Posted on: Sunday, May 20, 2001

Jerry Burris
Dec. 7 was political Day of Destiny

By Jerry Burris
Advertiser Editorial Editor

The hype and hoopla surrounding the premiere of the Pearl Harbor movie this week have focused on that historic military attack and its impact on those who were there.

That's proper, one supposes. But there is another story spinning out of the attack on Pearl Harbor that is not being well-told but — for Hawai'i — is of seminal importance.

The attack on Pearl Harbor, in ways great and small, set in motion the social and political forces that dominate Island life to this day. That attack converted the Hawaiian Islands from a sleepy backwater into a central part of the American experience.

Wartime jobs and troop movements brought in thousands of people from the Mainland. Many remained, becoming part of a far more cosmopolitan and outward-looking Island society than would have ever been the case.

At home, the attack produced an intense focus on the Island residents of Japanese ancestry. Would they be loyal to the United States?

As we all know, the response to such questions on the Mainland was a massive uprooting of Japanese into relocation camps far inland. But while some "community leaders" in Hawai'i such as ministers and language teachers were taken away or interned locally, there was no mass relocation effort in the Islands.

Cynics have suggested that this was less out of concern for the families involved than a pragmatic realization that Hawai'i simply could not afford to ship out this hard-working backbone of its population. There was no one else to do the jobs.

There may be some truth to that. But there was also a unique sociology working here that made things different. A young Honolulu police detective, John A. Burns, was tasked to serve as a contact officer with the Japanese community. His reports back to his superiors and the FBI made it clear that the local Japanese were loyal to the United States and supportive of the war effort.

After the war, Burns' efforts were well remembered by Japanese of American ancestry and contributed to his ability bring the AJA population into his effort to build the Democratic Party. The rest, of course, is familiar history. The young AJA vets came back, got their GI Bill college education and helped Burns and others build a political juggernaut that remains dominant to this day.

It could be argued that it took an event as cataclysmic as the attack on Pearl Harbor and the war that followed to throw into motion a social movement that powerful.

It is a thought that will be on the minds of Hawai'i Republicans this weekend as they gather for their statewide convention on Maui. The Hawai'i GOP has made impressive gains in recent years, moving to a position of influence at the Legislature and missing the governorship last time around by a hair.

Will they be able to turn that final corner and create the beginnings of their own social revolution in 2002? Do they need their own cataclysm, perhaps an economic Pearl Harbor, to take that final step?

Or, have the social forces set in motion on that Day of Infamy run their course?

Jerry Burris is editor of the editorial pages of The Advertiser. You can reach him through letters@honoluluadvertiser.com