of a Nigerian soccer player in the Carpathian Mountains of Romania, a Native American in UT, or CA, a Krygz pharmacist in Seattle, a Palestinian on a bus in Tel Aviv, or any other myriad possibility, I do so out of curiosity and to learn and get to know people and cultures first hand.
I always try to be artful and polite, and hope that I am. And I am always grateful and enriched by the experiences.
8
Great article. My daughter is mixed white and Asian. She went to a high school that was 50% non-white. It wasn’t only the white kids that were trying to figure out her ethnicity - she was assumed to be Hispanic, Filipino, middle eastern among other things. Lots of mixed race kids though so migrating between groups was not an issue.
2
I love Hawaii.
During the summer of '69 I worked there.
As a white person from the mainland, I experienced my first racism from the locals.
It was good learning experience, but not fun.
15
It would be interesting to know what areas of the mainland are most similar to Hawaii in terms of racially essentialist attitudes. Would have been nice if there had been a map, with a neighborhood by neighborhood or county by county analysis of scores on the Race Conception Scale.
2
@Jeremiah, I found the article interesting as it reminded me of some of my childhood.
Elementary school, we remained influenced by our parents... everyone was different- there was no race (aside from blacks, the “others” for everyone). Instead their were fine gradations of national origin and religion, and they mattered- Polish, Korean, Irish, Italian, Jewish, Hindu, German, Indian, etc. and a very few “mutts,” usually children of intra-European marriages, such as Italian-Irish Catholic marriages or any combination of Christian and Jew (they got TWO December holidays-we hated them).
By high school, the parental influence had worn off. Growing up with and spending all day in school with different kids, we didn’t “see” race and ethnicity at all anymore, and yet, it suffused our jokes as we made fun of everything and everyone. Even the third rail of elementary school, black-white racial problems, seemed like something for our parents to be fussed about. While that divide remained to some extent (no dating!) that was, to a large part, due to the very strong reaction that we knew our parents would have. Out of their sights, a lot of mixing occurred regardless. :)
Then came college and everyone ran off to their own corners again- special student association for Jews, blacks, Catholics, Irish, Latins (no x then), women, LGB (they had only just added the B), Italians...
I suppose it was nice that people explored their identities.
But I preferred high school.
1
I was born and raised in Brazil, from German and French stock. I am white, blue eyed blond fat and balding. If you saw me behind the counter at a bratwurst concession in Hamburg you would not think twice before coming to the conclusion my Hamburger family tree has not forked in the past, oh, say two thousand years. But if I start to speak Portuguese with a native Rio accent, or English with an LA accent (lived in LA) or Quebecoise French with an elementary school level of tonality and delivery (live in Canada now) suddenly you don't know where to put me in your preformed classification of race and social status: you were betrayed based on what your eyes initially saw. Like, if you just suddenly spoke Portugal's Portuguese with the grandmother of the kid selling you fish in Kauai, then you are suddenly treated as if you were born and raised next door, while 30 seconds earlier you were just another Haole. The price of fish is not even the same anymore. Race(ism) is a weird thing, it transports itself well in time and thrives on geographics but does not survive in isolation and always requires a distinct lack of travel experience to thrive.
27
Here's something to think about - perhaps as many as 50 percent of anthropologists don't think there is any such thing as race because there are many characteristics that are not visible. Basing race on obvious physical characteristics is arbitrary. Look it up.
3
Loved the piece and the beautiful photographs. The ideas reminded me of my junior high experience — A harrowing time for many, but not me. My school was extremely diverse with every flavor of mixed race kids you can imagine, largely because many of the students were the children of military fathers who had married at various global duty stations and wound up stationed locally.
There were certainly cliques, but they definitely didn’t divide along racial lines. We were all proud of our own heritage and fascinated with everyone’s cultures...especially when introduced to delicious homemade dishes someone’s mom shared.
Like the kids noted in the story, my friends were more nuanced when talking about ethnicities.
9
Absolutely loved this - every bit of it - and I hope that the author is right about the limitless vs limited mindframe.
3
thank you for this fascinating look at Hawaii
and its history. This is a fine piece of analysis
and actually warms my heart having dated
an issei young man as a teen in a totally white
community in the 60's
he told me 50 years later that he spends months in Hawaii having found the men in Hawaii to be his " brothers"
the japanese word is Hafu and you mentioned
hapa is dialect for a half/half japanese child.
3
Fascinating article but I found myself reading increasingly quickly so as to see the next portrait. Damon Winter’s photographs are beautiful!
12
I love Hawaii. Like others who note the diversity, I revel in being "normal" among so many Asians and relatively few Caucasians.
With a day of tropical sun, my skin gets so dark that on the mainland Latinos automatically speak Spanish and assume I'm Latino too.
In Hawaii, however, my dark skin signals high probability that I'm Native Hawaiian and ugly attitudes emerge such as being asked to leave a beach fronting a 5 star hotel because it's obvious I'm not a guest (until I produce a room key or wristband to prove otherwise.)
Once with my wife at a fancy hotel with multiple pools I went to fetch towels from the attendant, who was Native Hawaiian. I was in a clot of Japanese also getting towels, which were handed out freely. When I reached for one, the attendant said "brah -- off-limits...only guests", which I was but couldn't prove without a room card. No towels. My wife didn't believe me so she went up and was handed several without any ID, prompting her outraged lawyer mode that her husband had been refused because of bias. The hotel manager (Chinese) arrived and explained that I wasn't allowed on the beach or to use hotel towels. I spoke Mandarin and my best formal English to the manager, who got flustered but released the towels. It still happens.
The irony is I was in Hawaii at the invitation of activist leaders of the nascent Hawaii Sovereignty Movement to conduct workshops on media advocacy.
It ain't paradise for many.
62
Exactly.
1
Thank you for this eye-opening read! I will remember it.
1
Being rather old I remember when they were discussing Hawaii becoming a state and my mother’s family was not happy with the idea. The comment I recall most was, now we’ll get a Jap as governor.
4
I too am old but I remember that "Jap" is a derogatory word, not just an abbreviation. Just a word on sensitivities.
My Japanese great grandfather came to the US via Hawaii in the 1900s, where he worked before immigrating to the Southwest. When my parents and I travel to Hawaii people call us cousin. It is nice to be welcomed there rather than feel suspicious eyes traveling around other parts of the US. Still, I know that I am guest and must respect and honor those beautiful islands.
6
I moved to Oahu from New York almost a decade ago and profoundly disagree with article. Hawaii is one of the most openly and causally racist places I’ve ever lived. There is a general disdain by many locals for anyone who isn’t of Asian or Polynesian heritage. Ask a black person or Micronesian living in Hawaii if they are living in racist society and you will get a far different picture than portrayed in this article. White people draw much of the ire and are regularly referred to almost as “haoles”, which is technically the Hawaiian word for foreigner but in practice is applied exclusively to whites, often as a racial slur. Hawaii is also an extremely segregated society, along economic and by extension racial lines. There is far more racial and ethnic diversity in Hawaii than any other state but it is far from racial harmony. Anyone who has ventured beyond tourist traps likes Waikiki and the North Shore could tell you that.
78
I also had a few thoughts/questions along these lines when I read this article. All in all, though, we humans are a work in progress (although we may be a work in regress at this moment). Can you name a place that is equally diverse with greater racial harmony? Or is this really tied to economic equality - which is shrinking in our society?
6
I also had a few thoughts/questions along these lines when I read this article. All in all, though, we humans are a work in progress (although we may be a work in regress at this moment). Can you name a place that is equally diverse with greater racial harmony? Or is this really tied to economic equality - which is shrinking in our society?
2
@Ryan
Excellent point! Race tells us nothing about a person except which color a pair of sandals has to be to disappear when worn by various skin tones. But it defines very little. Certainly not a person’s attitude.
1
Not so fast!! I lived in Honolulu for 20 years and raised my 2 daughters there. They were toddlers when we moved there in 1966. Certainly at that time, there was racism albeit under the surface, against whites (haoles). We were not able to rent an apartment for 2 weeks...until we were told that the letters in the rental ads "AJA" meant American of Japanese Ancestry (only need apply). I'm Italian/Greek and was mistaken for Portuguese which was a good thing because I was immediately part of "the group" at work. My oldest daughter was blond and Irish looking, and endured many taunts from local kids. Nothing excessive, but not pleasant for her. My Chinese and Japanese friends did not trust the Koreans and would not hire them! Another company only hired Japanese women because they were thought to be "compliant"!! While our life there was, for the most part, very pleasurable, it was not the Aloha haven. However, I never regretted living there among the many diverse cultures...my friends were like the United Nations! There IS a wonderful acceptance for gays and once the locals "know" you, they will accept you. We just need to be realistic when judging other places.
39
just like in Maine, you have to live there several generations with being called an outsider.
9
I worked in downtown Honolulu in 1997, not the touristy part of Honolulu. I was shocked at how racist and openly racist the Hawaiians were. Openly discriminating and laughing about it. In one sandwich shop I was charged $2 extra ($11) for a meal that my Hawaiian friend also bought just ahead of me. I explained that the sign behind the lady who rang up my order clearly showed the cost was $9, the amount my friend paid. She said 'take it or leave'. She called me Haole under her breath, but so that I could hear. My friend laughed and said this was common, and he was right, as I often times experienced similar open hostility and racism. I've been to Hawaii many times and enjoyed it but non-racist the Hawaiians are not.
51
I grew up in Hawaii and look like many of your photos. If you're Haole, it can be pretty rough on you. The Hawaiians have never forgiven what Haole businesses did to their government in 1893, when Lili'uokalani tried to draft a new constitution restoring the voting rights of the disenfranchised (i.e. ordinary Hawaiians). The marines landed a few years later.
Racism is truly horrible. But put me down as that rare someone who experienced it by seeing it practiced on my white friends, for nothing they did. Some of them bent under that hatred, until they broke. Given my history, I can't agree with the author that moving to Hawaii will make one 'less racist'. It does nobody any good to make the individual pay for something you can ascribe (if at all) to the average. We really, really, need to get past such behavior. Each individual is unique, and made in the image of God.
51
Locals Only ...
My first visit to Hawaii was in Sept., 1949 because our airplane stopping at Honolulu for visa inspections. I fell in love with Hawaii immediately and I told myself that I must coming back to this beautiful island on earth. I did and when I finished my college education in NYC and I went back to Honolulu for my first American vacation. As a person from Hong Kong, I wish I could find a job here someday. Indeed I had an opportunity to work at the University of Hawaii campus in Honolulu. As a visiting lecture I really enjoyed my entire year there. It is true there are no racial divisions in Hawaii. Everyone felt at home and no one ever asked me where I was originally from. No body cares where you are from or what is your skin color. I plan to find a retirement home there soon. The four US senators, Hiram Fong, Danial Inouye, Danial Akaka and Spark Matsunaga were all my friends. They were all helpful lawmakers. All people are equal in Hawaii.
2
Incredible thought provoking and interesting article. I will definitely revisit this one from time to time, to realign my thinking.
2
Interesting article and interesting comments! No one has mentioned yet the role, highlighted early in the article, that unions played in deliberately fostering the more balanced society there. On the mainland, the loss of unions means working class Americans are more divided on racial lines than ever. On Hawaii the union legacy lingers, even if the society there is still stratified by wealth.
7
As a Southerner and descendant of Black American slaves, I find this article interesting and slightly unoriginal. There seems to be a long unspoken belief that racial mixing (in terms of creating a new segment of the population that identifies as mixed race) will somehow solve racism. As a person who has a very hard time tracking their ancestry accurately and knows it’s likely because your ancestors where considered “lesser” or even “non-human” for quite sometime of American history, being light-skinned and able to list off a bunch of countries your ancestors were from is a PRIVILEGE! Being racially ambiguous is still treated better than being obviously of African descent and dark-skinned people are still treated worse no matter the ethnicities mixed (just look at most of Latin America).
Racial mixing doesn’t solve racism, definitely not for poor, Black Americans in the South. And most of the people being mixed with European ancestry, I’m not sure why they’re hating on white people so much there either. Not to mention most of us are a mixture of different ethnicities we just don’t all have the privilege to know what these are or be able to trace them with any real accuracy.
I’m glad they’re investigating the psychology of living in a mixed race society or being mixed race; I think the liberal ideal is a “multicultural” society that is race-blind. But, ethnic jokes and interracial marriage just don’t fix decades of structural racism and oppression for so many of us.
23
Having been raised on a multicultural island myself I do believe that pluralistic societies have a lot to teach the rest of the world. As a child, my dentist and pediatrician were women of color. My grade school principal was biracial, and to this day is a mythical figure in my mind. She was the epitome of calm, cool, collected - and commanding. When you grow up surrounded by women and people of color in leadership, it is kind of an inoculation against prejudice. How can someone who is intelligent, kind, and generous be inferior? You recognize from an early age that racism lacks logic.
Fantastic article, Mr Velasquez-Manoff :) I appreciate the deep-dive into the history and culture of Hawaii. I wonder if you would be able to extend this study to other island nations similar to Hawaii, such as Mauritius and Trinidad. Singapore and Brazil, though not islands are also multicultural nations, with significant mixed-race populations.
As many countries today are being pulled back by regressive nativist politics and uprisings, it would be encouraging for those of us who want to see our world progress to learn from the millions of people who, though not perfect, are a step ahead of the rest of us.
3
Thank you for an article about Hawaii, my home state.
Many people who visit us think the best part about Hawaii is the beautiful nature, beaches, our weather - no doubt they're all spectacular.
But for many of us who live here, the best and our proudest part is our diversity. That we are ALL minority and no majority.
Aloha!
6
I am black and I often think about the transition I made in 8-9th grade where race became the most important part of my identity. Sometimes I wish that wouldn’t have happened, because I hate seeing things through such a racialized lens, but I also know that it wasn’t without reason.
It would be hard for someone in my position to adopt this utopian Hawaiian ideal (which is a bit exaggerated in this article) because the world I grew up in forced me to acknowledge my race. Also, this ideal assumes everyone adapts to the mainstream culture, and this would mean losing important pieces of who I am as my culture would eventually get drowned out by others.
In total, I guess I want to say that while I think this is a noble idea to dream toward, there’s something lost when everyone blends together in a way.
9
Hawaii has a comprehensive and closely studied healthcare system. Perhaps researchers could address correlations there between various combinations of ethnic (“racial”) origin and obesity, diabetes and the other problems that afflict its population.
3
@Wise Alphonse
Actually for years many researchers have been studying all of this. There’s an ongoing heart study that, among other things, compared Japanese men in Japan, here in Hawaii, and on the U.S. continent with an emphasis on their diets and other lifestyle factors. One of the findings? The further east they live, the more heart disease. Btw, I’m one of those haoles who moved here in part to give their kids the experience of growing up as minorities.
2
The original Hawaiian society was founded on racism, as the 2nd wave of settlers (coming from Tahiti) enslaved the original inhabitants (of Micronesian origin). This separation remained a bedrock of H society until European arrival.
The difference from the mainland is that the Hawaiians were able to metabolize and integrate the past in a way that promotes cohesion rather than resentment, cooperation rather than victimization and grievance.
Do they have something to teach us? Methinks yes.
4
Fascinating article! Beautiful people. I lived there in the late 80's and loved it. I vacation there every chance I get and believe in the "Aloha" the islands present to the world.
Hawaii can show us the way..
Me..German, English, Welsh and Shawnee.
1
One would expect that college students possess the intellectual curiosity to ask about someone background, especially if they are different from what they know. It is natural and part of life. I am not sure when that became such a bad thing. Having lived in different countries over the years l welcomed the opportunity to have questions asked and to ask. From that I grew beyond my working class roots. If exploring and being explored bothers someone, they should stay in their comfort zone and leave having an interesting life to the rest of us
11
There’s a big difference between asked where you’re from when you’re visiting another country and the general assumption that you’re “a foreigner” when you’re in your own country. The latter is the consistent experience of Asian Americans, at least in the continental US.
I cannot even count how many times people have asked where I’m from, and when I say CA, they insist, no where are you really from? I’ve had people talk slowly and loudly to me despite the fact that English is my native tongue. I’ve had people express how impressed they are that I “hardly have any accent” (and they don’t mean Californian). People will, without asking my ethnic background, greet me in Asian languages I do not know, sometimes firing off a rapid succession of hellos in multiple Asian languages. I’ve had strangers tell me, unprovoked, to go back to China. I’m not even talking about the more overtly racist stuff, like the outright slurs, mocking of appearance and language, etc.
I too have travelled quite a bit and am not offended when people ask where I’m from when I’m in another country. It’s NOT the same thing.
16
You would think that after a lifetime of being on the receiving end of that question, we'd be inured to it right? For the past 20 years or so, I have taken to saying California, since that is where I was born, and stonewalling the rest. Sometimes, I'll say very innocently, "why do you ask?" Sometimes, I very aggressively, inquire into the origins of my interviewer. Where are they from? What is their ethnic mix? From whence cometh their forefathers? Really, what's good for the goose is good for the gander.
The answers can sometimes be a bridge to commonality or truly revealing about what many Americans don't know about their personal ancestry.
5
I cannot express how much I appreciate this piece. I'm the 3rd generation of my family born and raised in Hawaii, but I've spent the last 19 years in Los Angeles. It has taken me years of personal struggle to understand on my own the things that are so skillfully explained in a few pages in this article. It reflects the truth of my experience, spending the first half of my life in Hawaii and the second half in Los Angeles.
Living in LA has been rich with diversity and not altogether unpleasant - it just seems that most people have a racial group to which they belong, and although they are perfectly nice, friendly, and maybe even kind to those outside their group, at the end of the day and in their personal lives, people stick to their own. This has been strange for me, coming from a place where people were welcome to cross those lines (I might even say there were no such lines).
I can only hope that those who have not experienced Hawaii for themselves will comprehend, via this article, that there is a step beyond recognizing diversity and our differences - and that step is to recognize that our DNA may come from various places, but our geography, the fact that we are all physically located in the same place, is what we have in common that transcends our backgrounds.
15
Wonderful. Uplifting. Hopeful.
We may not all live on islands (Manhattan?) or have the underlying "aloha spirit" of native Hawaiians to fall back on. Or a legacy of unions that bridge racial gaps rather than accentuate them.
Still, it's good to know we, as a race (the human race), have a shot. Thank you Hawaii!
And, for the Bloombergs, Gates, Bezos, and the like out there: fund this man's research! And others like it. United, we as a people can much better tackle the matters you - at least some of you - are dedicating your billions to.
2
Interestingly I lived on the Big Island of Hawaii in the early 1970's. Along with my two brothers and maybe 2 other kids--we were the only haloes in Pahoa Elementary School. I learned prejudicism first hand. My brothers were beat up daily and told to go home to the Mainland. No one would play with us. Eventually our parents took us out of school and we were homeschooled for a year before moving back to the Mainland. After our first day of school in California, we came home and told our parents that everyone liked us and were so nice. The Hawaii experience shaped me. Needless to say--I don't find a whole lot of Aloha spirit in the islands...
50
Can you take this one step further and talk about the lens through which you see race currently? How has this experience impacted the way you see the world and other people? What does your circle, friends and family look like? I’m just curious, thanks!
2
@truenorth
A friend of mine who went to a majority minority high school in Richmond CA had the same experience. Bullying, harassment, daily fights. Racism distilled to its essence. But we will not read about this in the NYT or WaPo.
3
I am a "white man" that has lived in Hawaii (Maui) for 20 years. I also lived in San Francisco and Seattle a similar amount of time. I was 23 when I moved to San Francisco from a relatively segregated Dallas, Texas. Though I never suffered xenophobia, the prevalence of so many disparate ethnic groups was at times puzzling, so much so that after a while one simply gave up on categorizing and labeling. In Hawaii we regard this as a "mixed plate." This is not derogatory, and is an expression coined by the farmers that came together at dinner and shared each others comestibles. People are so unique that unless some outstanding feature is approximately race revealing we don't give it any thought. We do of course use ethnicity to describe one another. A man like me is obviously "white" because most of my recent ancestors are of European descent (anglo-saxon). In Hawaii, that's a haole (ha-aole), a person who is not a native Hawaiian, especially a white person The most peculiar part of the race issue (for me) is that humankind in its present form is approximately 250,000 years of age. Now three generations every 100 years is a lot of relatives. Point being that accuracy in race labeling is something of a canard. "White" is a category that is obtuse, in specific and generalized, how can it not be. I truly believe some day many years from now race will become an irrelevancy.
1
Why can't we be accepted as we are? I am not biracial, and have no desire to be. As an African American woman, I want to be accepted every place I travel to. Where is the joy in looking like a person who can't be identified ethnically?
12
@writer
Exactly. We should be accepted as we are, uniracial or multiracial, male or female. What interests me is the very moment the acceptance decision is made by the brain - unconscious and reflecting the individuation stage of the person.
"Prejudice" is a state when someone is operating from a cultural indoctrination where they do not exist as a sovereign individual and consequently do not own the present moment. It is a drone-state. "Acceptance" is the state that comes from awareness of our humaneness .
I agree. The misconception that being ethnically ambiguous decreases racism is becoming widespread. There will be no cultures left to share if America becomes homogeneously mixed.
@writer ! Where is the joy in looking like a person who can’t be identified ethnically? ! WTH! I’ll pick different races next time I’m born. And in the meantime, I guess have no joy for not looking like “someone who can be identified ethnically”. Sheesh.
Thanks, I needed cheering up.
Sometime in the 40's a friend was being dissuaded for seeing a boy because he was different. Oh, they were both white and Catholic, she went to the "Irish" Catholic church and he went to the "Hungarian" Catholic church. I used to say that in a hundred years, Americans will all look Hawaiian; now I think it may be sooner than that.
The various commercial DNA ancestry tests, however simplified, may have something to do with that, with people finding their family stories being vastly more complicated than what was handed down. Remember when some broadcasting gasbags asserted that Obama wasn't a "real" African-American because he had no slave ancestry? Turns out he does--on his mother's side.
3
Thanks so much for this article and its photographs. It's wonderful to see Hawaiian faces again, so many like the ones I went to high school with on Oahu over 50 years ago. The Hawaiian State culture seemed warm, open, and fresh. When I moved from Hawaii to downstate New York, where people were stigmatized and stratified and their culture seemed more cutthroat and closed, I experienced my first reverse culture shock, which I can never forget. Now I'm grateful to live in California, the most Hawaii-like and diverse place I've experienced since leaving Hawaii. Long live diversity! We need it!
9
I lived on Oahu for a time and worked in Honolulu. Some of my coworkers were of pure Japanese descent, some were mixed Hawaian, Philipino, and various Asian, a few were part Portugese, one was Philipino and Pakistani, one was half Japanese and half Korean, one was black, and a few were white. If you are of mixed ancestry, especially if that ancestry isn't northern European, you look like a local and they call you Kama'aina, Hawaiian for local. If you part white and part something else, such as Japanese or Philipino, they call you Hapa, which means half. If you are of northern European descent, they call you Haole, the Hawaiian word for white person, and you are viewed as an outsider. Oahu is also getting a growing Latino presence. It would surprise me how often I heard Spanish at Costco, because Latinos so thoroughly blend in with the Kama'aina that I wouldn't notice them until I heard them speak.
