by Andrew Walden (Originally published August 21, 2009)
Citing 50-year-old “gossip” as its source, The Honolulu Advertiser August 9 tries to convince readers that, “the main opposition to statehood was posed by Native Hawaiians still stinging from the illegal overthrow of their monarchy and the subsequent annexation of Hawai'i by the United States, and by the territory's white elite, who feared that statehood might compromise their standing.”
In reality the miniscule 6% opposition to Statehood in 1959 was motivated by a fear of elections. Opponents preferred to continue with a Territorial government consisting of officials appointed by Washington rather than a State government elected by voters who were heavily Japanese-American and heavily tied to plantation labor. Opponents of Statehood were landed aristocracy fearful of being ruled by their employees.
There is no continuity between the 1893 overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, 20th century opposition to Statehood, and the modern Gramscian construct known as the “Sovereignty Movement.” Hawaiians embraced the United States in 1902 when Prince Jonah Kuhio, heir to Liliuokalani, abandoned Robert Wilcox’ Home Rule Party, joined the Republican Party and was elected Territorial delegate. In 1903 the Hawaiian-Republican territorial legislature passed its first pro-Statehood resolution. In 1919, Rep Kuhio presented the first Hawaii Statehood bill to Congress.
The modern “Sovereignty Movement” is the product of the late 1960s-early 1970s campus Marxist upsurge. Its origins at Kalama Valley are directly tied to the activities of Vietnam-era radicals at UH Manoa. (This will be the subject of a future article.)
Even the Advertiser is forced to admit that, “there is no evidence of any organized attempt by Native Hawaiians to turn the tide of public opinion regarding statehood.” In spite of this, the Advertiser’s August 9 article is misleadingly titled, “Hawaii’s move into Statehood traumatic for many Hawaiians.” The entire so-called trauma is a post-1970 development.
Advertiser writer Michael Tsai cites the 1949 testimony of Alice Kamokila Campbell before the US Senate as a rare example “of the only public testimonies against statehood by someone of Native Hawaiian ancestry.”
Tsai falsely presents Campbell’s testimony as a counterpoint to the attitudes of the pro-Statehood 1940s and 1950s Hawaiians described as “raised in ignorance” by UH Hawaiian Studies Prof. Lilikala Kame`eleihiwa. Tsai even adulterates an out-of-context quote from Campbell to make it appear as if Campbell’s opposition to Statehood had something to do with the loss of “Hawaiian land.”
As a Territory the Hawaii Territorial Governor and Territorial judges were appointed from Washington. If Hawaii achieved Statehood, the Governor would be elected locally and judges would be appointed by locally elected Governor and legislature. Worse yet, depending on how the state constitution was written, judges could even have been elected.
Campbell was in no way speaking as a representative of Hawaiians “traumatized” by the overthrow of their Kingdom 50-plus years earlier. On the contrary, her testimony discusses how Hawaiians came to terms with becoming American. (Another excellent look at evolving Hawaiian attitudes, from the Kingdom, to the Republic, Territory, and State, comes in Bob Krauss’ 1994 book: “Johnny Wilson, First Hawaiian Democrat.”)
She was speaking as a large Campbell estate landowner who was afraid of living under the rule of an electedState government controlled by plantation workers. She expressed her fears in numerous public statements over a period of at least 10 years. Her line was anti-Communist. She questioned the loyalty of the Japanese and Chinese in Hawaii. Campbell’s 1949 testimony even questioned the loyalty of AJA WW2 soldiers serving in the 442nd Infantry.
Tsai adds the words “Hawaiian land” to produce this doctored, out-of-context 1949 Campbell quote:
“I naturally am jealous of (Hawaiian land) being in the hands of any alien influence. It took us quite a while to get used to being Americans — from a Hawaiian to an American — but I am very proud today of being an American. I don’t want to be ashamed of being an American. But I think that in the last 10 years, I have lost a sense of balance here in Hawai’i as to the future safety of my land.”
In context, here is what Campbell actually said:
Mrs. Campbell. First I will give it to you from the standpoint of a Hawaiian, the land being the land of my people. I naturally am jealous of it being in the hands of any alien influence. It took us quite a while to get used to being Americans—from a Hawaiian to an American—but I am very proud today of being an American. I don’t want ever to feel that I am ashamed of being an American. But I think that in the past 10 years I have lost a sense of balance here in Hawaii as to the future safety of my land. This un-American influence has come into our country, and even in the report of the Governor you will see where he says one-third of the population are Japanese. If we are a State they would have the power to vote and they would use every exertion to see that every vote was counted, if we become a State. As it is now, I feel the confidence and I feel the sincerity of Congress, and know they are not going to forsake us.
