As I mentioned in the previous post, at a city council meeting on the construction of UH-West Oahu campus, Councilman Rod Tam referred to illegal aliens as "wetbacks". Tam later claimed he didn't know the word "wetbacks" is commonly used to insult Mexican-Americans.
I have written an editorial that have been published in the Hawaii Reporter and the Honolulu Star Bulletin
The Hawaii Reporter version
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/storyPrint.aspx?9f8be17f-3cfe-40c5-8eed-9cdf4e72a86d
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Star Bulletin version
http://starbulletin.com/2008/06/10/editorial/commentary2.html
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They're actually the same editorial, though edited slightly differently by the 2 outlets.
Here is the original versions as I written it myself, though I color-coded some sentences on this blog!
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Last year, bounty hunter Dog Chapman was recorded using the N-word. He later claimed that he didn't know the N-word was offensive to African-Americans.
This year, city councilman Rod Tam used the word "wetback" at a city council meeting, in references to illegal aliens. Tam claimed that he didn't know that the word "wetback" was considered offensive to Mexican-Americans.
The word "wetback" was originally used to mock Mexican immigrants who swam the Rio Grande into the U.S. However, the word is commonly used by anti-Mexican racists to insult and threaten anyone of Mexican ancestry, even those whose parents and grandparents are born in the U.S
It is similar to the history of the word "haole". The word was originally used to refer to "foreigners". Being that the first foreign people to arrive in Hawaii were of European ancestry, it was later used to refer to all those with European ancestry. While some local Euorpean-Americans refer to themselves as "haole", the word is also used by anti-white racists to insult and threaten anyone with European ancestry, even those whose parents and grandparents were born in Hawaii.
It doesn't look good for Hawaii, a state that likes to call itself a "paradise of racial tolerance", to have two prominent individuals to display such ignorance on racial issues,especially when it comes to ethnic groups that don't have as many members here.
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Hawaii has the highest percentage in this country of multi-racial people (including me, a Mexican-Puerto Rican-Spanish- Portuguese- German), and inter-racial marriages (like my brother's marriage to a Korean woman).
Hawaii also never had the large-scale violent racial riots that have devastated many major U.S. cities like Los Angeles, Miami, Detroit, or Cincinnati.
However, that doesn't mean that Hawaii is immune to it's residents having negative stereotypes and ignorance of cultural groups that are new or uncommon here!
While the conflicts between Native Hawaiians and European-Americans have been well documented, an under-reported racial conflict occuring in many low-income urban Honolulu communities and schools involve Polynesians, Micronesians and Asian immigrants. Some of those conflicts have ranged from mockery of each other's speech patterns to violent gang fights!
For many of those immigrants, this is the first time they're expreriencing diversity. The old-Hawaii plantation history is irrelevant to them, because their families weren't in Hawaii in the old plantation days! The insecurity of being in someplace new, the humiliation of being mocked by others, and the need to defend their honor, all contribute to the current-day conflicts in urban Honolulu.
The fame of Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee for the President of the United States of America, has exposed the isolation some African-Americans feel in Hawaii. While Obama's life in Hawaii wasn't exposed to the level of hate that was prominent in places like Alabama or Mississippi, he still feel stereotyped or misunderstood growing up here!
My experience as a local boy, born and raised in Hawaii, has many similarities to Obama's upbringing. The difference was that Obama is of African and European ancestry (with the African side being more visible), I am of Latin American and European ancestry (with the Latin American side being more visible). Also, unlike Obama, I am a public school graduate (McKinley c/o 99)
Because I look more like the typical Mexican, everyone assumes I'm from somewhere, despite Hawaii being the only place I ever lived in. Some even refused to believe when I mentioned being born & raised in Hawaii. Usually, I'm stereotyped as being from California, Mexico or Puerto Rico.
Some even said I look "Middle Eastern". While many Latin Americans and Middle Eatern people have light-brown skin(like me), their cultures are very different from each other.
Coincidentally, the day after I learned of Tam's use of the word "wetback", a lady at a bus stop wanted to ask me about what buses pass by. But before she even asked about the buses, she asked if I "speak English".
This reminds me of back when I was in middle school (Kawananakoa, the so-called safe option of Honolulu middle schools), some local Asians assumed I was "foreign". Not only did I "not look local", I had a tendency to mumble when I talk. If a Hawaiian, local Asian or a European-American was mumbling, people would just consider it "mumbling". But because I "dont look local", I was stereotyped as being "foreign". The big irony is if those local Asians were sent to Idaho or Mississippi, they would be the ones stereotyped as "foreign".
Those same local Asians were surprised when I expressed an above-average level of intellect! Maybe because I wasn't Asian!
Some people express shock when I mention that my family eats kalua pork, shoyu chicken, saimin, and other popular local food. Why are people shocked when a Latin American familyadjust to Hawaii culture the same way so many Asians and Samoans adjusted to Hawaii culture?
Now some are expressing shock that many Latinos in Hawaii are demanding respect. Some are expressing shock that we refuse to be soft doormats when being humiliated! How dare we stand up for ourselves?
Some say "it's just words".
To those who say "it's just words" -- would you call your mother a "whore"? Was that "just words"?
Before anyone gets the wrong idea, I don't intend to sound like a "victim". I just want to inform the people of Hawaii what it's like to be a Latino in Hawaii.
Despite being part of a cultural minority, I consider Hawaii my home. I was born & raised in Hawaii. Hawaii has a great climate, great culture, great music, great food and many great people! I am a UH alumni, and a UH Rainbow/Warrior/Wahine fan and represent the UH green to the minute I die!
I hope the Latinos from outside Hawaii don't get scared off by the Rod Tam controversy and I will welcome any Latino to join in the cultural diversity of Hawaii!