6
@Mary M
The Costco on Maui is EXACTLY like the Costco my mom uses in NJ except the people are a wonderful mish-mash of colors!
1
If the federal government provided a very large 18 year tax credit for people who have mixed race children and free education for those children and the tax credit was large enough one would expect the rate of mixed race children to go up. People respond to financial incentives. Often times we see majority women hesitant to have children with minority men because of financial concerns regarding future child support. When those fears are alleviated as we see in the NBA or other highly paid professions these impediments are minimized. If the government provided these incentives one could imagine eliminating race in the USA, practically speaking, in a generation. This sort of policy might be a good form of reparations for slavery in that it would serve the larger purpose of the society.....to eliminate racism.
2
I lived in Honolulu for fourteen years and was faculty at UH Manoa, in the Geology Dept. Most of this story sure does ring true for me.
2
Excellent, but there's an important distinction between being "local" (born or raised here) regardless of race or having come later, which does come with some informal discriminatory aspects. This often dovetails with one's ability to speak fluent, poor, or no pidgin. Second, what is race and what is ethnicity? My impression is that people here are more likely to distinguish between different Asian (Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Filipinos, etc) and Pacific Islander (Micronesian, Tongan, etc.) ethnic/cultural backgrounds, but tend to lump most whites (except Portuguese) and blacks into one. People can use ethnicity in a neutral or jocular way, or hurl it as an epithet (haole - white or popolo - black), it depends on usage, not the words themselves. Class distinctions are important and growing; the private schools may have students of many different ethnicities - many like Obama are hapa - but they usually come from wealthier families for obvious reasons. Aloha is projected as a norm (there is even a Spirit of Aloha law) and reflects the welcoming spirit of the indigenous culture. The late philosopher Auntie Pilahi Paki articulated five characteristics roughly translated as grace, unity, gentleness, humility, and patience, that is, civility and caring. Hopefully Hawaii is not just a demographic glimpse of the future, but also the way we relate to each other.
10
I think if one moves to Hawaii, one will need a lot of money.
15
The challenge for this thesis is that it accepts the classic definition of racism--a definition to which I still adhere tenaciously. However, the entire progressive movement has rejected this definition. I believe to reject racism is to be color-blind, to reject race as a basis for attributing moral or intellectual character or social status, to reject race as an operational concept on which to base personal or social decisions. Unfortunately, progressives have embraced an Orwellian definition of racism wherein to reject racism you must assiduously categorize people by race and create a hierarchy of racial preferences and privileges. They have turned the concept on its head and no claim that to be color-blind is to be racist. They literally argue that we are all equal, but some must be more equal than others. They reject the most sacred tenet of our American ideological faith, that we should be respected and valued as individuals that we were all created equal, that every human being is of infinite and insoluble worth.
24
Not “more equal” but equitable. And your definition removes the reality of institutionalized racism, which is also foundational to American history.
4
@Charles Interesting opinion, but as with most rightwing "thinking," your strawman argument for "how progressives define racism" is simply your own self-serving, self-constructed definition. It has no basis in reality. It serves only to make you feel better about your entitled and insecure notions about differences in race, etc .
10
As Mr Winter off-handedly acknowledges, racism is not totaly absent from Hawaii. And where racism is minimal, the fluidity of differential identification across an infinite variety of axes (religion, team fandom, etc.) can lead to social disorders just as ugly, as shown by social science research dating back to the Robber,s Cave experiment.
Furthermore, the convergent modular feed-forward/feedback design of the brain means that the nature of human thought inclines us all toward essentialism and Platonism. Social science research suggests that the link that Mr. Winter sees from reduced racism to a more creative and open-minded personality is at least half in the other direction.
3
My husband is Hawaiian/Portuguese and I German/Czech. Our son, born on Maui and raised on the Big Island, graduated from the University of Minnesota. Our son's first semester there, he rode the commuter bus between the main and St. Paul campuses. No one would sit beside him on the bus. The other students could not figure out his racial identity - was he Black, Hispanic, Asian? Our son was initially taken aback by the students avoiding him. Shorty, he figured out it was their issue, not his. He was and still is race blind.
9
maybe they were just wondering why a Hawaiian would go to the University of Minnesota
2
Great story! Beautiful pictures!
We really should all get along.
This is a great article. I could "relate" to it because at times during my youth I lived on an "island". It wasn't Hawaii. My "islands" were army posts, self-contained places with their own schools and facilities for army brats. In the 60s, many soldiers had European and Asian spouses, and there were inter-racial marriages. As a result, the schools on army posts were filled with kids like those described in the article.
When my father retired from the army in '71, I had my first and only experience attending an all-white school (I was a junior at the time) and, thankfully, his job didn't pan out and I was only there for a few weeks before being back in a school in a slightly larger town where there were at least white black kids.
While the article describes an interesting perspective that many Hawaiians have on race, I believe that we, too, as brats had our way of looking at things . . . I saw things in terms of we were all olive drab green. OD green was what mattered on an army post back then. Did we have the occasional issues, of course, but I also do not recall us thinking about race like our fellow civilian citizens.
For me and my fellow "brats", racial and ethnic differences just weren't the things that mattered when compared to the stresses on army families of the 60s.
It wasn't Hawaii, but I enjoyed living on my "islands".
7
I asked my blonde hair blue eye husband who grew up on Maui his thoughts about this. He was like "How would going to a place where people are racist to white people make you less racist?" I said maybe so white people knows what it feels like and would have more empathy? he said that could work.
He loved being there and had a lot of friends but there is resentment still about people disliking him on sight until they got to know him. A south park episode where Butters *a blonde white kid* goes to Hawaii to be with his kind *Rich white people who have been there for 2 years but insist they are locals* does a good job for how the stereotype can annoy the majority of Asians who live there.
My niece who still lives there who is white visited us and was just bashing white people non stop. It sucks that she feels like she needs to self bash to her Hawaiian friends. It was making them uncomfortable.
16
I was born and raised in Hawai'i, but moved to the mainland for better employment opportunities. The changes wrought by some people moving to the islands always depress me whenever I go home to visit relatives. The LAST THING I want to see are those who move to Hawai'i because they just LOVE it there, then proceed to change things to make the islands more like the mainland. Why are there high-rise condos which would fit right into the Manhattan skyline towering over Ala Moana beach park?
9
I was a Hawaii resident for more than 25 years. Two sons were born in Hawaii and they called themselves Hawaiian. Read this article and found out there is some people called themselves Okinawan. This Okinawan thing is a new thing to me.
1
Okinawa has its own language and culture, and is considered different (and often inferior) from the rest of Japan. It’s no wonder they don’t consider themselves Japanese.
I have visited Hawaii many times as a white man and been subjected to the "haole" experience and been treated with derision and disrespect for no reason other than I am a white male.
I could easily deal with it and I am not suggesting at all that whites haven't had the privileged stacked deck in life in many countries and cultures for far too long.
But I have traveled all over the world and lived on 4 continents and one thing I know for sure, there are many beautiful cultures and countries but there is racism everywhere.
It all comes down to varying degrees.
21
My kids go to fairly diverse schools where you'd be hard pressed to identify a majority on any given day. My teenage daughter told me the other day that she was making jokes with one of her friends about "Asian moms" when a white kid came up and called them both racist. He was apparently unaware they were joking about their own mothers. My daughter's background is Vietnamese, Irish, Swiss and likely several others. She's been mistaken for "straight up white" as she likes to say, also for Latina, and Eastern European. I'm pretty sure my 9-year-old son has no appreciable understanding of racial disparity. I hope to keep it that way as long as possible.
That's the thing about race. Anybody with even a modicum of understanding of genetics should realize that we all come from the same places if you go back far enough.
While studying Irish history, I recently became aware of "The Invention of the White Race" by Theodore Allen, which argues that racial segregation is a relatively recent phenomenon.
We could all stand to be a little more concerned with our similarities instead of our differences.
7
To be sure, Hawai'i is not an absolute paradise on earth. It is, after all, a bustling island industry determined to make their "product" a paradise for windsurfing and surfing in general, and honeymooners and business meeting treat where companies can hold working meetings while their wives and children frolic on the gorgeous beaches. That is what it strives to be in order to keep it's lifeblood of mainland haolies [that is what we white mainlanders are called] streaming into the air terminals.
Think of Kuh-CHING! and a generally cheerful population of ancient polynesian heritage and you won't begrudge them their great good fortune.
Chances are you won't be disappointed. It is a truly delightful, gorgeous place to visit and even live in -- if you can afford the housing prices -- but be prepared for traffic jams that can approach that of LA's highways from time to time, particularly at the end of the business day. However, it is also highly unlikely that someone will flip you the bird a la mainland. More likely you'll get a smile...
America is the ONE place in all the world where one's ethnicity never matters.
It may have a century ago, and definitely in the old Democratic Party Confederacy based on human slavery.
But where you come from matters less here than it does ANYwhere else, and so that is never the salient thing about Hawaii.
What is the most notable social issue in Hawaii is its hoplessly socialist thinking. No non-Democrat will be elected to represent Hawaii in Washington, D.C. even as the 50th state benefits MORE from the fruits of capitalism than any other.
Were it not for capitalists gaining extra money from their labors, Hawaii would not be living on the constant flow of money from mainlander tourists.
Imagine Hawaii without the extra savings accrued by successful Americans who travel there over the past sixty years.
We're talking shacks and hovels, people.
3
@ The Observer - You are aware that Hawaii is an American state?
1
I liked this article, it partially reflected my experience living on Maui for 6 years.
I was a Census supervisor in 2000, the first year that people could fully define their background.
People were so greatful to be able to list ALL their background and not have to choose between parts of their families.
Also if the citizenship question eventually appears (now unlikely I hope) I will boycott the bloody Census as all white citizens should do.
3
I visited Hawaii a few years ago and didn't experience any untoward issues but then my family is Asian-American and with a bit of sun, my brother looks somewhat Polynesian. The novelty for us was to be in a state where so many people looked like us or had similar origins.
I have no doubt that ostensibly White people experience prejudicial or questionable experiences in Hawaii. That is somewhat expected given to some degree human nature (despite what this article says).
I think one major solution is to expose kids to other cultures early on. I grew up in Seattle when it still had a policy of busing kids all around. In early elementary, we poor non-White kids were essentially transported to the suburbs and by middle school, the direction went the reverse way. Nowadays, busing was dropped because ostensibly parents want kids to be closer to home but I have often wondered about the positive role such early exposure gave me and my peers. I and they grew up with friends across races, religions, economic lines, etc. To this day, I have little problem being friends with, working, dating, etc. across lines.
7
When I married my Chinese-American wife in 1972, our marriage would have been illegal in some states. In choosing a place to live, most of the Deep South was "off-limits." Hawaii was an obvious choice to raise our "hapa" daughter, Kim (Chinese, Swiss, French, English and Welsh).
In 1998, I celebrated Kim's mixed-race ancestry, and that of other Hawaii children, with the publication of a book entitled "Rainbow Kids." Every child's ancestry was noted. And they were- most always--smiling. Interestingly--but not surprisingly, I received a number of letters from Mainland parents of mixed-race youngsters who were astounded to see this display of joy! Their experience had been challenging and sad, and sometimes tragic.
In a 1963 speech in Honolulu, President Kennedy recognized Hawaii's unique and important contribution to America's future racial harmony when he observed: "This island (state) represents all that we are and all that we hope to become."
7
@Richard My parents (caucasian dad, Okinawan mom) married in the same era and I was raised in Hawaii. My dad, who still lives there, sent me a copy of Rainbow Kids when I had my daughter in 2004. It's nice to have since hapa and "quapa" kids are less common in the midwest, where they are mistaken for hispanic.
Interesting article, although the writer may be taking the long route to state the obvious. I am hopeful that millions of young Americans of different races and backgrounds will inter-marry and have "universal world offspring" who will fit in everywhere and nowhere. I guess Obama is a good example.
I would also hope that self-segregating groups like Orthodox Jews and hijab-wearing young Muslims do not proliferate and turn our country into dozens of identity-politics colonies. Every American has a duty to join the melting pot and associate with others (including dating) so that a new somewhat coffee-colored truly American identity emerges over the next few decades.
7
I live on the mainland in what is considered to be the most diverse city in the country (Vallejo, CA). There is no majority but a mix of all races and ages along the gender spectrum. As these different people continue to intermingle and form families it is almost impossible to discern who is what (and does it really matter?). On my block alone are four mixed families and I have no idea what mixes they represent. Personally, I think it will be a boon when the human race has an overall tan coloring.
2
@Krismarch
Race mixing has occurred since the first person of another race arrived on these shores, yet here we are.
1
Perhaps this explains Barack Obama’s ability to so fluidly navigate between his ethnic identities. He grew up in a culture that did not see him as just a Black man, but as an individual with his own innate strengths. Hawaii surely helped shape him into the candidate he would become.
452
@Terry Gerritsen Perhaps in part but he also grew up in Indonesia which is also very multiethnic, raised by a single mother who was an anthropologist.
42
@Oliver L. Yes, and his mother and maternal grandparents were “white”, that is, of European ancestry, and by whom he was loved and accepted.
10
@Terry Gerritsen
I find parallels between Obama and Kamala Harris. Just as he never internalized racism because of Hawaii and Indonesia. She was buffered from the damage of internalizing American racism by her summers in South India where most Brahmins of the upper echelons of the cast system are dark brown and black skinned. It also helps her confidence that millions of Hindu men worship this goddess the way Christians worship Christ: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUMGhUi1ETw
This might explain why Tulsi another Hindu from Hawaii has such great command of US military affairs and why Nikki Haley another South Asian was the only cabinet member to whom Trump defers. Its the inner image of ourselves that allows us to lead.
14
Like many people my age (75), I hate everybody. :-)
7
Indeed. We lived in Hawaii for 3 years and experienced the diversity of haoles (whites), Hawaiians, Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos, Tongans, and many more. A wonderful way to live, as Barack Obama and Tulsi Gabbard know.
1
I'm a Filipino-American who became best friends with a Korean-born girl who immigrated to the US at age 11 in the halls of Brooklyn Tech 35 years ago. She moved to Hawaii in 2014 and hasn't looked back. "Come visit!" she'd say 1000 times over. We finally did when my kids (half-white) could handle the 12+ hour flight. She picked us up at the airport, took us directly to the beach, and the kids dove into the water. Heaven on Earth! After a couple of days, my then 13 year-old daughter said, "This is the most comfortable place I've ever been. Everyone looks like me. And no one cares!" That is aloha.
15
Really great article. If it wasn't so expensive, you could also just move to NYC, where every single nationality in the world is represented 5 times over. The great thing about NYC is that everyone's "in it to win it" - no matter what socio-economic, racial, or any other kind of background. You walk with David's and Goliath's on every sidewalk.
7
@Ned I agree. And as someone with 6 gen on Maui (Chinese/Ukranian/English/Scots Irish here), I find NYC far more diverse, more egalitarian, and yes crazy expensive, but with better food.
I'm sorry, but this opinion article is very misleading.
I've lived on Maui and the Big Island.
In both places, racism is rampant.
It's directed against "haoles" (caucasians).
Many Native Hawaiians, Samoans, Filipinos, and others hate white tourists and even some white natives.
The Native Hawaiians at least have a little justification--the American military stole the island away from the natives to annex it into the USA. Also, tourism and the in-migration of Oprah and other uber-rich people has created severe income inequality, rising cost of living, and traffic problems.
There are many incidents of racist violence against white people on the islands; anyone who lives there knows how bad it is.
There's even a Native Hawaiian separatist movement, and occupied public lands guarded at gunpoint by NH people who want the entire state turned back into a sovereign native kingdom.
The Aloha spirit is sadly lacking.
21
@Steve Davies
In RE your final paragraph: are Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Ellison in trouble?
2
@Steve Davies I live on Maui and I agree with much of this. I've seen the Aloha spirit sadly wither like yesterday's plumeria over the past 60+ years. The uber rich have made it almost impossible for me to live, along with many others, driving them out of the state. I often wonder what the future will hold for the Oprahs? Who will unload the docks? who will clean their homes and wait on them?
2
There is a lot of history behind this. Japanese, Koreans , Philipinos, and Portugese came to work the sugar plantations as coequals, and shared their food and traditions with each other. Along with native Hawaiians, they are the backbone of the Kama'aina (local people). Haoles (whites) came first as missionaries (they created the mumu to cover native Hawaiian women's bare breasts), then as conquerors when they abducted the Hawaiian queen and forced her to abdicate. As far from the mainland as Hawaii is, there is understandably mixed feelings about being part of a country they little resemble.
My only issue is the use of the color “Black” or any other color as a race. This is a great article but I would like to point out that race is a European idea started by white people to distinguish themselves. We are a human race that happens be have different levels of pigment. I wish all educated and non-educated people would see this as a main issue to racism.
Thanks for sharing
6
I have friends, who are white. that lived in Hawaii during the 60's to the 70's.
They told me that Hawaii was extremely racist . Maybe times have changed, but with the Times' agenda racism towards whites is not racism at all. If you are saying this is just an anecdote then Kristin Pauker's story is just a long anecdote.
21
There are many things I disagree with in this article.
Many of the most outwardly and clearly racially biased people in our country are from areas in which they have regular contact with the demographic groups they most stereotype. I have heard minorities in the Boston college scene assert that Vermont and New Hampshire "must be" more biased places because of their greater homogeneity, but then observe that the average resident of those states appear more welcoming that many of the average Boston white locals (in spite of the latter's greater proximity to and contact with more varied demographics).
I would agree that kids who grow in more diverse areas (and diverse schools) are less likely to be biased because of their exposure to a diversity of personalities of individuals from many ethnic groups, and that this is more likely to be the case when ethnicity is less correlated with socio-economic. Diverse school districts may exist in many California and northeastern suburbs, where ethnicity is not one of the more correlated factors with parents' incomes.
One of the most important measures of lack of bias are where people from various groups are likely to choose to eat lunch together. Once people choose to splinter along "in group" lines, then bias isn't likely to be far behind.
8
Amazing to see "Jewish" identified as one "race" of Imani Altemus-Williams, beneath her photograph.
4
Please, no need to move to Hawai'i, just live like Hawai'i.
9
Hawaii has a racism problem, but whites are most often hate crime targets. The Southern Poverty Law Center has a lengthy expose on racism in Aloha Land at https://www.splcenter.org/fighting-hate/intelligence-report/2009/hawaii-suffering-racial-prejudice
31
Right, racism isn't a problem in Hawaii - unless you're a haole.
21
@Jon Aloha. The haole stole Hawaii from the native Hawaiian that why. The other race have no problem at at all.
2
@Lle
I rest my case.
1
I can’t speak as to what Hawaii is like today being that I have not lived there in 37 years. I can certainly tell you when I lived there from Fall 1978 to Summer 1979, there was a lot of racism and prejudice from Native Hawaiians against whites (or Haoles as we were called) and Japanese. I was a freshman at Kaiser High in Honolulu’s Hawaii Kai area and I was subjected to a lot of bullying and harassment from my classmates. My enemies even gave me a name early on that stuck with me all throughout the school year. It was so bad even when school ended for the year, the bullying continued because two of them lived in the same condo complex I lived at. I was literally harassed and bullied right to my last day in Hawaii before I moved out. I never want to visit Hawaii again.
27
New Mexico is the second largest minority-majority state. But it is sandwiched between Arizona and Texas, two states with lots of racism
Hawaii's remoteness is also a factor in its openness to differences.
2
I grew up outside Boston, and prior to coming to America my ancestors lived in England, France, Holland, and Scotland. Never been to Hawaii.
But i stopped thinking of myself as white some time ago.
Race is a social construct for a set of physical characteristics biologically inherited. I have no use for it. It serves me no useful purposes.
All it could do is frame a prejudicial view of my fellow man. And I don't want to prejudge anyone. I want to know individuals as individuals.
So called mixed-race individuals, such as apparently are common to Hawaii, give the lie to the racial social construct. What is a social construct if individuals don't even fall neatly into categories? It's nothing.
I don't blame people of color for identifying as such. It's a reaction to other people claiming superiority due to being 'white.' So 'white' people need to let it go. Just stop believing you are part of a biological team that makes you superior. You're not either superior, nor part of some exclusive and defined biological team.
157
@Sam I Am
Unfortunate as it is, you voluntarily relinquishing your self identified "whiteness" does nothing to change the fact that the rest of the society will continue to perceive you as white, and treat you as such. The power of race in America is not in the way that it affects how we see ourselves, but rather in the manner that it affects how others perceive us. As an individual, you attempting to opt-out of this system does nothing to change the fact that you will continue to reap the benefits of being white, whether you wish to or not.
49
@Sam I Am
"Race is a social construct for a set of physical characteristics biologically inherited."
If it's a set of inherited characteristic it's not just a "social construct" it's a biological makeup. A makeup with distinct biological, physiological, and behavioral traits.
You can identify any way you wish, it won't change your biological traits.
Example: if you are a Vietnamese or Filipino, you're free to identify yourself as Black all you want, however, your chance to make it to NBA or even NFL is close to 0.
You say,
"I don't blame people of color for identifying as such."
And then,
"So 'white' people need to let it go."
This is a blatant example of racism.
You're applying different requirements to people based solely on their race.
29
@Paul Like Sam I Am, I also am playing this video game of life on the "easy" difficulty setting. I choose to use it as an opportunity to see what creative things I can do when released from the constraints of struggling against a stacked deck rather than a chance to compare myself with people who are playing on the "hard" difficulty setting.
6
It's hysterical to think the author began as passing students at Dartmouth off as typical of white people. No. Just no. The most important thing about them is that they are rich. They have absolutely nothing in common with the vast majority of white americans. What's different about their lives is that they are segregated by class, they are far more likely to meet a rich black person and befriend them than a poor white person.
I was raised in a town like hundreds of others in the Midwest. Everyone was working class. Their was no public housing or school segregation. We weren't bigots.
Millions of more americans grew up this way than like the kids at Ivy League schools.
This article is so concerned with race it doesn't even notice how classist it is.
Please stop portraying rich people as white people, Their race is not where their attitudes come from.
23
@Arthur
Most of the students at America's most selective private and public universities are both very rich and white. It's about both race and money. These white people might have nothing to do with white people like you. But race has everything to do with it. In order to maintain the desired proportion of white students, better qualified Asian-American students are routinely denied admission.
1
"Racism exacts a toll on those who are racist, distorting their humanity and hindering their ability to be fully self-reflective beings"
sounds like a lesson for Donald, the-reality-host...
2
I would LOVE to have Dr. Pauker recreate her work in New Orleans and then compare and contrast her findings with those of her Hawaiian work.
