Beyond Ethnicity: New Politics of Race in Hawai‘i

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Written by scholars of various disciplines, the essays in this volume dig beneath the veneer of Hawai‘i’s myth as a melting pot paradise to uncover historical and complicated cross-racial dynamics. Race is not the primary paradigm through which Hawai‘i is understood. Instead, ethnic difference is celebrated as a sign of multicultural globalism that designates Hawai‘i as the crossroads of the Pacific. Racial inequality is disruptive to the tourist image of the islands. It ruptures the image of tolerance, diversity, and happiness upon which tourism, business, and so many other vested transnational interests in the islands are based. The contributors of this interdisciplinary volume reconsider Hawai‘i as a model of ethnic and multiracial harmony through the lens of race in their analysis of historical events, group relations and individual experiences, and humor, among other focal points. Beyond Ethnicity examines the dynamics between race, ethnicity, and indigeneity to challenge the primacy of ethnicity and cultural practices for examining difference in Hawai‘i while recognizing the significant role of settler colonialism. This original and thought-provoking volume reveals what a racial analysis illuminates about the current political configuration of the islands and, in doing so, challenges how we conceptualize race on the continent. Recognizing the ways that Native Hawaiians or Kānaka Maoli are impacted by shifting, violent, and hierarchical colonial structures that include racial inequalities, the editors and contributors explore questions of personhood and citizenship through language, land, labor, and embodiment. By admitting to these tensions and ambivalences, the editors set the pace and tempo of powerfully argued essays that engage with the various ways that Kānaka Maoli and the influx of differentially racialized settlers continue to shift the social, political, and cultural terrains of the Hawaiian Islands over time. CONTENTS Title Page Copyright Introduction: New Politics of Race in Hawai‘i CAMILLA FOJAS, RUDY P. GUEVARRA JR., AND NITASHA TAMAR SHARMA E Micronesia, a poemku‘ualoha ho‘omanawanui 1. Polynesia Is a Project, Not a Place: Polynesian Proximities to Whiteness in Cloud Atlas and Beyond MAILE ARVIN 2. Mixed-Race Hollywood, Hawaiian Style CAMILLA FOJAS 3. “I no eat dog, k”: Humor, Hazing, and Multicultural Settler Colonialism RODERICK N. LABRADOR 4. “Eh! Where you from?”: Questions of Place, Race, and Identity in Contemporary Hawai‘i JOHN P. ROSA 5. Race and/or Ethnicity in Hawai‘i: What’s the Difference and What Difference Does It Make? JONATHAN Y. OKAMURA 6. The Racial Imperative: Rereading Hawai‘i’s History and Black-Hawaiian Relations through the Perspective of Black Residents NITASHA TAMAR SHARMA 7. Local Boy, East Coast Sensibilities CHRISTOPHER JOSEPH LOPA 8. “Latino Threat in the 808?” Mexican Migration and the Politics of Race in Hawai‘i RUDY P. GUEVARRA JR. 9. Local Haole? Whites, Racial and Imperial Loyalties, and Membership in Hawai‘i PAUL SPICKARD 10. Reconnecting Our Roots: Navigating the Turbulent Waters of Health-Care Policy for Micronesians in Hawai‘i JOAKIM PETER, WAYNE CHUNG TANAKA, AND AIKO YAMASHIRO Afterword: Hawai‘i Matters GARY Y. OKIHIRO Contributors Index