A Genealogy of "COLLIDING HISTORIES"

COLLIDING HISTORIES:

Hawaiʻi Statehood at the Intersection of Asians “Ineligible to Citizenship”

 and Hawaiians “Unfit for Self-Government” (dean itsuji saranillo 2010)

Genealogy of events that are in this publication:

1892:  Hawaiian Bureau of Information is created to “gain public support for annexation” though series of newspaper publications led by Lorrin A. Thurston (291).

1893:  

-Kingdom of Hawai'i is seized by the "U.S.-backed overthrow on January (283);

-“Japanese plantation laborers submitted a petition that did not oppose the overthrow…rather demanded their electoral participation” on April 9 (300).

1894:  Chinese plantation immigrants submitted a signed petition of a few hundred signatures advocating for a “right to participate” in voting in Hawaiʻi (300). 

1887:  

-“Bayonet Constitution” signed by Hawaiʻi’s Monarch, King David Kalākaua, empowered western sugar plantation owners and businessmen, “while disenfranchising a majority of Hawaiians from voting through income, property, and literacy requirements” (295);  

-Japanese immigrants in Hawai'i are considered “ineligible to citizenship” (ibid) wherein they weren't allowed the right to vote alongside qualified individuals in Hawai'i. Additionally, “this first generation would have to wait for their children to come of voting age to gain political representation” (ibid).  

1897:

“Abigail Ku’aihelani”, wife to James Campbell, one of Hawaiʻi’s sugar plantation owners on Maui, Oʻahu, and Hawaiʻi Islands (https://www.jamescampbell.com/about-us/the-story-of-james-campbell), orchestrated the “Kūʻē petitions against U.S. annexation--signed by more than 90 percent of the Hawaiian population” (297).

 <1900:  Organic Act, “Hawai'i adopted the immigration and naturalization laws of the [U.S. wherein] Asians were prohibited from naturalization or voting by the Bayonet Constitution” (295)

1935-1947: “Hawaii Equal Rights Commission” in act (291)

1940s:  Alice Kamokilaikawai Campbell emerged as a leading opponent of statehood, “publically opposing the statehood movement while fights for other forms of self-governance for Hawaiians” (297). Kamokilaikawai served as territorial senator for the Island of Maui, advocated for Native Hawaiian self-governance, traveled to Washington, D.C. and met U.S. President Roosevelt along with Secretary of Interior and senators for support in “placing Hawaiian Home lands under the Bureau of Indian Affairs” (298). Kamokilaikawai also “sought Congressman Sterling Cole of New York to sponsor a bill that would transfer Hawaiʻi from the Department of the Interior to the navel department...to limit the flow if immegration and prohibit nonnaatives from owning land” (ibid).  She also spoke for the Native Hawaiian people at “congressional hearings” in regards to “Hawaiian self-government, Big Five economic greed, and the numerical dominance of Japanese Americans” (ibid).

1941: Japan’s military attack Pearl Harbor, Hawai'i on December 7 (292), as well as “Martial Law” in effect (295), which led to U.S. settlers leaving Hawai’i in fear of war. Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor rendered all Japanese men, especially Japanese American settlers under the guise by the U.S. military, which classified them “ineligible for…draft but further suspicion over their loyalty” (ibid).

1942:  United States “President Truman” led its military's “atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, coupled with later military occupation of Japan” (293).

1947-1959: “The Hawaii Statehood Commission...was formed” and led by Lorrin P. Thurston, son to Lorrin A. (291).

1948:  Campbell v. Stainback et al. (1948) on January 17, wherein Alice Kamokilaikawai Campbell “challenged the legality of the financing of the Hawaii Statehood Commission” (302). 

1949: 

-“Justice E.C. Peters ordered an injunction against the Statehood Commission that prohibited the use of public monies for a national campaign” in promoting Hawaiʻi a statehood (ibid);

-Statehood Commission coerced Native Hawaiians homesteaders of Papakōlea “to write a letter…opposing statehood” (303) as a counteract to Alice Kamokilaikawai Campbell claims against them. 