I would also LOVE to have Dr. Pauker contact Sen. Kamala Harris and see if she (Harris) could somehow incorporate Dr. Pauker's work in her upcoming administration.
And in the spirit of full disclosure, yes I have been a raging fan and supporter of Sen. Harris from THE day she first let slip her consideration of running for the presidency
3
Lovely photographs. Beautiful people.
But maybe the headline should've been "want to be exposed to less racism?" rather than "want to be less racist?" - which suggests the reader by default is racist.
6
The word: HAOLE. Tell me again how Hawaii is so tolerant. That word get hurled around usually with an explicit adjective before or after. Usually right before or after being threatened because of my skin color (hint: it is the color that rhymes with white).
22
In Hawaii they have names for many ethnic groups. Chinese are Pakes. Mixed race are hapas. My own white husband calls himself haole, and to him it’s just a descriptive word. It’s only derogatory if you perceive it that way.
4
My wealthy mainland family moved to Hawaii (paradise) and, just like many people similar to them, bought very expensive real estate. They inserted themselves into Hawaii without any respect for or desire to know the Hawaiian culture or way of life. There are a whole bunch of these people who bring their wealth, prejudices and expect to be given deference. A family member complained to a Hawaiian politician that white people are treated like slaves in Hawaii. His response was “bless your heart”. She had no idea what he meant. Hawaii is not a perfect paradise. For example, access to adequate healthcare is a problem in most areas of the state. This is a warning to mainlanders who think they are moving to paradise. Resist this temptation. Hawaii does not want you and you really do not want Hawaii.
9
@Paul Weick Again, from the perspective of a Caucasian moving to Hawaii and no longer being in the majority, you will look through the lens you discuss.
The politician knew exactly what your family member was saying about the (non-existent) treatment of Caucasians as slaves in Hawaii. If this was the way Caucasians were treated here, why am I surrounded by them in all parts of the islands? They seem pretty stoked to me.
My father was in the military, so I lived in many places growing up. I spent my formative years in Hawaii, and I can tell you that Hawaii was by FAR..THE most racist place I've ever lived.
In school, I was hunted down in the hallways, and physically beaten for white..often.
And it wasn't just white people that experienced this. There's a derogatory word for every race of people in Hawaii, and they're all used on a frequent basis.
Now, it is true that Hawaii has a much more pragmatic approach to racism, but it's probably not in the way you think. It's not that it has been dissolved in the "light of diversity" as the article seems to suggest here. (gimme a break)
Rather, it's that despite the racism, people still manage to interact and deal with one another in spite of it. It basically means that racism, in Hawaii, isn't understood in terms of absolutes.
Some people in Hawaii can be very kind and generous, some people can be merely tolerant, and some people can be downright aggressive. It really runs the gamut.
Now, having said all that. I love Hawaii. I consider it my home, and I don't let the racism affect my feelings. While I did have my run-ins with people who hated me for the color of my skin, I also met some of the most wonderful people I have ever have known.
..and the spirit of aloha really is a thing. That really does exist. But it's not some kind of omni-present aura that would jive with today's push for "diversity and inclusion" narrative.
42
I don't know why Indigenous people are supposed to welcome settlers to their area. Look at the history of Hawaii and what colonization has brought to their people. Why do white people expect to be welcomed when they are settling on stolen land?
13
@firststar My ancestors were brought over as "slaves" to work the plantations (Chinese and Polish—the writer left out the Polish/Ukranian that signed contracts to "work") after Kamehameha V essentially gave away the land. This was before the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii. Where does that leave me now, living on "stolen land?"
1
Yup. Grew up there, high school (Kalani High) and college (University of Hawaii). Much aloha spirit!
Very interesting article! The description of a past hierarchical society in Hawaii describes whites as the elites. It seems the term ‘mixed race’ now means brown skin only, despite some who are mixed race and look “white”. People who look white are no longer the elites in HI and are a distinct minority. Whites are now viewed by some as the legacy of oppression, the people who stole Hawaii from the natives.
I love the melting pot that is Hawaii, but in my time there, I sometimes felt the prevailing belief was that those whose ancestors had been there longer should have a greater say in things than newer arrivals. The hierarchy has changed, not gone away.
I’ve heard multiple stories of whites who experienced clear racism in HI. I was reminded of this in reading of the higher dropout rate of whites attending university in Hawaii. I wonder if they didn’t feel welcome because they aren’t mixed race or because of their own discomfort. That would be an interesting follow up.
I feel that the increase in recent decades by various politicians and activists to encourage victim mentalities that pit one race against others, to pigeon hole people by race and gender, and to demand race-based rather than need-based handouts serves only to enhance racial divisions.
Despite Hawaii’s flaws, they still seem less hung up on race than the rest of us. So do some other countries! See Ayesha Curry’s recent comments of her experience after moving from Canada to North Carolina.
5
In some ways, the influx of Mexican and Central American immigrants, along with the native born latinx, are a God-sent. Many, if not most, are of mixed race. Though the upper class in these countries are usually white, and lowest classes are indigenous people who speak native languages, the majority are mestizo. In Mexico, the idea was if you spoke Spanish, you were a Mexican, no matter your race, Keep in mind that the second president of the Republic of Mexico, Vicente Guerrero. had African ancestry.
2
I lived for 12 years on Oahu. My children (mixed race) were born there. The only complaint of racism I heard there was from a white woman. She was from Indiana where, she insisted, “there’s no racism.” I guess when you’re used to always being top dog, it’s hard to suddenly be treated like everyone else.
326
@al. When I look at the power structure in America today; Congress, Presidency, Supreme Court, law enforcement, military officials, Corporate CEOs, etc. I see White males (many of whom are probably straight) represented in abundance. Empirically, they are still “top dog,” but since they are no longer the only dog in the race, or automatically always assumed as superior - I can understand why some people may see them as a persecuted minority. Being forced to compete on an equal playing field can seem like a handicap when one previously always had an advantage.
41
@Terry Gerritsen
I lived on Oahu during the mid- sixties at the height of the civil rights demonstrations on the mainland. It was still common to see “no haoles” in rental property listings. No one blinked an eye over it. Times change.
9
@al "healthy"? Repeated twice? What is that about? Discriminated against for not having disabilities or amputations from war?
1
Unfortunately, racial diversity does not always translate into breaking down sex stereotypes. I have been alarmed to see the trends in recent years in Hawaiian hula which not only still sex segregates styles of hula dance, but has become even more gender polarized than hula was in the past, with male hula dancers sporting body building uber musculature and "warrior" choreographies and female dancers' choreographies representing sensuality and grace. Those stereotypes are egregiously regressive. It's time for hula to evolve, become sex integrated and develop a dance tradition in which males and females are both strong and sensual. It's time we start calling out ethnic traditions that promote outdated--and harmful--gender norms.
2
@Amy Luna The Hawaiian Islands were not united until early 1800's. Warfare was rampant.
Hula may interpreted the way you do, but it is far more complex.
Please keep your modern demands away from an art form that interprets ancient history and actual recent history.
5
@Kalanikoa Cook First, would you call race desegregation a "modern demand?" Cultures evolve. It's necessary to point out when "ancient" history reinforces stereotypes that are not longer relevant today. Second, there is a steroid epidemic among young men today because of the unrealistic standards of today's body building culture. The male hula dancers of today are not demonstrating "ancient" hula when they train for hypermusculature.
3
During Tang Dynasty (6th century, about 1,500 years ago) in the capital, Chang-An (today's Sian) city, there were so many foreigners that it had two markets: East Market for domestic products, West Markets for foreign imports. Even today in Chinese language, "go shopping" is called "buy East & West". And there were synagogues, mosques (one still exists today), and churches.
There has been talk that there is no ethic Hans (the dominant race in China) in northern China today. In short, Chinese have become a interracial race after 5,000 years of interracial marriages.
this achievement is accomplished by installing the basic Chinese values in all citizens through education, and giving everyone an equal opportunity to excel. China did it by instituting a national exams which are required for all people who wanted to enter government services.
once it is done you will find more integration.
The Uighars may not agree with your assessment.
A lot of interesting stuff here. I think race is a social construct.
2
Demographics is destiny. Eventually the world will all look like Hawaii. If we survive that long.
3
On one of several excursions to Hawaii, this one a business trip, my client association threw an All Hawaii barbecue. Booths were set up, each featuring cuisines and, fittingly, people representing Hawaiian diversity. Native, Japanese, Philipino, Chinese, Haole, You name it. My daughter and I wandered from booth to booth tasting the delicacies and hearing origin stories of each group’s adventures settling on the islands.
Smiles abounded. Surely, tragic elements were elided (although admitted hardships were proudly recounted). Under a warming sun I felt a surging optimism about our species. These people from a multitude of lands were celebrating one Hawaii, and it was a marvel.
I felt the Aloha spirit that day. I hope I have in some small way reciprocated in my dealings with my fellow human beings over the years.
2
Yes, you can absolutely hold onto racial essentialism despite living in an extremely mixed-race territory.
No, encouraging more white settlers, who are concerned about unpacking their own racialized positions, to move onto a more diverse U.S. imperial territory will not help anymore, neither Hawaiian residents nor the white people with disposable incomes seeking a racially diverse excursion.
Let's think for a moment about Brazil, which is undeniably an international pinnacle of a dominant mixed-race society.
Not only are the measurements for assigning whiteness different than in the U.S., but also there continues to be a persistent movement along the lines of racial separatism (yes, it absolutely comes down to racial separatism in the South). Including, mixed-race elected officials claiming that the country is atrasado (behind the rest of the world) because Europeans mixed with Africans and Indigenous people rather than remaining racially segregated.
Here in Brazil, despite white people actually being a statistical racial minority (as has been evaluated by Brazilian racial-ethnic censuses l), there continues to be a profound level of both structural and interpersonal racism.
For reference, this is also exemplified by the current president's public statements regarding Afro-Brazilians, one of many examples being, how his son's are educated enough to know to never date black women.
4
As a caucasian , I moved to Hawai'i almost 50 years ago. My life is endlessly enriched by the diversity here and the richness of all the cultures. The Aloha Spirit is meaningful ,real and a part of all our lives. I have close friends of every imaginable mix of culture and ethnicity.
The Native Hawaiian culture nurtures us all and provides endless opportunities to deepen one's understanding of self and others.
I consider myself "lucky to live Hawai'i"!
6
Where Hawaii is now is where American (and the world) is going. And that is OK with me.
8
The author hopes that perhaps we will grow to "have less use for the very idea of race". If by race the author means mere skin-color, and mere genetic ancestry, then this is a sentiment I can get behind. However, there is a very strong cultural component associated with race, one which is valuable.
Let me give an example. I am a practicing Jew. I see a value in being Jewish and in preserving the practice of Judaism in future generations. I see a value in Jews marrying other Jews and having Jewish children, thereby preserving certain values and practices. Now, I don't care what skin color other Jews are, or whether their ancestors came from the same place mine came from, or whether they converted. Mere genetic ancestry is meaningless to me. I don't care whether Jews 100 years from now physically resemble Jews today. However, I do care that Jews and Jewish practices exist 100 years from now.
Some people (the author included) don't see Jews as a race, but I think there is certainly a racial component--the Nazis certainly thought so. My point here, is that I very much see something worth preserving in race. I think many others from other groups have cause to feel similarly. Take being African American. There is a huge cultural heritage there, one that goes beyond shared suffering or skin-color--one that is worth being preserved. I think it is hard to disentangle this cultural heritage component from the racial component. My point is aspects of race are worth preserving.
5
@EL
To continue the thought, if race disappears, it is hard to imagine that various cultures survive. If someone has grandparents from four different races, that person will not be able to preserve those races' corresponding cultures very well. It is hard to imagine that race disappears without those cultures disappearing. For race to disappear, people will need to marry outside their culture.
I know I am mixing talk of race and culture a lot, but it is hard to separate the two. One almost always follows the other. If race disappears, so will culture. I don't value race in and of itself, but I do value the culture that comes along with it.
As I said, I am a Jew. I think Judaism makes a certain claim as to what counts as a good/virtuous life. The prospect that people will not continue to live on valuing that way of life is dismaying to me. I imagine people of other cultures feel similarly.
We have a very funny view of race today. Consider the backlash to someone like Rachel Dolezal who 'became' black. She clearly valued the cultural heritage and values that many black Americans have. Yet people viewed her as repugnant because they only see being black as a matter of skin color, or shared suffering (neither of which she had). They don't see the deeper component.
People view race and heritage at a superficial level. They are into genealogies, DNA tests, and their native cuisine, but they have no interest in deeper cultural elements. Their interest is not genuine.
3
I am a black man. I may learn to value and adore Chinese culture, and to fashion my life in that culture, but it would be foolish to say that I am Chinese. That’s my take on Rachael Dolezal.
6
@BH
I don't know. Valuing and adoring stops short of making a meaningful commitment to something. I look at Dolezal (or someone like her) more like a trans person, a religious convert, or an adoptive parent.
I think in all of these cases, we are fine with people becoming something they either biologically aren't or weren't born into, because we see the value in being one gender or another, belonging to a particular religion, and being a parent. Likewise, there is value in being black.
I think people are offended by Dolezal, but not by these other cases, because people often don't see race as anything more than sharing ancestry, looking a certain way, or having a shared history of suffering. Dolezal can't opt into these things, in much the same way a trans person can't opt into having certain chromosomes.
However, I think there is more to race than these things--things Dolezal can make a claim to--in much the same way that being a certain gender is more than having certain chromosomes. A trans person can't choose their chromosomes but there is more to gender than that.
3
In 500 years (if we get there) almost everybody on Earth will look like the folks in these great photographs.
3
@A. Jubatus - several folks have commented how beautiful the photographs are and the people in them. I agree. But I am amazed by basically all the nytimes photographers whose work accompanies all sorts of pieces.
I am especially jealous of the authors photographed by the nytimes. They seem to possess some special knowledge, or maybe it is a style, in their nytimes portraits.
My daughter will complain and offer me eye-rolls when I make her read this article later. I don't know if she will see herself in them. She is at an age where she talks about slender K-Pop singers. Yesterday after we watched Wonder Woman again, she compared Gal Gadot's hands to those of Black Pink. I confess I had often thought about Gal Gadot's hands, Diana contemplates her cuffs before she fully understands their power, but I hadn't shared any of my speculations. I obsess about hands because I play piano, as my daughter does, in her way.
I am grateful for the photographs here, but I will share them with my daughter only with a certain trepidation, because the future she imagines for herself is unknowable to me. What she imagines is the future; how I might feel about it grows irrelevant, a relic of my time and place.
Article is mostly about how Asian and European people make up the diversity. Much less from the point of view of native Hawaiians and the other Polynesian and Pacific island peoples.
3
Actually, a person can remain on the mainland and become less racist by changing his/her thinking. It isn't necessary to throw everything into a shipping container and move to Maui to change one's mind and heart.
Nevertheless I agree that Hawaii is different. The unvarnished racial hostility that is so prevalent on the mainland does not exist at those levels in the islands. I would say the reason is less the existence of a large mixed race group and more that whites are not the majority population. There is no majority population in Hawaii, I believe Asians are the largest group at 34%, whites are 25%, mixed race is 25%, and the rest are small percentages. I used to think the weather helped too but then I remembered Florida.
4
I think this piece alludes to but still misses the elephant in the room. There's still racism, but it varies in intensity depending on what race you're talking about.
Hawaiian is majority Asian, and as the article states, there is a positive stereotype of Asians being hardworking citizens. That in itself leads to fewer racial conflicts between Asians and whites, for better or for worse.
The article also states that there is still pervasive anti-black stereotypes in Hawaii, but the population if black people is very low, at 3% at most.
Let's hypothesize a situation in which the black population approaches 40% in Hawaii.
Do you think Hawaii would still remain "less racist"?
13
That's just what Hawaii needs - more unsustainable population growth.
7
Beautiful article and photos. I have spent a lot of time in Hawaii and find it and it's aloha spirit to be one of the most beautiful things in the world, literally. That said, I have had African American friends from the states who felt isolated living there, asking me: "Where are all the black people?"
1
Having just moved back to California after four years in Honolulu, I saw and experienced the racism that is threaded throughout the culture there. There is nothing, not one thing, about the Hawaiian attitude towards race that we should see as lessons for the mainland. My husband always compared the Hawaiian ethos to that of his rural hometown in South Carolina: separatists, race-focused, and a deep mistrust of outsiders. For heaven sake, just look at the history of the word Haeole and it’s twisted, fluid meaning to get a sense of the complexity and entrenchment of their special brand of racism.
31
This article is one of the most balanced I've read about Hawaii, though the headline is...problematic.
One thing I'd like to mention is that in the research I've done into the internment in Hawaii during WWII, it seems that Japanese in Hawaii weren't imprisoned at the same rate as they were on the mainland because if you removed all 150,000 Japanese, the territorial economy would simply fall apart. 1,800 unjust, racist imprisonments are still 1,800 unjust, racist imprisonments, no matter how close the relationships were between the "officials in charge in Hawaii" and the local Japanese community.
96
@LS
Also, many other Hawaiians of all races put pressure and vouched for the people in the camps and got them released
16
LS, I see you missed the point entirely. The fact that there was no MASS incarceration of people of Japanese descent on Hawaii was an amazing exercise in race relations in a time of war-time race hysteria. 1800 arrests and resulting temporary confinement is astonishing compared to the mass interment on the U.S. mainland.
8
@Robert, but they're on islands, so where are they going to go? Sure, it sounds like Hawaii was more tolerant, but Hawaii was under martial law during the war--the military ran the show and the entire show was eventually declared illegal by SCOTUS, in 1946, of course-- and those 1800 Japanese were identified by the military-security apparatus as leaders in the community and were promptly taken to the mainland and were not released.
2
This article is an excellent look into how greater diversity can mute the effects of racism, but even this article is not immune to the Eurocentric effects of racism. You trace the origins of racism to the 14th century and the plague, but that's only the origins of Eurocentric racism. Other cultures have had racism as long as there have been races and it seems that only white racism matters here.
4
@NMY - I can understand why non-white-European racists might feel slighted by this article, but the fact remains that European racism is privileged by its association with the Enlightenment and subsequent scientistic (not to say scientific) justifications or analyses of racial thinking.
However, I would add that Chinese racism, in the context of PRC's current role in the world, may lead to a rethinking of how we understand the relation between racism and our core democratic values.
That is, in the US, we say that the history of slavery (and the words used in the Constitution) are in conflict or tension with the ideals toward which we strive, and must continue to strive.
Then we must ask whether cultural genocides underway in China are equivalent to those in Europe and America or are somehow different, as a pragmatic matter, not somehow constituted from a philosophical position.
I would agree that it is somehow different, not because white racism is primary, but because we have not yet developed the vocabulary to deal with Tibet and the Uighurs. Sorry to omit the many other subcultures in mainland China from this casual comment.
We do not yet have a political vocabulary for the next century, the century of global warming, to say who matters, to ask who is worth preserving.
@Andrew I'm not slighted. I'm just saying that even an article about racism is only considering racism from one POV. This is an article mainly about racism in America, so this is fine, I'm just saying that the author should have qualified his 'when did racism begin' section by calling it Eurocentric/white racism.
2
The author of the article writes about Hawaiian born Kristin Parker’s experience at Dartmouth:
"What was her ethnicity? Where was she from? Was she
Native Hawaiian? The questions seemed innocent on the surface, but she sensed that the students were really asking what box to put her in."
How does anyone formulate what are the motives of someone asking “Where are you from?” without adding your own prejudices to the formulation. Motives often are not easily “sensed.”
Who is “boxing” in whom had the Kristin met someone in college who thought like this as they asked her where she’s from:
I was born and raised on Earth with a set of twenty-three chromosomes encoded by four nucleic acids. Anyone else with a set of twenty-three chromosomes encoded by four nucleic acids is a member of the group with whom I identify. Of course I was raised in a culture with an ethnic identity and grew up with prejudices favoring that ethnicity but I have been able to see past this instinctually driven need to elevate myself. Whatever subconscious prejudices remain, I would gladly invite others to point them out to me so that I can start the process of ridding myself of these prejudices as well.
4
Ha. Best comment. A
Having grown up a mixed race kid in Long Beach, CA but looking mostly white with a darker complexion, I occasionally experienced racism especially by my Catholic school, nun, teachers who knew my ancestors, by my paternal grandfather who referred to my brother and I as, "those half-breeds" and when I was out in public with my Filipino grandfather.
My first duty station after being drafted into the Vietnam War was Ft. Shafter, HI. Living off base I soon experienced racism from my neighbors and shop owners. I was a Haole GI, the lowest grade of haole (white). I went from being a "half-breed" on the mainland to being white in the eyes of the locals. It was a great experience for me. I lived both sides of the coin and am better for it.
The "Aloha Spirit" is alive and well here on Maui, where we have a home. I feel right at home, like no other place, with all the other "half breeds".
Maui no ka oi!
204
@Exiled To Maui Well said, agree, my experience as well. To this day I cannot determine whether someone is Navajo, Eurasian, Samoan, African American, or "happa haole," and am proud of this.
6
@al, Does this mean that there is a Audubon-Myrtle warbler breeding with an Audubon warbler or a Myrtle warbler? Which bird song does the off-spring sings?
7
@Exiled To Maui
Maui no ka oi indeed!
I would say that while the Aloha spirit is alive in Hawaii, the tourist trade puts a lot of strain on it. At any one time something like 25% of the people on the island are tourists. We also have our share of squabbles over land and water, and those fault lines tend to be drawn along racial lines.
3
It was 25 years or so ago, and I had only been living in Honolulu for about 5 years at that point, but I was directly and explicitly turned down for a rental apartment because I was not a "local." I am white/haole, originally from the mainland midwest, and had moved to Hawaii for grad school after 12 years in Japan. I didn't push the issue or complain to anyone, but I did learn to apologize with good humor and in advance for my lack of "local" creds in future applications and rentals, with general success for having done so. I am not sure that things are better here today, indeed I think they may be worse. That said, I am uncomfortable by the near-tribalism apparent to me in many locales on the mainland, and as expressed by both conservative and (allegedly) liberal communities.
12
@bengoshi2b I lived in Hawaii for many, many years, and I found so long as I was humble, I was accepted. I am of English ancestry.
4
Maybe Trump can annex Hawaii so it’s no longer a part of the U.S. This peaceful coexistence is too much for his Queens identity.
Don’t fool yourself, racists would gladly force all but themselves from paradise.
My daughter (Chinese/Italian/Irish/German/Scotch/English) attended UH Manoa and lived on Oahu for another four years after graduation. She felt that she fit right in and loved the place, but was not obvious to the racism, perhaps better described as "groupism," that exists in Hawaii. When I visited her, I would go and just hang out and talk with the local people who were either working or walking around, riding The Bus, or hanging out enjoying the natural beauty of the Islands. The place really is different and has a different vibe. People pick up on what you're all about and I always felt right at home.
The best way to be less racist is not to be racist at all.
