Some Native Hawaiian sovereignty activists love to say that non-native residents "have a place to go back to, Hawaiians don't"
Excuse me?
I responded to it by writing the following for the Honolulu Star Bulletin.
http://www.starbulletin.com/editorials/20090906_Lifelong_Hawaii_resident_has_no_other_place_to_call_home.html
The above link is the edited version. Below is what I actually sent to the editors!
Here we go again, another letter writer claimed that a non-Native Hawaiian "has a place to return to; Hawaiians do not." (8/31/09 edition of the Star Bulletin)!
I have a "place to return to"? I never lived anywhere else! So where am I supposed to "return to"? Am I supposed to return to Mexico? Puerto Rico? Spain? Portugal? Germany?
What about those who are part-Japanese/part-Filipino? Or those who are part-Tongan/part-Irish? Where do they "return to"?
This "non-natives have a place to return to" rhetoric is ridiculous! The reality is that many who grew up away from their ancestral lands would have extreme difficulty fitting in their ancestral lands.
For example, some Japanese moved to Latin America about a century ago. When their Latin-American born descendants moved to Japan, they faced major issues! Though their DNA was Japanese, they were too culturally Latin-American to be accepted by the mainstream Japanese society!
This was also true of those who migrated to the US as children, joined a gang, comitted a felony and deported to their birthplace. They included Cambodian and Salvadoran ex-cons who had a hard time fitting into their birthplace after spending a decade or two in the U.S.
This idea of "non-natives have a place to return to" is a part of a larger mentality of "this is our land, the rest are intruders"!
This mentality isn't limited to the vocal minority here in Hawaii. It was also present in the land where my last name came from - Germany! The Nazis felt Germany was the land of their ethnic group and others are intruders. This led to a mass murder of Jews, Gypsies and other groups. Some modern Europeans still have that "this is our land, others are intruders" attitude, leading to hate crimes against immigrants from the Middle East, Africa and Asia!
Now, let's talk about another of my ancestral lands - Latin Americans. The natives were conquered by the Spanish. But the descendants of the conquerors are there to stay. The descdendants of the conquered, conquerors, imported slaves and settlers are accepted as a part of the modern Latin American social fabric.
Most people in Hawaii, Native Hawaiians and non-native, have accepted that the descendants of the conquered, conquerors and other settlers are part of the modern Hawaii social fabric
Those without Native Hawaiian ancestry need to respect Native Hawaiian culture! And the xenophobic minority who say "non-natives have a place to return to" need to accept that non-natives aren't going to go away!
As Rodney King has said "can we all just get along?"--
You can check out people's comments to the editorial at
http://www.topix.net/forum/source/honolulu-star-bulletin/TEK0F40EBF5J0BAPO
some called my editorial "idiotic whining", others pointed out that the ancestors of Native Hawaiians came from Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands.
Here's what I wrote in response to some comments
Thanks to everyone who read so far!
What I also should've added in the editorial is - it wouldn't be right for Native Hawaiians living in Nevada or Utah to be told by the local Native American tribes "you don't belong, go back to Hawaii". It wouldn't be right for Native Hawaiians to be told "go back to Tahiti".
As for the comment by "arm", my Latin American ancestors are a mix of the Native Americans and Europeans. In fact, my dad's mother is pure Zapotec, no Spanish! Zapotec is one of the native tribes of Oaxaca, Mexico! That's where I got my brown skin,and probably why I wouldn't be accepted in Germany (where my last name came from, and one of my mom's ancestral lands)
An ironic thing, Sonia Sotomayor is known to be Puerto Rican, and got controversy over the "wise Latina coming to a better conclusion than a white man". But look at Sotomayor's skin. It's WHITE! Though most of her DNA would probably trace to Spain, she's still called Puerto Rican, because her family has been there for generations!
As for WaimeaWilliams, you said "Just get along? Yes, if it were only that simple." What's wrong with getting along? What's wrong with just judging people based on character!
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So far, no letters appeared on today's edition of the Star Bulletin responded to my editorial. If some come up, and if they're lame, I'll post it here on my blog.
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PART TWO
a few months back, on the Honolulu Weekly, there was an interview with UH English professor Cynthia Fujikane.
Fujikane is one of those Asian-Americans who feel guilty about living in Hawaii. She feels Asian-Americans in Hawaii should feel un-earned guilt for living in lands that European-Americans stole from Native Hawaiians!
Here's what I wrote to Dr Fujikane
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Ms. Cynthia Fujikane,
First off, like you, I am a descendant of a "settler"!
