COMMENTARY
Hypocrisy, prejudice part of Hawai'i history
By Rich Budnick
If you discovered something in your past that you didn't know about, would you close your eyes and cover your ears as if it never happened, or would you accept the information as part of your life history? A responsible researcher must call attention to the history he discovers.
U.S. Sen. Daniel K. Inouye probably said it best. On May 13, 1995, he told a U.S. State Department conference: "We tend to forget the great events beyond our recent memory."
I'd like to introduce you to a little-known, long-forgotten history of Hawai'i that I discovered by reading the front pages of 8,000 copies of newspapers dating back to 1900. Some of these events dramatically affected society at the time and, as a daily mirror, showed us who we were then. Some of these news stories changed my mind about our local history.
Many times I felt a sense of amazement when I "discovered" events and statements made long ago. Some newspaper stories were shocking; others made me laugh.
I discovered a history of hypocrisies and contradictions and learned a great deal along the way. It isn't fair to judge the past by present standards, no matter how bad things were, and I kept reminding myself that people thought and behaved differently back then.
For example:
For several decades into the 20th century, Hawai'i's political leaders were frequently quoted in the newspaper about their fears that Hawai'i would become "Orientalized." Our government and business leaders realized that 40 percent of our population was Asian, and they feared losing their control of government to the children of these immigrants, who would become U.S. citizens by birth.
Balch spoke for many people when he expressed fears of what Hawai'i would look like in the future.
Author James Michener angrily left Hawai'i because he couldn't buy a home in Kahala. Why? He said it was because his wife was Japanese. Michener also accused some country clubs of discrimination.
But prejudice and discrimination against them made some immigrants tougher and more competitive. Hung Wo Ching, for example, was a successful businessman who saved Aloha Airlines from bankruptcy. Looking back on his life, he once said: "The haole community does not realize that by not ... integrating their companies, they are forcing the young Orientals to go into business for themselves. (We) are going to give them a hard time. It's shortsighted."
In the late 1960s, Punahou president John Fox persuaded alumni to repeal an 1896 restriction that limited Asian youth to 10 percent of the student body. Said Fox: "Eliminating (the quota) was the biggest problem I ever faced."
For decades, newspaper "help wanted" ads routinely declared "haole woman" or "Japanese man," etc., for specific jobs. Times have changed. Our newspapers no longer announce the racial or ethnic identity of a person in the headlines, as they did for decades.
The list of example of prejudice and discrimination is much longer than I have presented. Today our record of "getting along" is far better than on the Mainland.
But the difference between Hawai'i and the Mainland is that we tend to ignore or deny our history of prejudice, discrimination and racism, while much of the nation readily acknowledges its own.
The more we know about our history, the more we know about ourselves.