Racism / groupism--Who needs it? What good does it do?
Mahalo nui loa for the article.
3
@Surreptitious Bass
Please correct, "was not obvious to the racism," to "was not OBLIVIOUS to the racism,"
My apologies.
As a mixed race, "hapa" individual living in a place where I thankfully have YET to see anyone wearing a "MAGA" cap (Oahu)...I concur ;-)
BTW, I love the photographs!! Thanks!!
2
This article is fine as it goes, academically well researched and readable. However, the race/diversity topic has become an obsession with this newspaper and progressives at large at the expense of considering the real problems and tragedies of individuals in our country. There should be article after article about the plight of poorly educated whites who are committing suicide and dying from substance abuse at unprecedented rates. Or articles about the growing numbers of homeless ( a diverse group I might add) who flood the streets of major U.S cities mostly governed by progressives. When are we going to get away from ideological topics and discuss the needs of real people?
9
This article glosses over a simple truth, you can overcome institutional racism, not personal racism. A good example is Haiti a country where virtually the entire population is black. In Haiti, racism is based on gradiations of color! The less dark, the higher you find yourself in the social ladder. In Puerto Rico, and island where essentially the entire population is of mixed heritage the same applies. Lest not forget the American south and the cultural phenomenon of "passing". Racism can be "de-institutionalized" by laws however racism whether overt or unconscious is a human trait which whether we like it or not has a psychogenetic basis traceable to Darwinian principles.
5
Beautiful pictures, flawed article in its incomplete look. The Manoa campus is not typical of the state population.
Racism and ethnic resentment are alive and well in the islands. I've lived there. I left because of class distinctions which predominantly see white residents plundering the islands for personal gain -- a phenomenon carried over from the Sanford Dole takeover days into the present day. Native Hawaiians now have but 3% of their homelands remaining, after being promised 33% by treaty. The remainder has been absconded by the powers-that-be to fuel their own greed.
Zuckerberg and Pierre Omidyar on Kaua'i are but the most recent examples of malihini (newcomers, mostly white) stirring up resentments.
One tires of class distinctions, the "my family has been here for generations" trope, and ethnic slurs directed toward Ha'oles and other racist attitudes.
The article peddles a fairy-tale much like the false "Hawai'i Land" image which Tourism created to enrich hoteliers, developers, and their political cronies. It serves the fantasies of visitors who see only one aspect of island reality during their one-week vacations.
Hawai'i is not "paradise". It is a state with serious issues concerning domestic violence, meth abuse, and animal rights. Poverty pockets rival those on the Mainland.
Papering over these stark realities with some idealized portraits of supposed racial harmony do Hawaiians -- of all backgrounds -- a grave disservice.
12
@Barry C I too have lived many years in Hawaii and I could not disagree with you more. Hawaii embraced me, a person of English ancestry, without question.
9
As an Asian American that grew up in predominately white communities on the mainland and Europe for many years, I felt very comfortable moving to Honolulu as a college student. There were many people that looked like me. In Hawaii I didn't get stupid comments about my looks, my ancestors, or questions about why I spoke English so well, etc by well meaning but clueless people. People are generally tolerant of people from all backgrounds and views, something I found in short supply on the mainland. In our current political environment I am glad to be living here. Having experienced racism on the mainland in school, everyday life, etc it is nice to just blend in.
7
Hawaii is a very racist place. It's just against pure caucasians. It was certainly eye-opening to be in the minority there, but to say it is not a racist place is not accurate. This article primarily focuses on racial attitudes between non whites, and is mostly a historical survey of racism, with only a kernel of intellectual gymnastics about Hawaii. Also the author seems to have primarily spent time in Honolulu, the most cosmopolitan area of Hawaii. If you're mixed, you will find Hawaii much more open than the mainland. But if you're a tall white male with light hair, Hawaii can be just as racist as anywhere else. My caucasian sister-in-law grew up in HI public schools and experienced lots of racism. There is certainly lots of aloha, but definitely lots of racism.
22
Hawaiians are the friendliest americans — hands down. I've been and give it high marks.
However Oahu has problems with their police department, so not being racially profiled won't necessarily get you left alone.
A recent case of an officer attacking and arresting a lesbian couple because they were holding hands in a supermarket was settled out of court with a big check. The officer was forced to immediately take retirement. An hispanic man was recently provoked then pointlessly shot and killed by an officer for drinking a beer in the park late at night behind the state house. These and other episodes like them mean that discrimination of various kinds are alive and well in America's paradise.
Another thing about being mixed. If you're white plus hawaiian, you're considered white as in non-asian. After the take over the hawaiian princesses all married wealthy anglos. It's the local ruling class. they look lovely but racial discrimination is very much in play if you try to become a member of certain country clubs.
Some day it will all be better. But humans seem to be able to discriminate over any little difference at all. And I haven't mentioned how the christians play out in local politics have I?
4
65 years of: “WHAT are you”, “you can only check one box on the form”, “are you an American”. I am so glad multiracial is longer a foreign word, even if we are treated as foreign people in many places. As a multiracial/ multiethnic American I am proud to see young people embrace their blended gene pool. New Mexico may not be Hawaii but no one here has asked me “what are you”.
2
I've been to Hawaii just once and the thing that impressed most was how tolerant everyone was. Yes, it's beautiful but the obvious tolerance and acceptance of all was more beautiful still.
2
I have spent very little time in Hawaii, but have seen some of what this article mentions.
My son and daughter-in-law experienced this when they lived in Hawaii. He is "white," all or mostly Western European, while she has a parent each from Japan and the Czech Republic. On Hawaii he was the more conspicuous. Like many in Hawaii it is difficult to impossible to tell her ethnicity just by looking, so she fit right in.
But as a teacher with Teach for America, she found there was some animosity between groups, particularly the Marshall Islanders on Hawaii, who seemed relegated to substandard "reservations," often without many modern conveniences.
A roommate in the 70's, also a teacher, was Okinawan from Hawaii, and adamantly not Japanese. She had grown up on the streets of Honolulu, and although she was very compassionate about the students in her mixed-race AZ classroom, she had not one nice word for Samoans.
A friend here in WA married an ethnic Japanese man while living in Hawaii, and decided to stay there after her divorce because she felt it was a better place to raise her mixed-race daughters.
6
For the record I am a “local haole”, born and raised in Hawaii in the early 1950s. This was before statehood for crissake! I have read the comments from “mainland haole’s” talking about not being able to interact/adjust with the locals and vice versa, and difficulties with adjusting to life there. That is not a difficulty for local haoles with the exception of a few hassles and negative experiences growing up there for being haole. But I learned how to adjust and deal with it and eventually it was never a hassle again after that.
There is a difference between the two flavors of haoles and from the perspective of the “locals” there is a huge difference. Funny how that works, no? I don’t know the reasons but I have my hunches. Vocal inflections, situational reactions, knowing something of the background/histories of each other‘s cultures, knowing many of the local words which are a combination of Hawaiian words and words from other ethnicities/languages Not to mention being able to speak in a local inflection that is not quite pidgin but is close to it. Of course I can speak “pidgin” fluently too but I usually avoid speaking it with strangers until I know who I’m dealing with.
Hawaii is both a more racist and less racist place than I’ve ever lived. (I have lived mainland too as you can see) and just as with most things ethnically related, trying to pin down race/ethnic relations in Hawaii is a next to impossible task. Too many variables to consider to be able to distill.
35
It seems to be an "island" thing. i moved to a remote and rural island community, which was popular with tourists (similar to kauai). While i have never met kinder and more polite people, it was clear to me that i would always be a mainlander. Even mainlanders who settled there for years and raised families were not considered islanders and had their own social circles. It was not clear exactly who was an islander, but typically it would be someone born there, or went to high school there, or even settlement for multiple generations. After several years, i got "rock fever" and left.
8
True that Gollum. At times I have observed many mainland haole’s trying to interact with locals and it can be at times humorous. But I also understand the unfairness of it all. And at times just plain mean.
Suffice it to say tribalism is alive and well there. As it is in most places globally.
2
Great article!
I like especially how it closes - that we may have less use for the idea of "race."
I agree. Human groups, countries, migrations are all real, but "race" isn't useful or real IMO because everybody is different, and those differences happen at all scales of society.
1
I am troubled by the constant barrage of advertisements encouraging us to do our DNA testing to 'find out where you're from,' and shows some of non-white heritage celebrating a culture they've never experienced, but deemed important to do so, dressing in ancestral garb, never having worn it before.
Where I come from there was the usual discussion of family heritage, especially at holidays with traditional foods and habits that were associated with Christmas or the new year. At least our parents and grandparents did the same, and came by it from true tradition.
Now we have seemed to lost all the ground gained in making people know one another and enjoy their friendship by who they are, not where they come from. I was hopeful that the heritage questions so important to some of the emerging German rules in the 30s was gone, and not just the color of skin being less important, but where your parents, and theirs, came from, as stated so well by the author of this piece.
How do we celebrate our ancestors, without worrying about, or invoking some degree of importance to this very decisive question? Will we never achieve our children not caring about background, but about the person him or herself?
1
This is the real reason I love visiting Hawaii. It is beautiful, but truly unique when it comes to living the "aloha spirit", one "ohana".
3
A intelligent student of mine reflected his family's racism in high school. He visited me a year later, after a year in Hawaii with the Coast Guard. He wanted me to know that Hawaii helped him understand that race is nothing really, people are just people. He apologized for his previous comments - I was glad he had learned, even if it was after graduation.
6
Only 25% of the population of Hawaii is "White."
Does the article say this? [I couldn't find it]
2
Hawaii is just as racist as the mainland, if not worse. The only difference is that it’s directed at white people rather than by them. Try spending a day on Molokai or the Ewa coast of Oahu without getting the stink-eye or worse from a local just for being a haole.
44
As I have written before, NYT writers really need to leave their upper class, coastal urban enclaves and explore the vast US! While Hawaii may be leading the trend, any visit to a Dollar General in rural central Virginia will reveal the quickly growing number of children of 'mixed race parentage'! Fast food locations and town parks are full of black/white hispanic/black white/hispanic couples (sorry, not many Asians yet) enjoying life and not concentrating on politics. This is future of American - not the racism exhibiting by a small number of fools in Charlottesville a few years ago!
7
Or you could just move to Toronto
3
If you are white and want to understand racism, come to Hawaii.
As a 6th generation local but light haired and blue eyed, I have had the humbling experience of racism. I understand it now and am forever grateful. I don’t feel the “white privilege” that plagues the world. Hawaii has provided that to me. I have been beaten for my skin color and labeled foreigner even though my roots are deep and I am more “local” than most. Mahalo Hawaii for blessing me with this perspective.
9
Hawaii is all about ethnic backgrounds, and full of assumptions about what different groups are like (stereotyping). Whites are just white, but there are myriad designations for Asians and Pacific Islanders, as if German would be a smaller subset than Tongan for example.
And it's interesting that east coast liberal university students still self-segregate, as clearly that's not imposed by the school.
1
I lived in Hawaii for 5 years and had an eye opening experince....experiencing discrimation for being white and female. Only about 25% of Hawaiins are white, so they are a minorty. I remeber very distinctly a day that I went to the library and heard someone say "It must be haole day at the library". I had to ask someone what it meant, but the tone with which it was said confirmed what I suspected....it is now (probably not originally) a derogatory term used for whites. The predominent race ion Oahu asian, specifically Japanese or mixed race Japanese, and I worked with mostly a Japanese male staff at a local hospital. The racism was sublte and not overt, but definitely was there.
For me, this was enlightening and let me know what it must feel like in the mainland US for those who are not white. I recommend it for every white person who thinks that discrimnation against blacks, latinos and other people with brown skin doesn't exist anymore in supposedly "post racial" USA.
12
@Melisande Smith the word Hāwai’ian is reserved for those of Hawaiian blood, the natives. It’s not meant for anyone in Hawaii, that’s what you call a Hawaii resident. Don’t get it twisted it’s not the same
New Yorker moved to Kauai Hawaii. Stayed 3 years. Was considered a howlie. Coukldn't return to NY fast enough.
13
Native Hawaiians were systematically denied recognition as an indigenous people -- which would give them "rights" like Native Americans, such as operating a casino on tribal land -- until very recently. The reason is that all the land in Hawaii was stolen from them, with various christian missionary sects owning huge tracts of land, as well as major pineapple and sugar companies such as Dole, Spreckels, C&H, etc. Giant agbiz has moved on to cheaper production in other parts of Asia.
The Hawaiian Brahmin class -- exclusively Japanese Americans -- once controlled Hawaii's economy and politics and remain the dominant group. Korean-Americans (the highest income and education of any Asian-America groups) and Chinese constitute the layer below Japanese Americans. Pilipinos, Pacific Islanders, Samoans occupy the lowest rungs of economic and political power, just above the Native Hawaiians.
The legacy patricians are the dozen original white families who acquired huge tracts of land taken from the Hawaiian monarchy.
Sure Hawaii is diverse. That doesn't mean there isn't palpable racism, including status based on race, and a Native population of conquered and up until recently forgotten people who are used as cultural props by the tourist industry.
Hawaii is America's other plantation state. Whites are the unseen establishment.
They didn't quite pave paradise and or put up enough parking lots for Honolulu's daily traffic congestion.
But Hawaii for most is paradise lost.
37
I was waiting for this comment. Thanks.
6
@S
Thanks for noting my comment and replying with your affirmation. Much appreciated.
Yuri,
How are white people the “unseen establishment” if people of East Asian ancestry are socially and economically dominant, like you say?
Hardly a unique situation in HI. Try Texas, California, Florida. All have interesting and complicated populaces.
6
Like I need another reason to move to Hawaii.
2
Having been aware of this for awhile, I found it telling that part of Sarah Palin's biography includes her attending a school in Hawaii, amongst many others, and leaving when she found it too white.
That probably should've been a clue about her.
Hawaii is what humanity would look like on a starship
And the highest cost of living of all states.....oh well....
4
70% of students in my classes are Asian. 10% are white. So what?
3
“They didn’t believe that race was biological,”-- I think I know what Dr. Pauker was trying to say, but whether or not you're a hardcore racist or believe race is only a phenotype, I'm pretty sure everybody agrees "race", is biological.
2
@Alexander Not any more they don't. Among Anthropologists, it's universally recognized that race is a social, not a biological concept.
2
@Teed Rockwell Anthropologists may have chosen to obsolete race, but phenotypes are not a social construct, and people don't choose them.
3
To quote Paul Theroux: "The word 'haole' is seldom uttered without a modifier."
9
I was stationed on Oahu from 1981 to 1985 while serving in the Coast Guard. I had a romantic relationship with a young Navy girl who was born and raised in Kaneohe. Her father was white, her mother was Japanese. I was used to being called a Haole and told to go back to the mainland. She burst into tears when one night we went out and she was told that by a group of young men. I did learn about racism in Hawaii and what it is like to be a minority. In the same way as here on the mainland, most of the locals were not racist but the ones who were could make life hell.
7
Interesting - I visited Hawaii 15 years ago (Big Island) and noticed that the local were not friendly at all. I would walk past the (typically) big burly men and would attempt an eye contact "hey" or greeting and they pretended like I did not exist at all! I was told that this was residual resentment for the "white man stealing their land" so if things have changed in that short period...
12
Hawaii has a reputation, most unfortunately, as a place where people, through no fault of their own, are discriminated against if they are "white", for jobs, etc. Most "white" people did not pick their own parents and need jobs just like everybody else.
10
Hawaii was quite racist when I lived there in the 80's. We were "haoles" and our children suffered.
11
You mean Haoles don't get beat up in schools in Hawaii? There isn't a huge homeless problem, typical of Dem ruled areas? I'm so glad we have a paradise going on there.
We are mixed, in the US, and will become more so; for example, whites will marry with hispanics, which will destroy the box that Dems have put them in.
If we limit immigration, this effect will be accelerated. Does that mean whites will no longer be demonized? Stay tuned for a new era of peace and prosperity... or not.
3
And from the photo, it is 80% women, too.
1
Imagine, an article that introduces via photographs something well established by genome research – we all look different even though we have the same basic genome, not a one of us is a pure anything, least of all “race”.
Headline (Wrong): Of course, you can hold essentialist ideas about race by living on Hawaii. Ask any white nationalist.
The question posed: “We asked people to give their ethnicity” but they did not do that. The people listed the geographic locations from which their forebears came e.g., Chainton Saldebar: Hawaii, Philippines, Spain, China, Italy all geographic locations.
The author MV-M is bent on going over to using “race” as if it were the only way to characterize individuals but makes this statement: “I have an Ashkenazi Jewish father and a Puerto Rican mother (NEITHER OF WHICH, I SHOULD POINT OUT, IS A RACE).
That statement undercuts much of the way the author treats the people shown and illustrates why Pauker and countless other researchers err when they use the terms multiracial, mixed-race, bi-racial as if there were pure “races”. There are none. Ask these intellectuals: Dorothy Roberts, Svante Pääbo, Adolph Read, Adrian Piper, and more.
MV-M knows this but tells me Barack Obama is our first mixed-race president. Kamala Harris the next? To use that designation one must believe that there is a pure white race and a pure black race.
We are all mixed, accept that, and move into the 21st century.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
2
I raised my now 30 year old here. She looks mixed race and never had problems. Her white friends tell me that racism against them was the hardest part about growing up here.
9
Hawaiian music provides an interesting, informative and delightful window into this topic. For example, Keola Beamer's song "Mr Sun Cho Lee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzISuy-o4_Q
Or, John Troutman's book, "Kika Kila: How the Hawaiian Steel Guitar Changed the Sound of Modern Music":
https://www.amazon.com/Kika-Kila-Hawaiian-Guitar-Changed-ebook/dp/B015ZTG3PG/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=
Or Lorene Ruymar's book: "Hawaiian Steel Guitar and It's Great Hawaiian Musicians":
https://www.amazon.com/Hawaiian-Steel-Guitar-Lorene-Ruymar-ebook/dp/B00INCJNB4/ref=pd_sim_351_1/144-7421587-9387722?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B00INCJNB4&pd_rd_r=df7d4044-99c7-11e9-8170-9d97d68298ac&pd_rd_w=1g2wV&pd_rd_wg=BOF1Y&pf_rd_p=a098ee4c-2e0f-4821-b463-d4b049053104&pf_rd_r=G5DKC3PZ0ESG5SJSW9E8&psc=1&refRID=G5DKC3PZ0ESG5SJSW9E8
1
Hawaii is beautiful but my experience as a white kid growing up there was not fun. "Kill Haole Day" being my least favorite day of the year. Maybe things have changed but it seems like the state still has some issues to work out.
21
Living in Hawaii didn't change Sarah Palin.
And if you want to be really, really less racist, move to Puerto Rico. A US territory. Where I came from that while imperfect is not as segregated as the mainland.
1
An interesting take on the question of race in Hawai'i. The photos are stunning and reveal a certain set of truths about life here. However, the article misses some key points, as does the research it references. To begin with, the experience of colonialism was devastating for Native Hawaiians, and Hawaiian sovereignty movements take place within the mesh of racial categories that were central to colonial conquest. Resistance efforts, for instance against the construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on the island of Hawaii, are based on contesting white supremacy and the legacies of colonialism. In a similar vein, there are few places in the US where being "local" is as important as in Hawaii. Those who are from "off island" or "the mainland" and who are white are often disparaged as "Haoles" by local people, whose own ancestry may include Japanese or Okinawan heritage, from the time when labor was imported to work in sugar plantations. The cultural fissures that these various histories produced are still felt today in such mythical (and perhaps over-hyped) events as the annual "kill Haole day" - rumored to be a part of the life of school kids, and perhaps a flashpoint for fights in the school yard.
Hawaii produced President Barack Obama, and just as he was clearly not the first "post-racial" president, so too Hawaii is a far cry from a place of purely non-essentialized racial harmony.
5
Ironically, even the term “mixed” reifies the original racial categories as essential. So does the idea that mixed race people will have particular tendencies or the notion that “mixing” can ameliorate racism.
A universalist socialism is probably the best cure for racism.
2
Oh, thank you so much for these beautiful portraits! I'll have to save this article for my daughters, who are Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, and Irish-German. They have ancestors who have been in America for 170 years (Irish-German), 110 years (Japanese), and 50 years (Chinese-Vietnamese). I think they are breathtakingly beautiful (yes, my husband and I congratulate each other all the time), but I worry that people see them as "foreign" or "not American enough". They have Asian eyes, but they have black hair with brown highlights and porcelain white skin. Additionally, they have their dad's Irish last name, but I kept my maiden name because Chinese and Vietnamese women don't necessarily change their surnames after marriage. So I'm always worrying that people will think my children are adopted or question my relationship to them. I know other moms whose children look mixed-race fret about the same thing.
So thank you for releasing these images to a large mass audience.
3
@Scaling. My older daughter is also Eurasian (Chinese, Russian, Polish, Italian, and German), though she looks pretty Caucasian to most. I am full Chinese and when I am with her and her younger sister, who is full Chinese (adopted from China), people have asked if they are both mine. I am always proud to reply, yes they both are. I never assume it is an insult, just curiosity on how my beautiful family came to be.
3
The hardest thing about being mixed is not belonging. Humans are social animals and belonging to pack seems to foster feelings of security and well being. It took a long time for me to embrace my autonomy. It took an even longer time to learn to feel secure about not belonging.
Most groups cultivate strength in order to increase their access to resources. It is really tough to be able to say and believe I have more than enough.
As well, one of our biological expressions of dominance is to have other people do their work. Our most powerful and richest people are quite passive and helpless when it comes to doing essential tasks and chores for themselves. Most people strive for that lifestyle. It is an expression of dominance within a pack.
I think the first step in transcending our biology is to struggle with our urge to belong to a pack. It is really really hard, but the benefits are worth, especially as you age.
1
It may be worth noting that (aboriginal) Hawaiian society was supremely stratified, with the lower classes essentially enslaved. The raids between the islands were continuous and unbelievably violent, with human sacrifice, cannibalism etc. Not a bed of roses.
The stratifications continue today, where everything is finely calibrated (more Asia/Pacific Islands than mainland or Europe). Division between the kama'aina and mainlanders, racial groups have their own organizations and associations, Native Hawaiians asking for extra rights/independence - everything is noted and taken into account.
And then - there is the aloha spirit. Personally, I find it miraculous... it requires stepping out of the discriminating, mental space ("European") into a wholistic ("Pacific Islander") vibe that taps into the "energy" of the person and the space they create around them.
5
I grew up in Hawaii. My moms family is from the islands. This is a good article but DO NOT MOVE TO HAWAII!! It’s plenty full with rents skyrocketing and not enough jobs. A large majority of my family there lives in tents and or 6 or more in one apartment. Take after how Hawaii works. Visit the island and enjoy the culture and aloha and take your experience home with you. Our people are peacefully fighting for our land back and the rights of the people and the more people that move there only make it harder and more expensive for the kanaka.