I skimmed through the Asian Settler Colonialism book and read the interview in the Honolulu Weekly!
I do agree that the descendants of "settlers" need to respect the Native Hawaiian culture! We need to learn as much as we can!
However, I do see some holes in the rhetoric!
From the interview:
Some people don’t want to give up the word ‘local.
Most people I know use "local" in the context of "this guy's a local Japanese, instead of an immigrant Japanese"
So I don't see a problem with saying who's local!
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If you’re not Hawaiian, you’re a settler and part of the colonial problem.
The neo-Nazis in Europe feel the same way about African & Arab immigrants in Europe! Their attitude "we (Germans, French, Russians, etc) are here first, those non-whites aren't from here, they're the problem!"
This is the attitude of "all those not of the same DNA are born-to-be-a-problem". Therefore, the neo-Nazi comparison!
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The word hapa has also recently been used more in Asian American Studies. Wei-Ming Dariotis of San Francisco State recently wrote that when she discovered that using the term is a settler appropriation of a Hawaiian word, she stopped using it. She is encouraging hapa clubs in California to rename themselves.
I heard it before, using the word "hapa" is a mis-appropriation of the Hawaiian language!
Words of EVERY language has been mis-appropriated!
For example, look at English, the native language of England!
People all over the world (including these islands) use English words VERY DIFFERENTLY from the way they were originally used by the native English!
Same is true of other languages!
People of Latin America & the Phillipines use Spanish words VERY DIFFERENTLY from way those words are used in Spain!
People of Tahiti & Haiti use French words VERY DIFFERENTLY from the way those words are used in France!
And obviously, we in Hawaii use English words very differently than the way those words are used in England. Here, we call proudly call it pidgin!
As an English professors, you probably know even more examples than I do about how languages evolve!
Not only that, English has so many words from other languages, like Latin, Greek, Hebrew, German,etc, etc.
So back to the word "hapa", while it may be used differently than it was in the pre-Cook era, I'm sure we all use English words very differently from the Germanic, Latin, Greek or Hebrew roots of those same words. And most of us aren't even German, Italian, Greek or Jewish, but we use their words totally differently from their ancestors!
I'm sure you probably got answers to many of the commentary
Though if you're tempted to dismiss it as "just another settler in denial", that wouldn't a response based on logic, it would be a response based on the attitude of "how dare you question me and not sit in silence"
PART THREE
Dr. Fujikane didn't respond to my e-mail.
It's impossible to find the link to Fujikane's lame interview with Honolulu Weekly. I saw it on the print edition.
However, I did find a link to a letter by Ethnic Studies Professor Dr. Davianna Pomaikai McGregor (who is Native Hawaiian) who exposed how lame Cynthia Fujikane's arguments are.
http://honoluluweekly.com/letters/2009/05/settling-the-record-straight/
Letters
Settling the record straight
May 13, 2009
I write as a founding member of the UH Manoa Ethnic Studies Department to correct an inaccurate statement by English Professor Candace Fujikane (“Critical transformations,” 4/22).
Dr. Fujikane mistakenly attributed our department’s slogan, “Our History, Our Way” to local Asians who she called colonial with “no perception that Hawaiians have their own struggle.”
First of all, myself and other Kanaka ‘Oiwi (Pete Thompson, Kehau Lee, Terrilee Kekoolani, Soli Niheu) were at the forefront of the struggle and the formulation of our slogan.
Second, the slogan is inclusive of Kanaka ‘Oiwi history. Our ethnic studies courses on Hawaiians and land tenure were the first to challenge the dominant historical narrative, which characterized Native Hawaiians as compliant, childlike natives who embraced Christianity and American settler civilization.
We empowered our students with a history of resistance, from the makaainana of Kau who killed abusive chiefs; to the killing of Captain Cook; the taking of the Fair American; the rebellion of Chief Kekuaokalani and Chiefess Manono; the 1845 petitions against Ka Mahele; the Wilcox Rebellion; the Hui Aloha ‘Aina; the 1895 Restoration; and Hawaiian longshoremen who founded the I.L.W.U. Moreover, we got involved, with our students, in Kalama Valley, Waiahole-Waikane, Heʻeia Kea, Waimanalo, Niumalu Nawiliwili and Kahoolawe community struggles.
Sadly, Fujikane’s statement is yet another example of how labeling Asian immigrant workers and their descendants as colonial “settlers” is ahistorical, narrow-minded, lacking in class analysis, and too simplistic to explain our complicated islands’ society.
Dr. Davianna Pomaikai McGregor
Professor, Ethnic Studies Department UHM