1951:  “MGM film ‘Go For Broke”' is played “at the national Capitol on May 24...as well as internationally through Europe and Asia” (293). 

1952:  

-‘Go For Broke’ film is played in “Japan on December 7” marking the “eleventh anniversary of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor” (ibid)

-“Congress passed the Walter-McCarran Act”, that allowed "first-generation Japanese to naturalize and vote” (295)

1954:  

-“Democratic Revolution” is termed, because of the Democratic Party, “with the support of the International Longshorsemen’s and Warehousemen’s Union (ILWU), dislodged the Republican plantation oligarchy from the legislature” (ibid)

-"Japanese Americans were the largest voting bloc in the territory" (ibid)

1959:  

-in the month of June, a congressional mandate plebiscite revealed voters in Hawai'i, indicating that "17 to 1 were in favor of statehood" (286).

-Hawai'i Nei becomes a state within the United States on August 21, hence, 'Admission Day' holiday wherein this day is commemorated in-and-around the third week of August (http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/us/hawaii-statehood-day#obs).  

1993:  

“U.S. Public Law 103-150, commonly known as the ‘Apology Bill’ was passed on November 23…[wherein] Congress apologizes to Native Hawaiians on behalf of the people of the United States for the overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii on January 17, 1893 with the participation of agents and citizens of e United States, and the deprivation of the rights of Native Hawaiians to self-determination” (305, footnote 5).   

2006:  State representative Barbara Marumoto and state senator Sam Slom “led a group to” Hale Ali'i o ʻIolani to commemorate a U.S. state holiday known as “Admission Day” that celebrates the day Hawai'ʻi Nei illegally became a 50th state of the United States in August 19.  However, Marumoto folks were “blocked” by  “Native Hawaiian grassroots activists” who were opposed to the holiday, including allowing such recognition on “sacred grounds” (283).

2008:  On August 15, Admission Day holiday, “more than twenty members of another Hawaiian group were arrested for seizing occupancy” within Hale Ali'i o ʻIolani while exercising their Native Hawaiian right to “reinstate [the] Hawaiian government” (ibid)

2009:  

-‘50th-year anniversary’ recognizing Hawai'i Nei as a state within the U.S.

-A public conference was held at the Hawai'i Convention Center by supporters of statehood to discuss ways in which a "New Horizon for the Next 50 years" (284) could promote Hawai'i on national and international levels. In contrast, Native Hawaiian groups and supporters who were against the ‘U.S.-backed overthrow’ and ‘statehood’ came together to protest against the “U.S. imperialist influence” (ibid).

-Governor Linda Lingle (R) “appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse a decision by the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court, which ruled that the state could not sell or transfer so-called ceded lands” (295). 

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In reflection of Saranillio’s Colliding Histories, I chose to outline a genealogy wherein he lays out a clear examples of how the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi had lost its battle against white oligarchy who eventually led in Hawaiʻi becoming a statehood.  Asian immigrants, as he argued, helped “normalize” the “discourse” of U.S. occupation in the Hawaiian Islands (304).  Through constructs of race, class, foreign government and politics, Hawaiʻi Nei eventually lost control of its inherit right as Indigenous Peoples to these islands.  Outnumbered by the majority of settlers prevalent here at the time wherein voting took place for statehood, my ancestors were withheld from participation, thus silenced from voicing their opposition to statehood.  Although Hawaiʻi Nei is now a 50^th state under the U.S., Native Hawaiian Indigenous peoples today, and for the past six decades still voice our opposition to the overthrow every January, every Admission Day holiday in August, to the birthday celebrations of our last reigning Monarch, Queen Liliʻuokalani every September, just to name a few.  We are using our past to demonstrate to the future who are true sovereigns and true enemies.