9
Please don't overlook the fact that native Hawaiians from whom this author gleans admirable cultural qualities have themselves become Hawaii's out-of-sight underclass since the overthrow of the Hawaiian kingdom in the 19th century (by US business interests). Or the fact that one third of the Island population is directly related to US military occupation of the archipelago, or that Japanese Islanders were by far the majority laborers on the Islands at the time of the internment and by and large escaped that injustice because local white-owned businesses and agricultural production could not survive without them. I doubt this research this author refers to included the vast underclass of native Hawaiians many of whom live by choice and by exclusion on the western coast of Oahu, an area rarely encroached by tourists, thankfully.
7
This is a very plausible idea. It is interesting how European countries have evolved their attitudes towards race, most are now significantly more open than the US.
Nonsense.
There is only one biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit human race species that began in Africa 300, 000 years ago.
What we call race is an evolutionary fit pigmented response to varying levels of solar radiation at different altitudes and latitudes primarily related to producing Vitamin D and protecting genes from damaging mutations in ecologically isolated human populations.
What we call race is an evil malign socioeconomic political educational demographic historical white supremacist nationalist right-wing American myth meant to legally and morally justify humanity denying black African American enslavement and equality defying separate and unequal black African American Jim Crow.
Despite my paper and genetic documented white European, black African, brown Native and yellow Asian heritage I am deemed all and and only black African in America.
While I don't run from nor shun that heritage, when asked I claim my race as human and my national origin as Earth.
See ' The Race Myth: Why We Pretend That Race Exists in America' by Joseph L Graves and ' Watson Defined"
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@Blackmamba
Dear Blackmamba,
I am a big fan of your comments: insightful, incisive, and deeply thought provoking!
1
@Blackmamba. Exactly! Race is a social construct, an artificial barrier created to divide us. It is a lie that too many of us believe.
2
How true this is. My southern born naval officer father got stationed in Oahu in the 1950's when i was 12 to 14, after having spent the previous three years in segregated shools in northern Virginia. Luckily my parents were too busy partying to instill much racism in me, or in fact any other moral code, and so my two years living and going to school as a racial minority in a tough Pearl Harbor school and at Radford High School eradicated any incipient thoughts of superiority and leavened my responses to other ethnic groups permanently. I just absorbed the fact that we are all tghe same effortlessly. Kind of a back door way to get real, but it worked I have since discovered many many times.
1
> diverse companies are more profitable
Explains the Trump organization.
2
@Michael F. Brilliant observation! I guess that explains why the Apprentice is the only real business success he has had.
Yes, move to Hawaii. You too, can be a Hoale, an outsider, an interloper. I'm Hapa-Hoale, kind of sort of accepted. Kind of sort of not, since I wasn't born there.
5
Interesting article but I think there are a lot of assumptions that may be untrue. I was born in Hawaii and am mixed race which does make most mainlanders ask “where are you from?” However I agree Hawaii can be very racist, with the majority part- or all-Asian discriminating against “haole” white people and black people.
The comment about white students at UH dropping out more because of being minority’s is probably misguided. UH is not Harvard and white mainland kids go there to surf and party, not to be very studious. Local kids go there to really learn because it’s one of the best places to get an education in Hawaii.
The pictures are nice but biased away from people with Asian features with most showing white people with likely small parts of Asian heritage who are not representative of Hawaii.
5
I went and interviewed for a job at UH Manoa several decades ago, and then went out to rural Maui where my brother lives. Manoa, like many university communities, is very open and accepting. Rural Hawaii seemed to be full of comments and beliefs that were as or more racist than California or Connecticutt. Racial epithets and jokes were common. There is lots of generational mixing as marriages mingle bloodlines, but the in/out and other dynamic was still strong. Samoans, African-Americans, Haoles, and even Okinawans were all cast as having character determined by family of origin. "Jew"was simply a broad curse on all New Yorkers (broadly and non-geographically defined. Hawaii is a wonderful place with wonderful generous people, but it is not free of racism.
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Where can I move where no one talks about race at all? Where's there's none of this identity politics?
7
@R.P. Guyana, so I have been told.
Hawaii is great, but I live in Boston, which thinks it's a progressive promised land. But it's far and away the most racist and class conscious city in America. That's why when I retire I'm moving back South, where people are quite color blind compared to this place, though most coastal elites have no idea that such is the case because they've never visited.
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@David - I’ve visited the south four times - five if you count Florida, which some people don’t - and had no issues. Everyone I encountered in Virginia and Georgia were polite and nice. They were nice in North Carolina, too, but I felt more “judged” there, but that had mainly to do with the fact that I was visiting my then-boyfriend’s family and they disapproved of the fact that he was dating a Catholic (they were Pentecostals).
What also might have helped was that, in each of my visits across the Mason-Dixon Line, I stayed in a major metropolitan area or large city (Virginia Beach, Raleigh, Atlanta, Orlando). I was never out in a rural area where repressive attitudes might have openly existed on a large scale.
I’m sorry if you encountered racism in Boston, but bigots and racists are everywhere, including the South. This has nothing to do with “coastal elites” - the term in and of itself is laughable, as the east coast of America stretches from Maine to Miami, and that’s a whole lot of people you’re writing off, including a whole bunch of southern states, as too elite to matter. If you don’t like Boston’s atmosphere then you’re well within your right to leave - I wouldn’t want to live in a place I viewed as racist and class-conscious either - but don’t act like everyone on the east coast is too elite to leave their houses and explore the grand old south which was for generations a decidedly ungrand, unaccepting and, for anyone not white and Protestant, dangerous place.
1
I grew up in a mostly Jewish suburb with a large minority of Mexican immigrants, second generation Italian Americans, a military base, and wealthy Asian American families. My mom is Assyrian and my dad is Slovak. My best friends were a Hyderabadi girl whose father served as Muslim chaplain in the army, a German American Mormon, and an Askenazi-Tejano-Creole girl who now has two children with her mixed Chinese/white husband.
I, too, went to an Ivy League school, about six years after Ms. Pauker in southern New England. It was so diverse, you’d have to actively try NOT to have friends “of color.” My inner circle was black, Jewish, Asian, and international. Half are in “mixed” marriages now. One black and white power couple was featured in the Times weddings section a decade ago.
This fall, I’ll be an uncle when my half black, half white sister-in-law gives birth to a son, first of two children they’re planning for (three if she can help it). She has three siblings, two partnered to whites and one to a brilliant polyglot Kazakh woman.
This was the direction our country was headed in well before the Great Awokening; my milieu of older Millennials was doing fine without critical race theory and identity politics. IMO, in 2019, a self-satisfied, navel-gazing opinion piece on “essentialism” leading with a dubious moral tale about a school in lily white NH that was ‘only’ 25% POC (excluding Jews, per usual) twenty years ago takes the bait of the alt-right. It’s a step backwards.
3
I have lived in Hawaii since 1966. This article is a pretty accurate rendition. A few additional comments: 1) Since 1966 the rise of political correctness has hurt some of the aloha here. People are now less relaxed about race and are more polarized. 2) The recent rise of Hawaiian awareness has also hurt the aloha here as it has tended to divide people, even though most the of "Hawaiians" have very little Hawaiian blood because they are do mixed. 3) It is impossible to tell what racial mixture a person is from their name: Mary Smith might be a Japanese/Samoan/Hawaiian women married to a Korean/Chinese/French/English man. 4) If you look at the students of Kamehameha School (who must have at least some Hawaiian blood to be admitted) some of them look like they are pure Swedish. You just cannot tell their racial mixture from observation.
I love Hawaii, and I love the melting pot here. I wouldn't live anywhere else.
2
Hey, thanks! I've been looking for a good excuse to move to Hawaii. Kauai beaches, here I come!
1
Hawaii tends to be a mixed race society represented primarily by only one overall race - Asian. In fact the primary minority racial groups found throughout the rest of America (black and Hispanic) are barely found within Hawaii. And if you dig beneath the surface of Hawaii’s tropical tourism, there are still many vestiges of an oppressed colonial society – similar to Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Virgin Islands, Jamaica, etc. There’s a tangible lingering resentment (rightfully so) of whites that colonialized their land for profit. Even today many, if perhaps not the majority, of white people are adorned in military uniforms on one of the many military bases scattered throughout HI, which lends an almost eerie visible representation of our nation’s violence and hostility. And the military’s conservative culture and attitudes are largely vastly out of step with the more liberal attitudes of Hawaiian locals. In addition, the military (mostly white people) tends to live in self isolated bases that rarely intermingles with the “natives.” Though Hawaii’s many different Asian ethnicities tend to live relatively harmoniously together, I would hardly call Hawaii a great example of tolerance that could somehow be imported to the rest of the United States.
2
"In the late 19th century, Hawaii was a constitutional monarchy, ruled by a native Hawaiian monarch. That ended in 1893 when a group of mostly white plantation owners, descended from an earlier wave of missionaries, overthrew the Hawaiian queen and declared, perversely, a republic. Their goal was annexation by the United States, which occurred in 1898, and access to its markets."
And you better believe we owe reparations for that. That part of our shared history embarrasses me as an American.
As someone who appears as a mixed race "person of color," I still don't understand what "white" is supposed to mean. Is it a race, ethnicity, culture, or skin color? If someone is 75% white and only speaks English, can they identify as white even if they have a dark complexion like those in the photos? Or will they forever be "nonwhite?"
@Jonas. “White” is just a bigoted word for “human.”
The photography is amazing!
I think the author glosses over some of the anti white sentiment prevalent in Hawaii. My daughter is white, and attended Punahou School and the University of Hawaii. She was the subject of a racist, bullying incident perpetrated by a Japanese American student at Punahou. This was unpleasant enough that we considered removing my daughter from Punahou. She later graduated from Creighton with a doctorate. She will never return to live in Hawaii due to the racism here. Interestingly enough, her best friend at Creighton was Japanese American from Hawaii. When her Creighton friend experienced anti Asian sentiment in the Midwest, my daughter’s response was, “now you know what I felt like in Hawaii. “
9
@Baiba Hi, white person here. With all due respect what your daughter experienced in Hawaii is nowhere near what her best friend of Japanese descent experienced in the Midwest. Your daughter will experience the social and economic benefits of her white privilege no matter where she goes, no matter what kind of biases she is subject to. Bias against nonwhite people (also known as racism) has— and has always had—serious and violent consequences in their daily lives and futures. There are still Japanese Americans alive today who were put in concentration camps during WWII.
Your daughter's response ("*now* you now what I felt like in Hawaii") blatantly disregards that her friend never has and never will benefit from white privilege, and I'll bet you literally anything that the racism she experienced in Midwest was not her first rodeo.
We as white people cannot experience racism. When white people are discriminated against, we may feel hurt. But discrimination against people of color—racism—is what our entire society was built upon and seeps through just about every one of its structures and institutions. Your white daughter can move back to the Midwest and feel comfortable again. Her friend cannot simply pack up and move away from the grips of white supremacy.
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@Emily
You have policed enough comments about people’s experience of physical harm to warrant a response. I hesitate to point out what should be obvious, but getting punched in the face on the basis of what race you are is a bad thing.
Privilege is not a dichotomous variable. People do not either “have it” or don’t. It is no coincidence that this totalizing and monolithic understanding of systematic racism accommodates a willingness among some people to tell others what they must be experiencing on the basis of crude demographics.
8
@WT Of course privilege is not a "you have it or you don't" situation. There are a ton of other variables. But no matter what the other variables are, the fact is that if you are a white person you are born into a world that was created for you.
You say that I express a totalizing/monolithic understanding of systemic racism, but what I’m trying to say is that racism is an extremely complex concept rooted in centuries of history, upheld by white people at the highest levels of governance, experienced by generations and generations of people of color, and written about by thousands more. The concept of “reverse racism,” the idea that white people can experience racism, totally ignores this long and complex history.
I am not condoning actions of racial prejudice towards anyone. I’m saying that while racial prejudice towards a white person can hurt them personally, it does not have the power to affect that white person’s social, economic, or political privileges. By contrast, racism affects people of color not only on a personal level, but on every other level from the top down. White people hold the power to discriminate systemically. This is a fact. This is the difference I’m trying to convey.
2
I lived in the Northern Mariana Islands and was called Haole and not in a friendly way. I was ignored in restaurants and by shopkeepers. Sad to say bigotry goes both ways
11
You get this in New York City too.
I’ll probably get hammered for saying this but I’ll be real candid...in Hawaii, all races hang out but the whites still keep themselves separated. I know, I’m from three generations going back to the early-1900s.
When they (whites) do “join in” it’s because they don’t have white options. When they are forced to deal with the fact that they are not the privileged (actually, privileged but less so than on the mainland), they feel that the locals are prejudice against them.
The trend is towards more whites on the islands and the fear is coming to pass....Hawaii will become just as much a white-privileged haven as any other place on mainland America.
3
To a much lesser degree, a similar mixing occurred in Spanish colonies, where attributes such as mestizo and mulatto were common. As a result, Latin America has been spared the worst parts of endemic racism seen in the US. To this day, some Latin Americans in the US struggle deciding which checkbox is appropriate when filling out forms asking about race: Latino or White.
@Jeff. Modern Latin America still struggles with colorism or shadism, and racism, a legacy of Spanish and Portuguese rule. By the way, Latino is no more a “race,” than “American” is. Latinos are people whose recent ancestors came from Latin America, and come in every shade and ethnicity of humanity.
2
The state of Hawaii routinely discriminates against non natives with preferences for housing, education and more casually and insidiously in law enforcement and public access.
Just a few years ago the state government tried to sneak through a housing bill that would openly give preference to native Hawaiians in public housing.
According to the SPLC, ’haoles’ still face harassment and discrimination blatantly and informally believing that Hawaii was taken by the mainland and they should have tribal status like Native Americans. The Supreme Court has already disagreed Rice vs Cayetano. Yet discrimination, prejudice and state attempts to codify these practices continue.
Aloha has a dark side.
6
@CNNNNC do you even know the history of Hawaii? You can’t really expect fair treatment after what’s been done
This article has elements of truth but is totally naive. Essentialist identities practically define life in HI, with complicated notions of “local” and “Haole” which are used to marginalize out-groups and are just as arbitrary as their mainland counterparts.
4
I don't know about this... last time I was there I was told by the locals to go home haole (a derogatory term for non-islanders). Most are tolerant in Hawaii, but the islanders certainly are biased against certain melanin lacking individuals.
10
My ancestry is a mix of English, Scottish, German, Portuguese, Dutch, Brazilian, North African, and American. I am truly a white mutt with curly brown hair and blue eye. Adding to the diversity, my wife is Japanese. We have two children. They have 3 passports. The only thing the made up idea of racial purity does for society is divide and dehumanizing some people as "other". Go back far enough genetically and no one is really pure, whatever that is suppose to mean, anyway.
Hawaii is a wonderful place. To be fair, and as even a short trip to the Islands will demonstrate, the demographic profile there is not analogous to that found in the mainland. The per cent of blacks is much less and there is no legacy of slavery to poison the waters. Even more striking, the per cent of latinos is very low. Thus, the two racial populations that are the focus of most of the angst in the mainland are but a minor part of the culture of Hawaii; there is little concern about reparations or illegal immigration.
1
I live in London with well over 1-in-4 being none white British. I assure you racism is live and well right across the board by every ethnicity— Black vs Asian,Black vs White, white vs Slav
3
It's hard to be small-minded when you're standing on the north shore of Maui with the unceasing wind lashing pettiness out of your soul as you stare into the great void of oceanic plenitude.
I think it’s funny that there’s a study that implies some sort of racial hangup from white kids believing that black people tend to be good at basketball and that Asians tend to be good at math. A study of black kids or Asian kids would show they believe the same things. And a study of basketball or math proficiency would show that they are all correct
5
Back in the 60s in high school in Palo Alto I had an Asian friend who moved to Hawaii because he wanted to experience not being a minority and a more egalitarian society. When I saw him a few years later he said he moved back because Hawaii was not what he expected. It was broken up into ethnic groups which mostly kept to themselves and disliked each other. I was sad to hear that. I hope it is far better now.
11
O'ahu is -almost- as aloha as Nuevo Mexico - :-) Anywhere where people see one another as persons, rather than stereotyped, shorthand clichés of badly understood 'characteristics' is the place to be.
2
Loved the article but especially loved the pictures. Each picture spoke a thousand words! Thanks!
2
As someone who has lived in the islands for 36 years my reaction to this article is that it is a very superficial view. I have never spent time anyplace so racist. The difference is that in New York (my home town) people are very up front and honest. In Hawaii you have to watch your back.
My first year here I worked on a phone line for "latch key" children. We were there to help them navigate things like cooking dinner on their own. Every single call I got was about race. My second year I worked as a psychologist in a public school. The language I heard on the playground left me stunned. Teachers just walked by, never saying a word while children tossed around the kind of epithets which would have a child, at minimum, sent to the principal anywhere on the continent. I could tell a number of stories about things my own children went through growing up here, but they are minor compared to what people of African ancestry go through.
In Hawaii people of mixed race are treated well as long as those races have significant representation here. If you can draw any conclusion from Hawaii it is that growing up around people of different ancestry prevents you from seeing them as "other," something which Psychology has long known.
45
Or you could just ride the NYC subway. I recommend, on an off hour where everyone is seated and in full view, checking every face and making a guess on their ethnicity. The range is amazing.
22
@GC
Ditto, on DC's metro.
2
It's possible that anyone can experience racism and/or hostility anywhere, even in Hawaii. The larger point, however, is that in general, it's harder to 'hate' someone of a different race or ethnicity when you interact with them on a regular basis - through work, school, or events in a local community.
19
ironic--especially here, in east hawai'i--that hawai'i actually delivers so much of the good traditional america often only promises.
must be something about the jones act...
3
I’ve never read an article that sums up my own personal experience with race as a mixed person so well. I am of Japanese, Chinese, and Jewish descent and luckily my mom is from Hawaii. I grew up in a majority White suburb of Seattle and never understood why I could not fit in especially in my teenage years. Looking back I now recognize that many of my interactions involved assumptions about my race and stereotypes on who I was. I was consistently boxed in by classmates, teachers, members of my syngagogue, and even random people I met. Only when my family would visit Hawaii would I feel like all of those labels would wash off me. Amongst my interracial family in Hawaii’s extraordinarily diverse community I always felt a sense of home. Race was not something to be ashamed of but to take pride in, not something to hide from but to live and consider. I was told the stories of how people in Hawaii banded together to overcome common challenges. And it is a kind of thinking I truly wish more people on the mainland could understand.
This article is missing some key points. Class and race in America are inextricably linked and without considering the role of centuries of oppression on certain groups especially African and Native Americans and Native Hawaiians there cannot be meaningful progress. It is time for active action like affirmative action and reparations to atone for the past. Empathy can only happen when we truly understand each other beyond racial boxes. Aloha.
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@Max Sugarman I can relate as I am of Chinese/Italian descent who grew up outside of Philadelphia. I'll never forget the day it clicked for me that I was an "Other" when a youth coach asked me what I "considered myself as?" When I said "Asian/White", he replied "that's weird, I thought you would consider yourself as just White." I was stunned at the time and still am.
17
@Max Sugarman Affirmative Action is problematic because it's a form of racism, and racism tends to beget more racism.
Diversity is of course a good thing, and by "diversity" I mean people with many differences, not just the superficial skin color.
12
I liked your description of how all the labels would wash off you in Hawaii. It makes me wish that could happen all over America. But I strongly disagree with reparations. Forcing one set of people who had nothing to do with wrongs of the past to pay another set of people, some of whom need the money less than the first group, doesn’t right wrongs. It would create all new resentments and divisions based on race and perceived race and the unfairness of it all.
We help people by providing opportunity, which includes a governing administration without systemic corruption, infrastructure, public transportation, quality education, access to higher education & job training, affordable healthcare, and a strong economy to ensure high employment. All of these must be provided to all without regard to ANY personal characteristics. I believe strongly in need-based and sometimes, merit-based help.
15
What a great piece! As a multi-racial (African American, Native American, Creole, Irish, English, Scottish, Hungarian) woman living in Hawaii, married to a “haole” (White) man who was born and raised in Hawaii, and raising a multi-racial son, I feel this article really captures a lot about what makes life in Hawaii so special. There’s no denying that we continue to face challenges around issues of race, identity, and self determination - particularly as more affluent people from the mainland arrive along with their more rigid construct - but, for now, the spirit of aloha and community prevails. Here’s to re doubling our efforts to ensure these traditions continue. Thank you for shining a light on this important subject.
7
Having grown up in Hawaii, part of a fifth-generation local, mostly Caucasian extended family, and more specifically having grown up in a neighborhood where I and my siblings were definitely in the racial minority, I found this article to be a well-balanced description of attitudes--past and present--in the islands. No, it's not a perfect melting pot. Yes, there are conflicts centered on race and ethnicity, especially as they relate to stereotypes and perceptions of unequal treatment. But by and large, the "aloha spirit" plays a key role (along with the equally crucial concept of "ohana," or family--but extended to mean not just relatives, but those in your circle--family, friends, neighbors, co-workers--who are incorporated in your concept of family). I am proud to be from Hawaii and do what I can to spread the aloha spirit, and the message of diversity as a positive social power, even here in the little backwater town where I live now in Japan.
238
@Shirokuma
"and the message of diversity as a positive social power, even here in the little backwater town where I live now in Japan."
I've asked many time many people if there's any evidence that ethnically diverse groups of humans are in any way superior to homogeneous ones.
No one has ever been able to provide any evidence.
Since you've brought up Japan, one of the most homogenous society in the world. Is Japan any less competitive than, say, Brazil, arguably, the most diverse society in the world??? Or, are Hawaii any more advanced than Japan, culturally, technologically, scientifically? How many Nobel Prize winners have come from Hawaiian Universities?
7
@al, neither the essay nor Shirokuma's comment is interested in establishing the superiority of heterogeneity compared to homogeneity. Why are you so interested? The theme of this particular series of written exchanges, starting with the essay, is how the experience of heterogeneity often dismantles racism. That's it. Individual identity and sociability, not 'superiority'. What does the Nobel Prize have to do with this?
7
@al, ... man, you're kicking it. Japan, Brazil, Hawaii, moving to the question, 'Is Hawaii on par with Japan's expertise in technology, etc.'
Maybe with a little traveling and talking with other people, you might find we are just like people like yourselves just trying to make a living to make life good. Aloha.
8
Speaking as a white mainlander: A while back I left the racially segregated mid-western town where I had grown up and moved to Hawaii. It was the smartest things I ever did! Finally, I was a minority. I found it exciting to be surrounded by people who looked different than me. The different foods, cultures, languages, and way of life flowed through those islands, and made me thrilled to be part of the vibrancy of humankind. I was more at home with all those new and different people and customs that I had ever felt in my mid-western home town.
And, yet, there were those like me: white mainlanders who had grown up in conservative white communities who didn't make it. Being an outsider and minority caused them stress, which led to anger, and even to double-down on their racism. I never understood why our reactions to the experience could be so different.
