Book Review: Judy Rohrer, Haoles in Hawai‘i: Race and Ethnicity in Hawai‘i. UH Press - 2010

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Last edited Fri Dec 16, 2011, 10:12 PM - Edit history (2)

Thanks to RZM for linking me to this quarters World History Connected Journal which is dedicated to Hawaii: http://worldhistoryconnected.press.illinois.edu/index.html (it's becoming a hot topic).

For Native Hawaiians, haole—"without breath"—intentionally recalls the West's representation of the Hawaiian as different and deviant, a practice beginning with Captain Cook's so-called discovery in 1778. Judy Rohrer's Haoles in Hawai‘i is only the second book to focus on the sociohistorical formation of racialized whiteness in Hawai‘i. Importantly, the author's work concisely covers the use of the term haole through "historical, relational, performative, discursive, and material lenses," in order to demonstrate the concept's complexity (101). Constituting approximately 40 percent of the population, resident Euro-Americans problematically point to the use of the term haole as an example of reverse racism, in which they are victimized by people of color who supposedly gain access to government resources through their status as minorities. The book consists of an introduction, along with four chapters and a short glossary that includes key terms, such as 'āina (land), haole (white person; also foreigner), and hapa (mixed blood) that the author addresses in the body of her work.

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As a pushback, Euro-Americans have challenged haole as a pejorative term, stating that they suffer from reverse racism by Native Hawaiians. In Chapter 3, Rohrer refers to the Rice v. Cayetano Supreme Court case (2000) as well as to news articles published in the Honolulu Advertiser, Midweek, and the University of Hawai‘i school newspaper, Ka Leo, to illustrate how the discursive tensions around the use of haole play out in everyday settings, such as the university. For example, college instructors have been urged by (out-of-state) students to abandon use of the term in the classroom. In this regard, Haoles in Hawai‘i can be placed in conversation with scholarly works on whiteness as it operates on the U.S. mainland, where Euro-Americans report that they expect people of color and other minorities to conform to white heteronormative standards.

To its credit, Haoles in Hawai‘i provides a platform for both high school and college educators to discuss the history of Hawai‘i, colonial resistance, and indigenous sovereignty issues, especially given the increasing presence of Euro-Americans in Hawai‘i. In a college history or sociology course theoretically foregrounding (post)colonialism, culture, power, and race, Haoles in Hawai‘i would pair well with college textbooks discussing the racial formation of whiteness and with sociological texts that critique the discourse of multiculturalism masking forms of social inequality in Hawai‘i. One example of a scholarly work that explores the concept of whiteness in a multiracial part of the U.S. mainland is Shades of Whiteness (2002), an ethnography written by Pamela Perry. She states that at her field sites in California—two high schools, one predominantly white and the other multiracial—the middle-class adolescents she interviewed sincerely believed that being white meant not having a culture. Perry also defines American culture on the continental U.S. as "syncretic" but that its core characteristics, values, and social practices are "derived from European Enlightenment, Anglican Protestantism, and Western colonialism" (23). For Rohrer, Hawai‘i presents a strikingly different situation from the mainland U.S., with Native Hawaiians frequently challenging the Eurocentric concept of race and white ideology. Perry's work adopts the performative approach, noting that racialized identities are dynamic, like the "surface of a river" that can change at any moment. In a related vein, Haoles in Hawai‘i asserts that the term haole is emergent, given the wider socio-political context and the social actors involved.

On the whole, Haoles in Hawai‘i superbly recognizes racial antagonism, conflict, and violence in the Aloha State that has been portrayed, in popular culture and the mass media, as racially harmonious. Rohrer's work is timely, given the Census Bureau's prediction that by the year 2050, whites will constitute 50 percent or less of the total U.S. population, a figure that is strikingly similar to Hawai‘i's demography. As the first book in the Race and Ethnicity in Hawai‘i series edited by Paul Spickard, Haoles in Hawai‘i serves as largely an informative piece that is relatively free of academic jargon and would prove useful for high school students as well as undergraduates, including those enrolled in Asian Pacific American Studies courses that could be expanded to include alternative and comparative framings of Hawai‘i from Euro-American and Native Hawaiian perspectives, in addition to those claiming Asian heritage. Above all, Haoles in Hawai‘i would well serve anyone who has yet to tackle "colorblind ideology that insists we live in a postracial world with an equal racial playing field" (78).

Joy Taylor is a Ph.D. Candidate in American Studies at Washington State University. Her research interests include critical race, gender, and feminist theories and the representations of race, ethnicity, gender, class, and sexuality in popular culture. She can be reached at [e-mail].

http://worldhistoryconnected.press.illinois.edu/8.3/br_taylor.html

What are your experiences of race in Hawaii? How often do you hear haole used in public or private? If you are from the Mainland (like me) have you felt welcome? How did you adjust? Did you see others fail to adjust, why? I know/suspect we have a couple Hawaiians here, what are your thoughts?

No feuding.

Personally, I have seen it go both ways, I've seen visitors/new residents fail to show respect and be treated with disdain (appropriately IMHO). I've also seen it carried too far to the point where rather than becoming constructive, the use of the word is destructive and embittering. I suppose I'm a pretty open-minded person having seen the ugliness of racism first hand in California and am used to being a minority (I'm Jewish) and am thus very sympathetic to the plight of the dispossessed and down-trodden. I thought the Kamehameha School case was deplorable and feel the same about the current case against the Department of Hawaiian Homelands (DHHL) to be in poor spirit. In the words of Rodney King: "can't we all just get along?"; all too often it seems the answer is no. I must say though, that generally I've seen the word used among my social circle in a very light-hearted manner and only occasionally when there has been some clash with disdain.

Also Sarah Vowell, most recently on the Daily Show, who'd have thought: http://www.amazon.com/Unfamiliar-Fishes-Sarah-Vowell/dp/1594487871/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1324075916&sr=8-1
Review: http://worldhistoryconnected.press.illinois.edu/8.3/br_vann.html

Apology: In an earlier violation of group rules of this group I inappropriately abbreviated Kamehameha Schools - this was a disrespectful oversight to the excellent Kamehameha Schools system, for which I have deep and abiding respect. I Mua Kamehameha