360
@Downeaster I have observed the same thing and also wondered. It seems like there is a dichotomy of open-mindedness vs close-mindedness that will determine your world view. And I think that is the schism that we are seeing in this country, more acutely right now.
61
@Downeaster your comment sums up perfectly why I think the title of this otherwise excellent, thought-provoking and informative piece is ridiculous.
11
Solid reporting and insights, Downeaster
10
Thought provoking article with stunning photography brings a fresh perspective to the discussion of race. The parents of children of mixed ancestry often experience overt or implicit racism due to differences in their appearance. As a "white" man (of Ashkenazi Jew/Scottish ancestry) married to a "brown" woman (of Filipino/Chinese/Mexican ancestry), we have lived in the Northeast US for the last 36 years as an "odd couple", forced to explain "we're together" at parent-teacher conferences, supermarket lines, airport security, and social gatherings. When we are in Hawaii, the aloha spirit welcomes us, and other mixed ancestry couples with no questions asked, and no explanations necessary.
394
@Stuart I’m a white Jewish guy married 34 yrs to a dark Peruvian woman. We lived all over USA and Mexico from NYC to rural N.Carolina.Never once had to “explain we’re together “at a school,airport or social gathering.Growing up in NYC I’ve seen countless couples from different cultures,we never considered ourselves “odd”
4
@danshore
That may be true for you, particularly in NYC, but why do you try to undermine Stuart's experience? My partner and I are also a biracial couple and we have constantly had to explain we were together, both in the Pacific Northwest, and (even moreso) in the Midwest.
But again, my main point is this: why in the world would you try to undermine Stuart's experience of racism? You do not walk in his shoes.
13
@Stuart
This article is supremely scientifically ignorant, illiterate and white European American Judeo-Christian stupid.
There is only one biological DNA genetic evolutionary fit human race species that began in Africa 300,000 years ago.
What we call race aka color is an evolutionary fit human race pigmented response to varying levels of solar radiation at different altitudes and latitudes primarily related to producing Vitamin D and protecting genes from damaging mutations in ecologically isolated human populations.
Color is not ' race'. Ethnicity is not ' race'. National origin is not ' race'. Faith is not ' race'. There are no Aryan nor Jewish 'races'.
My race is human. My national origin is Earth.
3
i'm a white guy from the Boston area who lived in Hawaii for 30 years. I first moved there at age 30 and returned at 65 to rural New England. I truly understand the author. Aloha Spirit, whatever that is, says it all. I have been fundamentally changed, a before me, a transition and now a chance to see my former self reflected in my Yankee neighbors. I like what I transitioned into better than what I see around me, no matter how wonderful my neighbors are. The images, the best part, pulled at my island heartstrings, heartstrings learned from living with everyone from everywhere. Learn Aloha, Live Aloha.
430
@JCG. I wholeheartedly concur. My 20 years in Hawaii were life changing, and even though it’s been nearly 20 years since I lived there, it was the equivalent of a doctorate in life lessons. I tell my university students if they ever have the chance to live and work in a place like Hawaii, where no one is a majority member, grab it and learn from it. It is totally different than just visiting for a 2 week vacation!
22
@JCG Which is precisely what President Obama does.
12
@JCG
"I like what I transitioned into better than what I see around me, no matter how wonderful my neighbors are."
So, you feel superior ("better" as you say) to your neighbors, because they are happy in their community and don't feel the obligation to subject themselves to an environment of people with a wider spectrum of genetic markers.
Aloha spirit, indeed... or should I call it 'ethno-diversity supremacy?'
3
Our daughter was born in Waikiki, and I felt aloha by living there several years....the Michael Haas book elaborates on that unique spirit
1
In my investment services professional life in 1980s L.A., Hawai'i was part of my territory.
I was familiar with the different racial groups in Los Angeles, but they tended to live in either legal or self-chosen "Ghettos".
In Honolulu, the ethnic groups interacted in the banks, insurance companies and financial firms I visited. There was not a hierarchy according to race.
Sometimes the VP I met was of Chinese, Japanese, or Samoan decent with no hint of accent, sometimes it was a blond-haired Anglo who spoke with a hint of Hawai'ian pidgin, or a Portuguese/Spanish professional with an Hispanic lilt.
I realized then, I was seeing the future of the United States in the mid-21st century.
9
@East Coaster in the Heartland Growing up as an Army brat, my brother and I grew up in diverse areas, none more so than Hawaii. Our sophomore year, we were in Barack Obama's class - I didn't know him well, but probably assumed he was Samoan, Tongan, or some variation thereof, along with much of the rest of our schoolmates. So indeed, you were foreseeing the future!
3
I'm 100 percent white (Finnish descent) and moved from Canada to Honolulu at age 26.
It's the first time in my life I actually witnessed racism. It really took me back. If you were not some Island mix you can really feel it from the locals. They called you a haole. It wasn't meant to be pleasant. I had incidents of near violence just from being naïve and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. My roommate from Wisconsin was beaten badly in a basketball game by a group of Samoan men.
Hawaii was overall a beautiful place. Most people (like anywhere ) were great. But it's still the most racist place I've ever lived in.
32
My recent trip to Kauai was an eye opening experience because I got to experience racism in a new way. As a white person, I was clearly not welcome in some of the areas I went to. I visited one beach and after walking around for about five minutes, I started noticing some of the locals staring at me, then starting to follow me. The message was clear - get off this beach. I was chased out of there and even had a car follow me to make sure I didn’t turn around.
If I went to a local store and tried to ask questions, the locals wouldn’t talk to me. I’d say - is there a good place to by local produce here? They would just ignore me, or say “I don’t know” and pretend I wasn’t there.
I met up with a friend who recently moved there and told him about this. He is also white and he told me they don’t like white people on this island. He said the only reason why he can get a job on the island is because he is married to a Filipino and his kids looks Asian so it helps him get accepted into the community.
I felt like a black person in Alabama in the 1950s but this was 2019 on Kauai as a white man.
47
@Kev
I live in Hawaii (akamai means "savvy") and, unfortunately, must agree that there is racial strife.
The ha'oles, or Whites, especially from the Mainland, are often at the top economically, but at the bottom in discrimination. I know several White people who had to leave the Islands because they literally could not find a job.
A very high status group is the Japanese who run the Government as legislators, and many of the businesses. They are admired, but often disliked as any ruling group is.
Next are the "locals" (their term). They were born and raised in the Islands, often for generations. Yes, their intermarriage is wonderful. They are denigrated by other groups are lazy, greedy for government jobs and incompetent, but do carry on the local traditions.
Moving down, we have the Filipinos, often immigrants, who do the stoop labor. Micronesians and Samoans are often treated similarly.
There are almost no Blacks,
Finally, like the ha'oles, the Native Hawiians are at the bottom and the top. They are either scorned as lazy, meth-using obstructionists or praised as saviors of the land. They are often honored as the people who try to preserve the original reverence for the land, water and air. They are gaining clout in these days of climate emergencies. Being even part Hawaiian gives you cultural status.
I wouldn't live anywhere else.
10
you obviously didn't learn. you're comparing your two seconds of discomfort to hundreds of years of brutality.
3
The first morning I woke up in Maui, two golfers at Lahaina were discussing how they never wanted to be around “people from New York with names like Stein . . . You know, those people.” It soured my whole experience of the island. Hawaiian culture, yes, but beware the vacationers.
1
A recent worrisome trend is that race essentialism seems to be taking over progressives as well as conservatives. For instance, a lot of the arguments against “cultural appropriation” veer uncomfortably towards the idea that you need to stick to “your race” when it comes to clothing, food, etc and to go beyond those boundaries is somehow racist.
I don’t know how individuals of mixed heritage will exist in a world where both the far left and right are converging on race essentialism.
8
Who benefits from racial stereotypes? The "white"
majority wins and the non-white minority loses.
This is why Hawaii is different than the rest of the US. The stereotypes fostered in the mainland do not benefit the majority of Hawaiians. So, Hawaiians foster their own stereotypes. Most Hawaiians see the non-sense in racial "boundaries" and believe
we are all in it together.
3
Fantastic!
1
Nice article, but completely opposite of my experience as a 15-year old on the island of Oahu.
My family had moved several times by the time I was 15, this was going to be just another relo and in no time I’d have a new group of friends and the benefit of being surrounded by beautiful beaches.
We moved into a home in a relatively new area called Hawaii Kai. I remember my first day at a High School called Kaiser, I had no idea what was waiting for me. Within minutes of arriving I saw the other kids (who 98.% were of some Asian/Hawaiian decent) staring at me. Some started to make comments at me completely related to my race. “Haole boy whacha doing here bra?” “Haole boy, you want to fight?” Where was I? I had no idea what was going on and was totally unprepared for it. Then came the first of hundreds of sucker punches and fist fights simply defending myself. Over the coming months I developed depression and anxiety. Haole became the “N” word to me.
Prior to arriving in Hawaii, I too had heard the zero prejudice story. It turned out that story was alive and well in the tourist areas, however, beyond that you took your chances.
When most people hear that I once lived in Hawaii they think of me as lucky. It’s only when I meet someone who also lived there that an all-knowing look is shared. They know and so do I.
Perhaps the writer was surrounded by people who would keep him from the truth? Funny thing is I love visiting Hawaii, I just wouldn’t want to live there.
55
@Matt My cousins lived in Hawaii Kai and went to Kaiser for a few years (my uncle was a physician in the Army)! Had a similar experience to yours. My two male cousins gained acceptance by becoming expert surfers, but my female cousin was constantly bullied.
10
I moved to Oahu from Long Island in 1981 (job transfer) and lived there for two years. I did not experience much of the so-called Aloha Spirit. I did experience pervasive reverse racism: Asians discriminating against caucasians in hiring and housing, not to mention relationships. The offered justification is that whites don't stay long enough to develop roots in the community . Caucasians made up about 30% of the island population. There was also considerable animosity between asian subgroups: Japanese, Chinese, Tongan, Filipino, Korean. This animosity did not offend me, but rather was an eye-opener that gave me a tiny glimpse of the hardships facing true minorities. I still vacation in Hawaii twice a year. If you want to be less racist, Hawaii is a false paradise.
25
You just discovered this about Hawaii? I guess you only noticed the beaches, the volcanoes, and the hula performers during your past visits.
1
Raising daughters in North Florida, born in NYC and Albany, GA, we sent them to Hawaii to summer with my parents because we felt it important that they (Japanese/French-English), hapa children, understood that people did not come as either white or black.
2
This article was "nice" and well written but needs some balancing.
I moved from Canada to Hawaii when I graduated college at 26. I witnessed a lot of racism from locals towards white people including myself. My work colleagues who had kids told me that their children were bullied at school for being white. They would have beat up a Haole (slang for a white person) day at the schools. I narrowly avoided violent situations , my roomate from Wisconsin was not so lucky. He was beat up by a group of locals playing basketball, very badly.
Hawaii was and is a beautiful place. But it's no different then anywhere else in that people by nature are prone to being racist. (and in no way am I implying ALL people were racists there. ) And it was actually refreshing to experience racism. I actually can relate somewhat to minorities now a little better.
216
@Ari I had a similar experience as a child in the Republic of the Marshall Islands. Being bullied as a child because of your skin color isn't something I recommend, exactly, but there is one thing it does for you if you are white: it cures you definitively of any tendency to patronize people of other racial backgrounds. As a white child of liberals, I think I had picked up the idea that all I had to do was be tolerant (even the word is condescending), and presto! no racism. Until the Marshall Islands, it never occurred to me that other people might be the ones who got to make that decision. To be in a racially charged situation where I had no privilege, no power, and no control, and where the people who had power showed no pity - well, it was eye-opening, to say the least. I think on the whole it made me more understanding, but if I had had a different upbringing or thought things through a little less, it could have gone the other way.
100
@Ari I was one of those white kids who experienced kill-haole day (the last day of public school every year). It was way more myth than reality and it did not scar me or any of the other white kids I knew. But it is something that makes some white folk feel unwelcome, definitely. In my experience, those whites who experience their minority status negatively do so because they explore and discuss their experiences in groups of white outsiders who amplify each other's feelings. Breaking out of those white bubbles can make a huge difference.
62
@Ari
Ari, what you experienced had more to do with prejudice than racism. Racism connotes systemic discrimination, violence, etc, not anger and violence toward a representation (you/your friends) of a dominant power structure. That said, it's great that you now can relate a little more to people who are experiencing prejudice.
23
After seeing these beautiful people, these beautiful images, well, I'm afraid I'm not attractive enough to live in Hawaii.
3
Maybe a better headline? I can’t imagine anyone who would admit to being racist actually wanting to be less so. With Trump in power and racism increasing around the world it seems, it’s worn like a badge of honour.
1
Love the images that emphasize your points!
1
This why identity politics are an almost comic dead end.
It begins with an insult (people do not recognize diversity) and ends with an absurdity (we are described by identitarian categories).
7
Interestingly, I just finished a book about a Japanese doctor, educated in the US, who was drafted into the Japanese army during WWII, and was killed in the battle for Attu in the Aleutian Islands. His widow, also US educated, moved to Hawaii with her two children after the war, and then eventually to California. The family found no anti-Asian racism in Hawaii, but significant racism in California.
1
Can I suggest an improvement to the title: "Want to Be Less Perniciously Prejudice?"
This excerpt rings consistent with the observations of my Haole parents living on Maui
____
Partly because of racial joking, race is always on the mind here. When people think about race consciously, she posits, it helps prevent essentialist thinking from taking root unconsciously. Joking about ethnic stereotypes, especially about one’s own group, at least keeps conversations about race in Hawaii on the surface, rather than pushing them underground.
___
This does seem healthier than the traditional, sweep it under the rug, New England approach. That said, I can see New England becoming more like Hawaii, becoming true to the moniker, the New World.
2
My haole cousin was hospitalized for dehydration in Hawaii. She wouldn't drink water during the day because haoles got beat up in the bathrooms at school. If you are a white mainlander, don't even think about camping in Hawaii. Hawaii is not a paradise and there are class and ethnic tensions; even hapas are not exempt. Just a different manifestation than the mainland.
33
As a white mainlander I camped for a week as part of a group on Kauai on the north shore. I had nothing but positive experiences and every Hawaiian I met was very friendly. However, in order to get the camping permit our group did volunteer labor by working on a taro plantation for 1/2 a day. Hawaiian culture expects everyone to give back in some way, and that is part of the ethos of all interactions in Hawaii.
6
@Just paying attention lucky you were part of a group - and the hassles tourists get camping have nothing to do with taro.
4
try Toronto, Canada. So many different people, it seems as there are only minorities. Wonderful.
3
Great article,lovely photos . Is Hawaii the blueprint for a post racial America ? Me thinks so.
1
I was a doctor assigned to the USAF Hickman AFB (Honolulu) clinic in 1973/4 and I am glad to hear things have changed since I lived there. Fellow senior officers there felt obligated to send their school aged children to private schools or back to the mainland to relatives to avoid the persistent “kill a ‘Houlie’ day” where servicemen’s children were beaten at school for being white. Sadly, a white sergeant lab technician was executed while stopped at a traffic light on his way to the clinic. Apparently his new wife’s family was furious that their Hawaiian daughter had recently married this white serviceman. Fortunately I lived on base. Those living in local off base housing neighborhoods were perpetually harassed and having their residences burgled. Glad to hear things have changed..or have they?
28
The answer on how to be less racist is to actively consider your own biases, not simply move to some imagined utopia.
If Hawaii is such a cure all for racism, why are native Hawaiians disproportionately living in poverty? Why do wealthy white land owners continue to pressure Native Hawaiians to turn over their land claims? Hawaii still has some deep issues with systemic racism that require challenge.
14
I was born and raised in Hawaii in an immigrant family from South Korea. I grew up with friends from nearly every ethnic background imaginable. When I left for college on the mainland, I didn’t realize how much harder it would be to make friends. I became the token asian kid with a string of stereotypes attached to my identity. I quickly found out that each racial group seemingly self-segregated themselves. The white kids hung out with each other, and the same could be said for other racial groups as well.
Where was the aloha, the camaraderie, the diversity? I’d suddenly been thrust into a world of intense scrutiny based upon presumptions marked by my racial indicators.
I recall watching the Ferguson Protests on TV back home in Hawaii and not fully understanding the racial tensions I witnessed on the flickering screen. After spending several years on the mainland, I do now.
114
Your background on the history of the development of racism missed two key ideas:
1. The forced conversion of Jewish people who remained in 16th/17th century Spain gave rise to the Inquisition: to convert to Catholicism wasn’t enough. To be Jewish (a religion) was now a virtually inheritable trait.
2. How to justify Enlightenment (17th/18th century) beliefs of the rights of man and the equality of all men with colonialism, slavery, imperialism, enforced Christianity, and capitalism?
You hit on point two when you mention that hatred doesn’t necessarily precede racism, but grows out of a need to justify an unjust system.
I’d also argue that American racism developed into an especially cruel form with the marriage of capital industrialization: the use of great amounts of financial capital to develop mass amount of slave labor for the booming world industrial textile markets.
3
What? Having lived in HI for 7 years, I can assure you that racism is prevalent and systemic there. My experience showed me a strong bias against white and black people, in particular. Perhaps people who are more obviously of "mixed race" are more welcomed but fair-skinned blondes are held in disdain and black people are barely tolerated, which is likely why so few black people live there.
Tourists are allowed to float around with their heads in the rainbow-dotted clouds but longer term, the artifice starts to dissolve.
While living there opened my eyes to many wonderful things about people and places, the spirituality of the islands and the love of the Aloha spirit, the reality is much different on a day-to-day basis.
36
@Laura I lived there for ten years and yes there is racism there especially toward Haloes (White)and Popolos (black). But it came be overcome with your attitude. I had many Hawaiian, Samoan, Asian friends. Went camping on the beach in Wainanae and Makaha.
7
Remember the people Benneton ads in the 1980s?
Those ads struck me as what we would look like in the future.
1
The photos are striking. They are a testament to the view that human beings, of all colors, proportions, and sex, are beautiful.
124
@Mark
"They are a testament to the view that human beings, of all colors, proportions, and sex, are beautiful."
Human beings come in all varieties, beautiful and ugly, intelligent and stupid, strong and weak, as do other animals.
Although in wild animals, deviations and mutations are being cleaned up by natural selection, which has stopped in humans to their peril.
1
What a terrible headline. The last thing Hawai'i needs is for more people to move there. Hawai'i is a tiny island state and its fragile ecosystems and wildlife are already under siege from the onslaught of tourists and mainlanders who have moved there. Honolulu has become monstrous, overpopulated, overly expensive and now shows all the problems of any mainland urban area.
6
@Earthling
Don't worry about that. There are very few professional jobs; salaries are low, housing prices are sky-high, and schools (statewide system) are sub-par.
1
From 1960-1963, I lived on Oahu because my Air Force father was stationed there. I was seven when I arrived, and ten when I left. I had come from the glow-in-the-dark-white DC suburb of Bethesda, Maryland. I had at that point never met a non-white person.
Oahu was without a doubt the most racially diverse, but least racist, place I've ever seen. Race (or "ethnicity", as it is now called) was acknowledged, and even openly talked about, pretty frequently, but I don't ever remember it being used in a negative way.
After three years, when I returned to Bethesda, I was different from the kids I'd left behind and to whom I returned. My time on Oahu had blessed me with attitudes about other people and peoples that my Bethesda friends didn't have because they lacked the exposure that I had had.
It's infuriating that now, almost sixty years later, our country is wracked by the worst racism I've ever seen, deliberately fomented by the worst president I've ever seen. 2020 can't come soon enough. We must do better. We must be better.
297
Grew up Haole in Boston with Sicilian, Irish, Scottish & English. Lived right in the city & assumed racial stereotypes from the environment.
Married a woman from South Korea & have 2 beautiful hapa children and 2 mixed grandaughters.
Worked as a US Army employee & worked overseas in Korea, & Japan.
The US Army (& DOD) are the most progressive part of US society. Since WW 2 interracial marriages are common and mixed race marriages are commonly accepted. After racial turmoil in the 60's the Army cleaned up its EEO act and minorities can progress to the General officer level through education & self development.
I've settled in Hawaii where mixed race seems to be the most common "race" reinforcing that there is no scientific definition f race.
11
@Vesuviano
I also grew up in Bethesda and came to find it implicitly racist. Houston is considerably better.
There is a spectrum, with Alabama/Mississippi on one end of the spectrum and Hawaii on the other. Most of the Northeast and Chicago are closer to Alabama than to Hawaii. Most of the Southwest and West is closer to Hawaii.
9
In 1942, Ashley Montague, a noted anthropologist and sociologist, published a book called the Fallacy of Race. Some of the points made in this current article or formulated by Ashley Montague back then Along with many, many more. The book is still available and is a wonderful and enlightening read.
Not too many years ago an old friend in Madrid and a prominent historian of Spanish nationalism wrote a commentary on essentialist concepts of race and their aleatory nature. He pointed out that in the roughly forty years that he had been travelling to the United States he had changed race, according to the INS, no fewer than three times. In the Spring of 2016 I was a visiting professor at the University of Hawaii Manoa, where I taught a class on changing identities in Spanish history--nationalities, ethnias, religions, and races, languages and cultures, in a European and World context. My students had roots in virtually every country of the Pacific rim and many were mixed-race Hawaiians. We had a freewheeling dialogue among all the members of the class, including myself, and I gave them a history lesson on how I, a third-generation Ashkenazi Jew from New York, had become a white man, and this led to a lengthy discussion of the complex historical basis of mixed race and the changeability of the imagined fixity of race itself. The discussion included my friend´s article, which I translated for them, and his phantasmagoric three races, which they found both alarming and hilarious. At the end, a number of students commented on how much they had learned not just about Spain´s complicated past and present but about their own. I, in turn, gladly acknowledged that I had done likewise. No, it isn´t utopia, but it´s a big improvement on what we have on the mainland.
11
It's not that people aren't conscious of different ethnicities here in Hawaii. It's that for the most part it just doesn't matter.
My impression after living here for only 10 years though is that many such stereotypes break down more readily here. There are no majorities here and ethnic mixing is the norm. It's hard to cling to stereotypes when everyone is in some minority or other. One really has to see everyone else as just human individuals who come with good and bad like all other humans on the planet. The Hawaiian melange makes tolerance of differences a lot more prevalent here.
I'm often struck by ethnicity assumptions exposed in U.S. media. Most striking is the repetitious categorizing of U.S. public figures as "black" or "brown" when here in Hawaii they would be considered in no way of some exotic racial or ethnic background. For example, casting Cory Booker or Kamala Harris as "black" as though they were from some deep African tribal heritage just demonstrates the deep racism far too often present in American attitudes and where too many people worry about the pigmentation in one's skin. Here in Hawaii that's one of the least important ways to superficially judge another human being.
13
No society is perfect but Hawaii seems pretty damn good.
5
I retired to Hawaii in 2000 and built my dream home in the Puna area of the Big Island.
From the first day my wife and I encountered hostility from locals who saw us as unwanted Haole people from the mainland who were occupying their land that had been stolen by the American government.
The Native Hawaiian community teaches hate and racism against all Haole people to young people growing up in the islands.
Additionally, the level of substance abuse in Hawaii continues to be out of control, particularly the abuse of crack cocaine and methamphetamine.
After three years we decamped to the south of France and the rural area of Provence and never looked back. Now we truly do live in a real paradise, not the hyped version invented by the Hawaii Visitors Bureau.
60
@Michael Kittle Vaison la Romaine is on our list to retire to! Good to read this from you!
@Michael Kittle I mean- they kind of have a point about occupation of stolen land. Hawaii got annexed against their will and no longer have the control over residency that they would have if they'd been allowed to remain a sovereign nation.
10
@Michael Kittle
If you think you are actually welcome where you are currently residing I put it down to your probable lack of French coupled with the huge influx of foreign home buyers to Provence for you to associate with. When you built a dream house in Puna you built in one of the poorest countys in the US. Prior to the 2008 crash someone who has born there having a chance to own their own home did not even make the double digits. And yes, there is a well known correlation between extreme poverty and the despair it brings and drug addiction.
4
More balanced than other articles I've read on the subject of Hawaii's racial diversity. As noted both in the article and by readers below, if you look like someone of mixed race, you will probably love the sense of fitting in here immediately. I like the locals here well enough, most of them as friendly as people everywhere, even though my white skin, freckles and lack of an island accent (lovely and melodic) has made an occasional local treat me with disdain.
I just don't get why so many people say the incredibly wonderful weather is not what they like most about Hawaii, but the Hawaiian culture. If you live on the Big Island and not overcrowded Oahu, it's not only the weather but the down-paced rural island lifestyle that makes life here so wonderful. Maybe because the subtropical island lifestyle is so congenial, the people who live here seem more so too.
Here no one asks me my ethnicity. Instead they ask, "How long you live here?" A different way of being exclusionary the way racism is, but still kinda the same...
6
@Bett also "Where you went High School?" Since I went to a California public high school, this excludes me. But since both of my kids were raised here, they are part of the mix, even though they are "freckle people," Scottish/Welsh/Polish/Dutch/Hungarian. On the down side, they both live elsewhere because they couldn't afford to get a start here, and I as a single parent couldn't afford to give them one, at least economically.
5
@Your attempt to be positive doesn’t conceal the truth that you have experience in the form of prejudice toward haloes.
It’s natural to try to make the best of a bad situation but if you decide to leave Hawaii I believe you will be more candid in your reservations about the ignorant prejudice in Hawaii.
6
Now, if we could only bring the Aloha attitudes about respect, cooperation, community to the rest of the United States.
2
As a person who is of Greek, Croatian, Italian, Polish, Turkish and Ukranian heritage, I really dig these photos. I also wish like Martin Luther King Jr said that people would judge others by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.
1
I don't mean to minimize the experiences and challenges of black Americans at all, but it always bothered me that the descriptions of Obama were predominantly about his being black. He was half black and half white. There is no judgement there, just what IS.
I am a form of "mixed": Greek, Italian, Jewish. I don't know if that has affected my thinking, but I do seem to need to look at all sides of a thing, a person, a question. As the article suggests, it's hard to have rigid thinking/emotions when there's always another side of you....
10
@LS I always thought that it was more amazing about Obama was that the press seemed to omit the Hawaiian culture that he grew up in. Living in Hawaii for ten years I could see the influence of the culture on his personality and I mean this in a positive way.
6
@LS
He didn't have a choice. The decision was made for him by the (white) establishment.
3
When exactly did German, Portuguese, Finnish, etc. become RACES?
Also: just a hunch that the definitions here offered by individuals may be like Senator Warren's "family myth" of Native American ancestry -- i.e., it would not stand up to DNA scrutiny.
Lastly: Hawaii has only 1.4 million people, or roughly the same population as West Virginia. Why therefore, is it more important or more of a role model than West Virginia?
5
My husband is from Hawaii and very mixed Asia/Pacific/white. When we moved back to the east coast where I'm from, he mentioned how he noticed race tension felt like it just lingered in the air. I told him it is way worse in the south but that this is all still spillover from slavery and civil war. Even after living in the west coast 2 years and moving back, I felt it, too. There are race issues in Hawaii, very much so just like everywhere. Asian biases against other Asians, native Hawaiians against whites, etc. Also, there is a lot of unspoken anger towards mainlanders (mainly rich whites) who are rapidly gentrifying the islands and buying million dollar homes everywhere forcing the local population to move to the mainland to find affordable housing. Many islanders much prefer the hoards of Japanese tourists over mainland visiters. And dont get me started about how they felt about Jeff Sessions being mad that a judicial decision on a "rock in the middle of the ocean" could effect decisions in DC (colonialism mindset much?) But he was just surprised how racism was more pronounced and vocal in the east. He still loves it but it definitely opened his eyes and helped him understand why race issues are so intense in the political world. But every time we go back, he is just shocked at how gentrified and unaffordable it becomes (and locals fleeing while being replaced by more and more rich, mostly white mainlanders).
30
My husband is from Hawaii and very mixed Asia/Pacific/white. When we moved back to the east coast where I'm from, he mentioned how he noticed race tension felt like it just lingered in the air. I told him it is way worse in the south but that this is all still spillover from slavery and civil war. Even after living in the west coast 2 years and moving back, I felt it, too. There are race issues in Hawaii, very much so just like everywhere. Asian biases against other Asians, native Hawaiians against whites, etc. Also, there is a lot of unspoken anger towards mainlanders (mainly rich whites) who are rapidly gentrifying the islands and buying million dollar homes everywhere forcing the local population to move to the mainland to find affordable housing. Many islanders much prefer the hoards of Japanese tourists over mainland visiters. And dont get me started about how they felt about Jeff Sessions being mad that a judicial decision on a "rock in the middle of the ocean" could effect decisions in DC (colonialism mindset much?) But he was just surprised how racism was more pronounced and vocal in the east. He still loves it but it definitely opened his eyes and helped him understand why race issues are so intense in the political world. But every time we go back, he is just shocked at how gentrified and unaffordable it becomes (and locals fleeing while being replaced by more and more rich, mostly white mainlanders).
2
While this article emphasizes the strengths of mixed relationships in Hawaiʻi, it under represents the problems of Native Hawaiians and the economic, educational, and political structural barriers they face, including the ongoing occupation of the Hawaiian Kingdom. The power and wealth of tourist operations and other corporations has drastically changed the islands and the opportunities for Native Hawaiians to choose their ways of life. People who immigrate from across Oceania can experience discrimination and discrimination/racism from temporary military postings still exists. Having lived there for a year on sabbatical and primarily involved with Native Hawaiians for the research, I was constantly reminded of the existing, low-level but constant discrimination against numerous peoples, especially Native Hawaiians, in the mostly-white settler population of the neighborhood I lived in. There is much to admire and learn from in terms of the mixed-"races" of Hawaiʻi, but it is as important to see the undercurrents of discrimination, racism, and dismissal of the value of groups that still exists in Hawaiʻi.
28
@Karen Fox the gentrification of Hawaii is a real thing and the tension is getting stronger. Just look to see how many state of Hawaii flags are flown upside down in the last 10 years.
9
@Chigirl
The answer about the flags is zero. The Hawaiian state flag is the Kingdom's flag (note the British monarchical influence), so Native Hawaiian fly it proudly.
3
@akama
Some fly if I upside down as a sign of rebel against our colonizers
1
Great article! I also enjoy experiencing diverse cultures, foods and traditions and have been to Hawaii many times. I suspect my upbringing in Detroit where we knew everyone's background and learned to respect people at an early age.
1
No, sorry. This article seems quite misinformed, or written from a very narrow perspective.
I lived in Hawaii for several years. There is a constant stream of subtle and overt antipathy towards caucasians. Many also seemed quite comfortable criticizing others based on their particular predominant ethnic background. Use of epithets was either met with a shrug or a chuckle.
And yes, while there is extensive mixed race lineage, the diversity which is mentioned is predominantly of Asian and Pacific Island in origin, with occasional Latin influence; and essentially no significant African influence.
Many wonderful things about Hawaii, but hardly a non-racist utopia.
128
@AC......well said!
15
@AC Uh, given Hawai'i's long and violent history with white colonialism, it seems a little disgenuous to call out "antipathy towards caucasians" as the major problem of race on the islands.
13
@AC Isn't it terrible to be discriminated against?
- Signed, every black/brown/Asian person living in the mainland US.
8
How wonderful to have my personal experience validated by research. I grew up in Honolulu, am white, and married a white man who also grew up in Hawaii. Sadly, we moved away.
I think it is important to remember though; in Hawaii I was an ethnic and cultural minority, an excellent learning and shaping experience. However, I was also economically advantaged, a part of the power elite. All the economic power in Hawaii is still in the hands of the haoles. I can say I grew up as a minority, but I can never say I experienced repression or suffered because I was white. The haole boys who were beaten up were usually insufferable, so I don't count that.
I agree, that Hawaii should go back to the Hawaiians, since it was stolen to begin with. I have no idea how to accomplish that practically.
14
While this is an interesting article that sheds light on the racial diversity one can find in Hawai’i, it is dangerously misguided. As someone from the Islands who attended college on the East Coast, I have seen the ways that racism manifests itself differently in Hawai’i. It is not that the state is not racist itself, but rather, that racial stereotypes are treated differently simply because of the atypical racial mix here.
The stereotypes around and treatment of Pacific Islanders in Hawai’i are shameful. Micronesians, Samoans, Tongans, and more, as a mainly working-class immigrant group, are popularly depicted negatively because of their race. Cultural practices by groups such as Filipinos and the Portuguese are often chastised as strange and made fun of in casual conversation. White individuals, who deposed of the rightful monarchy in Hawai’i, remain the beneficiaries of systems of power in the state and occupy many of the state’s positions of prestige and wealth.
It is inaccurate to state that Hawai’i is unique and not racist. Hawai’i has a special understanding of race; it does not treat black or white individuals in the ways that they are treated or stereotyped on the Mainland. But to even insist that racism does not exist here ignores a deep-rooted racist history and a plethora of current social problems that Hawai’i still needs to actively confront.
106
@Jacob, Thank you for so clearly formulating what I was hoping to express in my own comment based on firsthand experience.
3
@Jacob
This is insightful. Thank you. It suggests, however, that in Hawai'i the stereotypical construct is rooted in culture rather than in 'race' - which is very often mainly a form of shorthand for culture. Over time the stereotypes of race/culture fuse, and it can be confusing when personal experience brings them into conflict. This is fairly common across global regions but it works out better when societies determine inclusivity based on cultural compatibility rather than genetics. That may well be Hawai'i's advantage.
3
What a wonderful article. The photographs of those beautiful people were stunning.
In a week, I will be heading to Hawaii to celebrate my 65th birthday in a small cottage in the hills on the island of Maui. It will be my fourth, and probably final visit to Hawaii.
I now live in Texas, and have been fortunate to travel the world. When my wife asked me how I wanted to celebrate my 65th birthday, I immediately said I wanted to spend it in a quiet location in Hawaii. I want to absorb as much of that aloha spirit as I can. It is a “feel” like no other I have experienced, bordering on a spiritual experience.
Anyone who has the good fortune to visit Hawaii and is open to the feel of the islands will surely have an experience that will stay with them for a lifetime. I’m not shilling for the tourist industry. Hawaii is just a beautiful place, with beautiful people, and it has a wonderful vibe and attitude.
I can hardly wait to get back there.
20
When you go to Hawai'i to soak up that "Aloha Spirit" we all enjoy so much, might I suggest that you think about what you can give in exchange? Aloha can only exist when we understand that it's an ecosystem that depends on contributing as well as taking. I realize that tourists contribute to the economy financially, but money does not replenish goodwill. If we don't want to see Hawai'i turn into another generic American shopping mall in the sun, let's support what makes it so distinct.
10
This article and research confirmed my own experiences. As the mixed child of an African American/Native American father and white mother, I retook the implicit bias test from Harvard 4x because my results kept coming up “not bias toward one group.” I attribute that directly to be a mixed race person, who grew up daily seeing two worlds exist in one sphere.
Thank you to the author for writing about what I had long understood having lived this experience.
2
As a tourist in Hawaii I did feel surprise in that my whiteness was not as big a liability as I feel here in the Bay Area. Maybe liability isn’t the word but that barrier of otherness was less. Which is strange, I expected more wariness.
3
My short experience in Hawaii was somewhat less encouraging than this article. I flew to Hawaii for a linguistics conference. I was a bit surprised when all the flight attendants made a point of telling us exactly what ethnic mix they were. There was almost a competition as to who was the most mixed. I rather felt that I wasn't up to snuff, as my 'mix' was only Irish/English.
After landing, I was given a lei, which I found charming and welcoming. However, the first panel we all attended at the conference was disconcerting. The panelists were students at the university, who proceeded to describe the languages used in dormitory life. They agreed that the dominant one was a kind of creole which was shared among all ethnicities except for 'haoles' or whites. They laughed as they described how the creole was used on signs and such to deliberately exclude the haoles, and how haole attempts to use the creole were met with derision.
Many of us attending the conference (not all white, by any means) became more and more uncomfortable listening to this. However, no one called the panelists on it. Perhaps we all feared sounding racist. At the end of the panel's presentation there were few questions. I walked out of the hall and threw my lei in a trash can. This was not the only such experience I had there.
I suppose there has to be some ethnicity to dump on, everywhere. In Hawaii it seemed to be whites. So much for the ethnic harmony and equality there. What a disappointment.
113
@RC.....good for you for telling the truth instead of being politically correct!
26
I think you missed the point about whites and racial transparency.
9
I am sorry that this was your experience.
Can you imagine being black in mainland America?
14
Beautiful article and stunning photographs. I learned a lot from reading this, and now I’m better equipped to share my experience of what it’s like to be a PoC in a majority-white city with others. It’s hard to talk about race when you can’t articulate what a racialized experience is. Today’s society does not readily provide that vocabulary. Thank you to the author.
11
I have spent most of my life trying to figure out how to lived in the messed-up racial landscape of the US as a "mixed-race" person (Chinese and German). I have a long way to go, but I've received some patient advice from scholars of the subject. This latest article on Hawaii's supposed racial utopia strikes me as pretty problematic in light of some smart critiques of multiracialism by Mahtani, Sexton, and others (https://youtu.be/jSMQpRzcGpA). To paraphrase some of their ideas: The euphoria around the model mixed-race subject implies superiority over "mono-racial" subjects, and upholds a romantic idea about how settler colonialism can "work," erasing histories of coercive conditions under which multiracial identity became common. Individual stories about multiracial subjects obscure collective struggles against racism. And it is too easy to for mixed people to count themselves among the victims rather than the victimizers (though these categories are not mutually exclusive) and to thereby disown their white privilege and complicity in anti-black and anti-indigenous systems (I have been guilty of that).
3
I grew up in the 70s in Queens with a French Canadian mother and an Italian father. Because our customs were more European I was always viewed as different.
When I moved to Montreal as an adult it felt as though suddenly a pressure to confirm was lifted from me. My personal theory is because Montreal has two main cultures, not one, all cultures are accepted. There is no dominant cultural template and immigrants easily keep their languages into the 3rd generation.
This article confirms my theory.
12
Great article, but I had to laugh at the title. I'm white and lived in Hawaii from age 14-17 (and was also born there but moved away at age 2). I went to a local high school and experienced lots of racism, as did all the other white kids, some of whom were beaten up for being white. I was an Army kid and had been around people of all races my whole life and race was never a big deal, but in Hawaii it was. It wasn't just whites vs everyone else - there was also constant talk/stereotyping about the different ethnicities. I've never lived in a place that was so obsessed with race (and I've lived all over the US and the world). I love Hawaii and go back often, but people shouldn't kid themselves that racism doesn't exist there just because most of the population is of mixed race. It just ain't so.
197
i had a very similar experience. I lived in hawaii for 4 years and encountered incredible racism. it was different from the mainland but it was still racism. punch a haole day was a given in the public schools, derisive comments about race and religion were frequent, LGBTQ would get jumped in Waikiki, and there was social stratification based on race. supposedly if you didn't have a Japanese or Hawaiian last name that supposedly limited you in public office, legal, or financial circles. I was once puzzled by extremely cold behavior to white men by a chinese american woman in an otherwise very social group. a friend who knew her commented, "oh, she's ok, she just doesn't talk to white guys".
105
I laughed out loud. The racism in Hawaii is much different than the mainland, but the per-capita quantity is easily as high as any other state in the union.
67
@Georgia......well said Georgia. An element of truth to help balance out the article.
25
A promising social dynamic, indeed. However, I have to wonder if the invitation to "move to Hawaii" isn't mostly rhetorical. While those born on the islands seem tolerant of each other, the blatant prejudice against "haoles" is nothing short of xenophobic. It's easy to be sympathetic with the reasons for this, but it's nonetheless an active component of the social dynamic.
82
Not xenophobia...whites simply are not accustomed to being treated equally. They generally anticipate being treated differently (read: better) than people of color.
Just go and observe white Americans in any foreign country and it becomes very apparent.
Having said that, this is a sweeping accusation, but it rings more truth than not.
14
@Big Red Equality means getting beaten up?
20
@JB
It’s called colonialism. And yes, those who’ve been oppressed by it eventually get reactive to those who’ve held the power. I wish this article had maybe been clearer about how so many different people’s arrived on the islands years ago as indentured workers. And guess who controlled the plantations were those workers toiled? Not native Hawaiians, but mainland American whites who held themselves superior to all other people’s.
2
(I am very proud of my cousin, Joshua Parker, whose portrait is included in this article.)
What wasn't mentioned in this otherwise superb article are the cultural/ethnic and social differences between the various islands in the Hawaiian chain. I recognize what is described in this article as applying to the much larger and incredibly diverse population of Oahu, but not necessarily to the less populated outer islands.
7
@Gregory
Hilo side of the Big Island is definitely much different from Honolulu. My friend who was working on my catchment tank and I were talking while we worked, and he mentioned an incident that happened the previous week. His wife was being treated badly while she helped out with a used-clothes drive at the high school. He said it was because she was very fair-skinned white, and had obviously been born on the mainland. But the abuse stopped when they realized that she was married to him. He is 3/4 Hawaiian, and said he hadn't realized how bad the prejudice was until that incident.
25
In the 70’s, we lived on the south side of Chicago in an integrated neighborhood. My son had been in nursery school for five months when he came home one day and announced that “some of the kids in school are black.” I knew this was something he had overheard and asked him who was black. “I don’t know,” he said. He then spent time trying to figure it out, asking me if Mr. Rogers was black or Captain Kangaroo - or some of his friends. It was interesting to me how little sense it all made that all was based on skin color. My son was clearly trying to understand what it meant- was it eye color or hair color. It taught me a lesson.
16
Wonderful story.
2
This is a mildly interesting anthropological take on Hawaii, a tiny and unique slice of America.
Sadly, it is of little relevance to such states as the Dakotas, Montana or the South. They are the flip side of Hawaii and encompass a much larger part of America.
Whatever lessons in racial tolerance Hawaii can teach us are not applicable to most of America, which clings firmly to ethnic enclaves.
American cities to this day are racially segregated. How does Hawaii make them less so.
What I took from the piece is that under special historical and geographic conditions we could live in racial harmony.
3
“of the more pernicious myths to take root in the modern mind is that racism is human nature”
What about implicit bias? I love this article because biology has proven that race is not really scientific. The evolutionary sociology was that the fit survive and have offspring, leaving the question about society’s role as bringing people together for the common good. Now the genome proves we are all descended from Lucy and society is kind when individuals are cruel. Survival of the fittest has proven that survival of the most socially valued.
2
This is an insightful article that makes me yearn to go back to my beloved Hawai'i Nei where I served a small Episcopal church for 10 years. Indeed, Hawai'i's history and diversity have produced a wonderful culture.
Two subjects are missing- religion and sexuality. In these two areas Hawai'i is for the most part also diverse and tolerant. The indigenous culture accepted various forms of expressing both. Recently the arrival of evangelical and other fundamentalist churches from the mainland has upset this harmony. About ten or so years ago the Republican Lt. Governor who was running for Governor promised that, if elected, he would declare Hawai'i to be the "First Christian State". This was followed by intense opposition by some churches to equal civil rights for Hawaii"s LGBT community. That is not the Hawaiian way.
16
I've visited Hawaii several times, not just as a tourist though I was that too. We have family who lives there, and their lives are like those described here and run across backgrounds that are Euro-American, African American and Asian American all stirred together. I would venture to say that they generally see themselves as primarily Americans (which I am not). Of all the places I have been in the USA, Hawaii is by far my favorite. And it's not the weather or the sights (both of which are quite wonderful). It is the people themselves; they are really quite an amazingly beautiful amalgam of what can go right in this world when people love one another.
19
Well written, Peter. Third generation from Hawaii here.
One way to look at it at - when you live on the islands, you’re basically in a small community where there is no where else to go...so culturally, as a local, you kinda realize that getting along is the best option.
10
@Big Red Thanks, I really get what you mean... I Iive on one of the "gulf islands" off Canada's SW Coast (British Columbia) and we all do try to get along too. And, incidentally, one of the early settler populations were Hawiaan Islanders, some of whom left American whaling ships and settled here.
@PeterS
I agree with all of those insights.
I would add that there is something in the air there that you feel immediately after you get off the airplane. I felt it the first time I was there in 1984 and the the next time I was there in 2008 when a canceled flight transpacific flight resulted in me flying into Honolulu. I’ve been to the Caribbean which is at roughly the same latitude but it just doesn’t feel the same. The islands are a paradise but they have some kind of intangible quality to them - maybe its just the utterly clean oceanic air that is there.
Finally an article about how it should be! And how it will become no matter what us haoles think say and do. I’m so excited to read this and makes me homesick for Hawai’i and also Fiji where I lived and worked as a Peace Corps volunteer.
Of course this raises the ever present specter of colonial domination and theft of Land and culture. It is my personal belief that the United States should return Hawaii to the Hawaiians and let them be the sovereign nation they once were before we stole it from them.
Malama pono.
6
@David McCullough, I resent that the Hawaiian people Samoans and Tongans must battle to preserve their culture. They would love for the white people (especially the rich purchasing all their land) to leave their culture and islands alone and go live elsewhere.
1
Great and fascinating article. I went into this initially suspicious, but it definitely prompted some thoughts about how African-Americans tend to think about race (I am Black.) Generally it's pretty concrete and many Black people consider mixed-race black people Black. With the rise of interracial marriage, etc., it will be interesting to see how think thinking will change over time.
9
@CB- Add the changing perceptions the increasing number of Americans taking DNA and discovering how much of our ancestry was unknown! Family stories like Ms. Warren's barely hinted at the mixtures many Americans find in their pasts!
3
@Donna Gray Absolutely. I've taken a DNA test and while I have found a variety of admixtures...I never once considered anything other than "Black."
@CB. We (black folks) see and appreciate ethnic and cultural diversity. Our families very often have people of many colors and origins. It's society that created the one drop rule. Barack Obama identified as black because he would have been laughed at by the establishment if he insisted on identifying with his white half. I think US society is willing to accept and embrace a certain degree of mixture but black must remain at the bottom of the caste system.
1
Being half Japanese and half American, I never felt that I fit in completely in either countries. When I visited HI is the first time I felt a relaxing of sorts. It's difficult to describe, because it's not like I was not welcome in Japan or mainland US. People in HI assumed that I was a local.
With that being said, I find it valuable growing up and having the ability to see things from both sides, or from the inside and outside.
22
@bloumejune I, like yourself, am half Japanese and half American. I identify myself as being "American" and not Japanese. My self image
is also defined by how other people identify me
and how I think other people see me. Naturally my persona changes when I visit Hawaii where
Hawaiians see me more like them.
@GolferBob
I find it interesting that among us half Japanese/half American people, our stories can be so different. I was raised mostly in Japan and so my core feels truly Japanese and yet I look like a foreigner. When I spent my last two years of high school in a performing arts school (near Boston) is when I finally let the labels come down and saw myself and others as individuals gifted in myriad ways. If only all of us can see each other in the same way!
I'm interested how multidisciplinary students with diverse backgrounds function as teams working to provide solutions to challenging healthcare problems.
Could the author please share their sources where I can find more information supporting your claim that "Diverse groups are better at problem-solving"
5
It's only a matter of time when the majority of our nation will be and look like these interesting, beautiful and handsome people.
It can't come too soon enough.
233
@Confucius
There is not much interesting in grayness.
6
@Confucius
Sure, this will likely happen and it will be good and bad. Racism will largely vanish (obviously good), but you'll also lose a lot of valuable cultural heritage. If someone of Japanese descent marries someone of Irish descent and one of their children marries someone who was the child of a black parent and an Indian parent, how much culture will this person's child (the grandchild) inherit, preserve, etcetera?
There is a lot culturally valuable that is carried along with race. If race disappears it is hard to imagine that these cultures survive. For race to disappear you will have to see a lot of people marrying outside their culture.
While there is nothing inherently wrong about marrying outside one's culture, one should look with dismay upon the prospect that so many of these cultures will go extinct.
There is more to preserve here than simply cuisine, language, appearance, or a shared sense of suffering. For people who have a strong particular cultural identity, there is much to value at a much deeper level within that culture. Some of our deepest values are intimately connected to our culture. If you belong to a particular culture, and you value it, it is only natural to want to preserve those things you find valuable and have your children preserve those things as well.
I think many of us are detached from our cultures and don't see the value in them. As such, the existence of race seems irrational to us. But there is much worth preserving.
7
@Confucius
Given the divisiveness in this country, I find it unlikely that it's only a matter of time when the majority of our nation will look like the individuals in the photos.
2
Take that, Trump&Co. These are Americans. Awesome article and stunningly done portraits.
52
Wonderful article, thank you to both authors. On the mainland in the 1990s, I think we were headed for more nuanced understandings of race. At least in academia, where we were all talking about "hybridity" and "cosmopolitan" identities, more than one way of being "black" or "white," etc. And then several things happened all at once--9/11, backlash against a black president, and increased police brutality against people of color, to name a few. This has sparked the resurgence of essentialism on all sides. What we need is coalition and solidarity around a progressive, inclusive agenda. Hawaii may not be perfect but Hawaiiians may help show us the way.
7
My god, those faces! The faces looking out at me from these brown toned photographs. What is it? It their faces. I can’t take my eyes away from them. What stories are tucked inside these faces? It is their eyes. In the photographs of their faces, it their eyes, some looking straight at me, face to face, eyes looking into my eyes, and even when they look away from me, I feel they still see me, sense my presence, that I, too, am part of their Hawaiian earth-soil. The American philosopher-poet Thoreau, in his journal, wrote: “Give me but the eyes to see the things which you possess.”
18
Thanks for a great article. I was born in Hawaii in the '50's grew up there until the '80's, moving to the mainland for work. This article explains a lot. There are a lot of aspects here that I never thought about, but I can see looking back, both living in Hawaii and living on the mainland.
5
Wow, there’s a lot going on here; this article could have easily been ten. There are some things mentioned that are inaccurate, but overall this was a nice reminder of my gratitude to Hawaii. It’s true that the aloha spirit is a part of life; we treat everyone as family. Strangers are called aunty and uncle, sister and brother. Whenever I come home, my heart is so full with the care people show each other. This can be seen right when you get off the plane to land. On the Mainland people try to beat each other to exit first. In Hawaii, everyone waits their turn, helping each other retrieve bags if necessary.
When I first moved to NYC, I went on my first date with a white man (there are very few in HI). We said goodnight to each other on the street, after which a Black man approached me and asked me why Asian women are always with white men. I was very startled and told him that I didn’t have an answer for him because it was my first time going out with a white guy. He didn’t believe me but asked me to grab a slice of pizza with him anyway. It’s a funny story, but I do remember going to bed that evening feeling rather uncomfortable with the realization of how different things were.
10
@JHP
"On the Mainland people try to beat each other to exit first. In Hawaii, everyone waits their turn, helping each other retrieve bags if necessary."
I usually fly 1-2 times a year on the "mainland" and have always seen people waiting their turn and helping each other.
7
@Nick I fly about 40 domestic flights a year and there is a noted difference when I land in JFK or LAX vs HNL. Flying once or twice a year can’t be compared.
I look at these beautiful photographs and see America.
51
@avrds
Look closer.
It's Hawai'i. "America" looks nothing like this.
5
Damon Winter's photographs are gorgeous. Thank you for capturing the beauty of humanity.
51
@mecmec
It's also a testament to the way still photographs have a place, when done so beautifully. Here, it allows the viewer to pause and absorb the the variety of human beings (without rudely staring).
1
Yes, if your world is only populated by people under 30
1
This brought back a lot of memories of when I was an elementary school student from New England, transplanted to Hawaii for several years in the late 60's. As the author mentions, being in the majority until then I never thought of myself as white, and all of the sudden I was labeled 'Haole'. It was mostly done in good spirit, but never the less, it was new and uncomfortable to be described by skin color alone, and its a feeling that has stuck with me and made me (I hope) less quick to stereotype others. Another benefit is that I early on realized there is no 'normal' - my friends had Japanese, Chinese, and mixed ethnicities, and everyone's parents had slightly different expectations of behavior - so you just adjusted. My best friend's parents spoke mostly Japanese and were very strict. First I thought they were 'different' - but as time passed I started to get the idea that my family's way was just one way, not any more right or usual than my friends' families ways.
50
You don’t have to go from Hawaii to Dartmouth to feel very much in the minority. I’m white and work in Flushing Queens NY aka Queens Chinatown. I’m usually the only Caucasian in a sea of Asians at any given time. For me, this is deep submersion to be surrounded by the majority having a different language, food and culture everywhere. It was a real eye opener to be in the minority for the first time in my life.
11
Puerto Rico should not be overlooked. Puerto Ricans are highly diverse, both in color and sexual identity. Thousands of the islanders have moved to the mainland. They add to the already the upwardly mobile community bringing more positive energy to smash negative stereotyping. The Puerto Rican community is a breath of fresh air for harmony in diversity.
13
Interesting article which raises at least three interesting questions to which I don't have answers. First, we're told by scientists that all humans originated in Africa and so were we all one race and color at that point? Second, if so, how did racial variation take place and if so, does Darwin's natural selection theory explain it? Third. is racism a culture specific mechanism to protect a specific culture (e.g., we like people most like ourselves)?
@Mike
1. Yes. But it is wrong to see any "species" as essential. Every "species" is a gene pool of individuals with huge variations in between.
2. Geographic isolation. If a "species" migrates to two different geographical locations that are isolated from each other, they also start evolving in different ways. If they are separated long enough the species may have evolved so much that two different species have been created that cannot mate with each other.
3. Yes. When we where hunter-gatherer societies there where a lot of distrust between different tribes fighting over the same resources.
5
@Mike
In regards to your first question, Nina Jablonski and other anthropologists have interesting ideas on the forces that shape skin color diversity in humans- perfectly well explained by natural selection. There is a great summary video from the HHMI. https://www.biointeractive.org/classroom-resources/biology-skin-color
1
@Mike
I’ve been reading a few books on anthropology as a side hobby, so I’ll share the perspectives I’ve learned from them. Correct me I’m wrong!
1. Genetic evidence shows that the oldest components of our genome originated in Africa, suggesting that’s where Homo Sapiens first evolved before migrating outwards. By extension, the argument is made, as you alluded to, that Homo sapiens was a single ‘color’ and ‘race’ at that point in time.
2. Racial variation after the initial evolution of Sapiens occurred as a result of environmental and other factors. For example, lighter skin with less pigmentation was an evolutionary response to the decreased sunlight, so as to be able to collect and produce more Vitamin D. The lateral epicanthal fold that causes the ‘almond eyes’ seen in faces that are far eastern is thought to have emerged from a common mongolian origin as a protective mechanism against dust/sand, with the hypothesis that those geographical areas commonly had sandstorms. (I have to find the citation for this.)
3. I think how you see race is a question of perspective, which definitely emanates from your surrounding environment and culture. My initial views toward race were shaped by cultural influences that my parents and community exerted, but they now differ after having done more reading into the anthropological history of our species, so I imagine the case would be similar for others as well. Racism perpetuates itself when it’s stuck in an echo chamber.
3
Excellent article. It helped me gain a better understanding of an island I've never visited and knew little about. Providing an historical perspective on the island and its inhabitants was an eye opener for me as I had no idea Hawaii was so diverse. Living in the Northeast I have allowed my surroundings to frame and train my thinking regarding race and often, as a black woman, have both felt stereotyped and have stereotyped others. How nice would it be for someone to draw out my nuances instead of making assumptions based on appearance!
10
I am a native New Yorker. I began visiting HI something 30 years ago. My grandparents where born in Spain, Sicily and Portugal. I have an olive completion and was often asked if I was Hawaiian. I always wished to this day that I could have said yes, I am Hawaiian, that is what the Aloha spirit means to me. You want to be a part of that most beautiful place and people I have ever encountered. Aloha!
17
During the first year of busing in Boston Public Schools, the racial categories of Black, White and Other were ordered by federal and local authorities so integration could take place. People who identified as neither Black or White were then identified as Other, and later that category was divided by new categories based on federal guidelines. No category for some time in Boston Public Schools included mixed race combinations as a possible choice. The categories then and in many places in America have been limited and not kept current with the population’s mixtures whether self-identified or not.
2
My family consists of a very large number of mixed ethnicities (and religions or non-religions). It seems to matter little. Family comes first. I know that perception of race is not inborn. We just need to avoid the temptation to categorize people by ethnicity. My ethnicity is not at the forefront of my mind, nor has the ethnicity of my friends, family, or the person I have just met, even though I am clearly aware of differences. Differences are not, however, relevant to the quality of the person. Frankly, I find them, if anything, interesting. I have always hoped that we see a lot more mixing. I have seen it over the past 50 or so years, and I applaud it. It is tough to be racist when your cousins represent a wide range.
2
Beautiful photos. Beautiful people.
85
Hawaiians exhibit an almost palpable connection to Nature and in the face of that, racial hierarchies melt away. But economic opportunities are not so evenly spread. Race-based economic disparities and racial resentments do exist in Hawaii, not to the extent as the mainland, but nevertheless, still.
14
Hawaii, racial mixing, a model for overcoming racism?
The single biggest reason for the concept of race being developed was the European expansion by ship across the world, and this circumnavigation gave birth to a great deal of mappings, schematics, classifications, indeed to the birth of entire sciences.
Race was just one of the classifications, and Europeans put themselves at the top, the focal point in all their classifications; they were the conquerors, the natural scientists above the animals, and the preeminent among the humans. The less likely a people, a race, ethnic group,--whatever--was able to expand into space, across the world in the past, the less able to develop classificatory, mapping schemes of all types. Sure, white people today are considered historically the biggest racists, but white people also linked up the entire world by which no conception of overcoming racism would be even possible.
Thus Hawaii. Whites crossed the world by ship, invented all sorts of classifications, among them race, but also brought different people together, brought them into proximity by which racial mixing and overcoming of race could occur. Before a painter can learn to paint there has to be a framework of palette of colors. Now of course in the world racism is considered among the worst of sins and Hawaii, among other places, points the way forward...
But a question remains: How should scientific classification, mapping, etc. proceed in the future to avoid evil?
10
@Daniel12 - This is a very rare kind of thinking in the 1000s of comments I have read in articles that say they are about "race" but almost always are about racism.
Most columnists and most of the 1000s of comments I have read in this area seem to firmly believe that the US Census System for classifying Americans will be with us forever and that each individual must be seen as belonging to one race or even less meaningful to two "races" so called bi racial.
Kamala Harris is a perfect example. The Times refers to as black or African American but her lines of descent are given in my Swedish newspaper as Indian and Jamaican, in other words two geographic areas with a variety of ethnicities. If she were in Europe or in Africa I can guarantee - partly thanks to Thomas Chatterton Williams work - that she would not be seen as black or sub-Saharan African.
You close with a question that has been framed fully by former USCB Director Kenneth Prewitt. Search and you will find his book. We are all mixed, but our mixing is not always as evident on the surface as it is in Hawaii.
In short, the USCB system teaches Americans that "race" is a permanent condition and even Harvard Admissions seems to believe in essentialism, that if you belong to "race" A, your behavior can be predicted.
The Race/Related Newsletter won't touch the basic thinking presented in this excellent OpEd as I know from begging them to do so.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
17
@Daniel12 wrote: "But a question remains: How should scientific classification, mapping, etc. proceed in the future to avoid evil?"
We have plenty of guidance for that one:
"Judge not lest ye be judged."
or, more recently:
"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
HTH
8
@NorthernVirginia Yes, Martin Luther King said that and that is my position. When you meet a new person what you will need to know if he or she is possibly to become your friend is what is in her mind, what is on her mind, and how she treats other people.
Science, first and foremost genome research, but not only genome research can tell us more and more about how migration, climate and environmental conditions, and endless mixing accounts for the multi-dimensional diversity shown in the photographs that accompany this text.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
And I would also note the meme, perhaps more relevant today than ever, that in a few decades, "we'll all be brown." That's something that always comes to mind when I look at--for example--class pictures taken over the decades at public schools in Hawaii. I recall even when I was in high school, too many years ago, that kids regarded their gradual accretion of ethnicities as something to be proud of, a gain rather than a loss of identity.
10
I am a mentor in a scholarship program for teens that would not have the means to attend college without it. I meet with my "mentee" weekly, waiting for her in the courtyard of the high school. When the bell chimes, hundreds of students flood the area and look like the people whose pictures are in this article. During a program put on by this scholarship program, four former participants described their path to the success they had achieved. One woman said that on her first day of college was the first time she heard the N word aimed at her. In South Florida and the archipelago islands extending south there is an amalgam of African American, Latinx, and Caucasian people. It is when people from the north, escaping the inhospitable climate of the north, flood the area that one really is confronted with the prevalence and privilege of the white culture and society.
3
Loved the photos, so much beauty.
On a slightly different note, the mixing of 'race' is what is good for us, although not necessarily the most fecund. The history of humans, their migrations, their mixing, has created many great things. The meeting of culture often leads to an explosion of ideas, as does cross-pollination across intellectual domains.
Isolation is typically impoverishment.
25
Fantastic piece. Wonderful photographs.
9
Wow. This article nailed it. We have spent parts of 15 out of the last 25 winters in Hawaii. And we are traveling from the US east coast. We have gently suggested to our kids who started coming here as babies that a more "efficient" winter break would be Florida or the Caribbean. And their consistent response has been a resounding NO!. And not because of the spectacular physical beauty. And not because of the active volcano. Because of the people who represent the best in America. My innate New York cynicism melts within hours of immersion in the "aloha spirit." It's just so easy and natural because everyone is something else. Yup, they make fun of everyone including the tourists in a good natured way, work with each other, marry each other and depend on each other. Not paradise but pretty close. A glimpse of a brighter American future that is sometimes difficult to imagine amidst the nationalistic, xenophobic torrent emanating from the White House and its echo chamber. Demographics are not on their side. Their time will pass!
159
Please don't move to Hawaii, it's a beautiful place & habitable land is finite, sandwiched between the ocean & the mountains. Don't turn it into an even more crowded urban area than it already is. I lived there in the late 60s & 70s. It's true that race was a less contentious issue, perhaps because whites were a minority & there were very few blacks. The Japanese were the largest ethnic group. Political correctness was not a big thing, people did hold stereotypical views of other ethnicities, & ethnic cliches formed the basis of the occasional joke, but I always felt that the emphasis the Japanese culture places on civility & group cohesiveness prevented things from getting out of hand, plus no one group had the critical mass to completely dominate things. Also, the widespread economic growth after statehood was helpful. Not all paradise, as Native Hawaiians will tell you, but pretty nice. Hope things haven't changed much since then.
23
Not to exaggerate or minimize the problems in Canada, but many of these attitudes and ideas are reflected in the Canadian idea of "multiculturalism." In its ideal form, that means that diverse people can be different but still united under the common idea and identity of being "Canadian." Canada's concept of multiculturalism is still, very much, an experiment and a work in progress. But there are many ways in which it has "worked." Canada is the most ethnically diverse country in the world - its major cities, Toronto and Vancouver - are majority non-white. Yet racial divisions in those places, while real, have not translated into institutionalized violence as they have in the US or "race riots" as sometimes happens in much less diverse places in Europe. The idea of tolerance is a Canadian value that has worked well. It is also telling that the place in Canada where ethnic/tribal politics has been widely accepted as part of mainstream politics - Quebec - is also the most overtly racist place in Canada, as Quebec's recent laws against religious minorities indicates. That law was pushed by the bigotry of rural Quebec, the place that is monochromatic white/French Canadian and has been rejected in the multicultural/diverse city of Montreal.
39
I agree with you. Quebec has always been racist and has become more so in the last 4 years. Pretty rich that native Quebecois love to brag about their tolerance but don’t walk the talk. A lot of people in Montreal push back, and a lot of people, especially the younger ones, embrace it. It makes me very sad indeed.
I’ve visited Hawaii twice and immediately had the feeling I was not in the USA due to the warmth of the people. I don’t know about their individual ancestry but I feel that to be called Hawaiian is a true compliment.
8
@Shaun Narine "There is no core identity, no mainstream in Canada." -- Justin Trudeau. To me that sounds like differences are tolerated, but values and politics are not really discussed or worked out. It's very hard to say what it means to be Canadian. My experience with non-Quebecois Canadians is generally they do not like talking politics as much as Americans. People need to really mix and interact in order to avoid dysfunctional democracy, and Hawaiians are doing that better than almost anyone.
6
@Shaun Narine, you still minimized the racial problems in Canada. Ask black people in Toronto, who have been protesting police violence if we have institutionalized violence. Ask Indigenous people, all over the country, but focus on places like Winnipeg where the numbers are concentrated. Read the MMIWG report.
We don’t riot. It doesn’t mean we are happy.
15
I live in a mixed race island country too, Jamaica. A large number of mixed race persons live here. There’s a long history of mixing among blacks, whites, Chinese, Portuguese, and increasingly East Indians. There is also a large legacy European Jewish population as well as Syrians. The term “One Love” is derived from this mix. The views of race and class here are different than held on the US mainland. This topic is much more frankly discussed by all people. It’s not to say biases aren’t expressed, but the discussions are lively, open and enlightening. A like article about Jamaica’s diversity would be instructive. Hawaii’s diversity has different cultural attributes than most other islands.
As for Hawaii, the article is a feel good piece, not analysis. There are substantial quality of life metrics missing.
- FBI crime statistics, both compared to other states and cities, as well as growth trends. Perhaps adjusted by the deletion of certain mainland high crime cities. Show values, ranking and comparative growth rates with other states, or more telling, counties.
- Changes in social welfare statistics, mainland comparative and trend.
- Taxes and changes in rates.
- Education; graduation rates, SAT scores, free breakfast program participation rates.
- Economic development issues of what industries and growth rates. Unemployment rate, GDP/person, family formation rates, net worth/person.
- Health; longevity, birth rates, mortality rates,
- GINI metri
26
@Networthy
And the Governmental attitude is that Gay men shouldn't exist. Some Jamaicans take this attitude literallly.
Great article! So well written and the photos are gorgeous. Well done!
3
Categorizing people is simply what everyone does. Race is but one category. I’m no expert but it seems all people and cultures, not just this country, attach labels to everyone and everything. We are very uncomfortable when someone or something is not categorized. We solve that by either creating another label or widening the definition of an existing one.
Once labeled we then debate the merit of the label. Stereotypes are formed, assumptions made, us vs. them, good vs. evil is all based on this. In many cases the label doesn’t fit but the label sticks.
We seem uncomfortable as a species when we cannot categorize and find commonality, valid or not. Protecting one’s label has led to war, racism, discrimination, persecution, etc.
Living in peace can be translated into finding common ground, forming another label and stereotype to which we feel comfortable. I doubt this will ever change because it seems inherent to the human condition and is probably true in all species to one degree or another.
3
The portraits are absolutely stunning.
257
In addition to all the marvelous insights in the article, it is also relevant that Hawaii is the most Buddhist state. That is a religion that sees all sentient beings as having the same nature, regardless of form.
29
@Casey fair point, but let's also not forget that the Buddhist majority in Myanmar has been persecuting Muslims for many years.
9
@Casey
Perspective ... the state is 63% Christian, 8% Buddhist. 1/4 "none".
What's your point?
10
As a bi-racial American who felt very at home in HI, the welcome one experiences in HI is not just about race but it's far more nuanced. There is a spirit, a level of harmony and respect that one experiences in general (though I would argue that Haoles (generally white visitors) are not treated as well). Culture is the difference not racial make up.
36
@Chris Please name your two so-called races and tell me if you believe that each is so pure that individuals can be assigned to the one or the other without any uncertainty. This short reply connects to a submission awaiting review.
It is based on a presentation by the genome giant Svante Pääbo at a Nobel Prize seminar about 5 years ago. The video he appeared in was not kept on line.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
Sorry. First, we are all mixed, at least in the US. All of us.
Second, being non-racist is an attitude grounded in empathy and nurtured through transcendence beyond self.
20
We are always affected by environment, and the cultural attitudes within it. The article speaks of this. We are also affected by our parents, and friends, who also are affected by environment.
6
@GM
The article argues your second point in particular very convincingly. Immersion in a polycultural environment fosters this kind of awareness and empathy.
4
@GM Sorry for what? Of course we are all mixed. In some cases it's virtually invisible; in others, obvious-which is a jumping-off point for the article.
5