Now there are two things that I have been thinking of. What could make the average American in his own land afraid to speak? It is a very unnatural thing.
First there is the purchasing power of the Chinese and the Japanese combination in this country. The outsider coming in says “Oh no; the Chinese hate the Japs and the Japs hate the Chinese.” Don’t you believe it, Senator Cordon. The Chinese and Japanese are so tied up together in this community that if we ever went to war they would have a stranglehold on us. We cannot afford to talk. We cannot afford to talk to Russia, is what I claim today, because of that situation. Those for statehood come forward; those who are not for statehood won’t make their statements showing where they stand.
Who supplies our fish? The Japanese. Who do they sell to? The Chinese storeman. Who supplies our chicken and eggs? The Japanese. Who do they sell to? The Chinese—Chun Hoon, C. Q. Yee Hop. Who supplies our pork? This is a pork-eating country. The Japanese. Who do they sell to? C. Q. Yee Hop who is a wholesale man, and that combination goes on and on and on. I say Russia could afford to say—and I should take a chance as one born here in Hawaii—to have Russia say, “All right, you Chinese and Japanese, you come and fight for us. We will give you the Territory of Hawaii.” Should I take these chances of giving my land up and permitting Russia for one minute to do it? We don’t know where Russia stands. Russia does not want this Territory. Russia is out to get Europe. Congress knows that. I know it. I am not hiding it. If it was any other nationality I would have to say the same thing; that we must be careful. I don’t want to have a Japanese judge tell me how to act in my own country, no more than you Americans over on the other side would want an Indian to overrule you, or a Negro, which are among your American people.
Quoted in the Advertiser, UH Hawaiian Studies Chair Lilikala Kame`eleihiwa (who legally changed her name from Lilikala L. Dorton) alternately insults 1950s-era Hawaiians and on the other hand invents non-existent resistance. She tells the Advertiser that 1959 Hawaiians did not know “we had any rights” and were “raised in ignorance.” On the other hand, like so many other sovereignty activists, she claims her mother, “as a Hawaiian she was scared to say no, and most of her friends were, too. So she, like them, didn't vote. It was her small way of protesting.”
In contrast to Kame`eleihiwa’s unverifiable claims, the contemporary account of the angry reaction Campbell's anti-Japanese sentiments received from her pro-Statehood Democratic colleagues shows vigorous pro-Statehood advocacy by ancestors of several of today’s prominent Hawaiian leaders.
After Campbell publicly made anti-Japanese and anti-Chinese remarks at an October 30, 1944 Democratic campaign rally, the Honolulu Advertiser November 2, 1944 reports that Hawaii Democratic Chair William H Heen and Democrat Senator David K Trask physically prevented Campbell from speaking at a Democratic campaign rally at Kamamalu park November 1.
Campbell refused pressure to resign as Democratic National Committeewoman. Campbell told the Star-Bulletin November 2, 1944, “they to put that other woman (Victoria Holt) in there.”
These names should be familiar as the grandfather of current OHA Vice-Chair Walter M. Heen, the grandfather of Mililani and Haunani Trask and a relative of Victoria Holt Takamine.
But that’s not all. Hawaiians rejected Campbell’s rhetoric. The Honolulu Record, December 29, 1949 describes results of the Kalawahine-Kewalo Hawaiian Homestead election as “a slap at Alice Kamokila Campbell, recent appointee of Governor Stainback to the Hawaiian Homes Commission.” Anti-Campbell election winners included some with familiar family names such as Albert K Stender, Mrs. Elizabeth H Stender, and Mrs. Helen Kanahele.
This is what happens when a paper trail exists. Like UFO sightings, or claims that President Obama was born in Kenya, sovereignty activists’ stories about their parents’ opposition to Statehood are always unverifiable—yet the Advertiser, August 9, elects to highlight several such stories.
Sovereignty activists are fond of pointing to the 1897-98 anti-Annexation petitions signed by thousands of Hawaiians. But on February 24, 1954 a 250 lb. petition containing 120,000 Hawaii signatures in favor of Statehood was sent to Congress. This reporter wonders whose grandparents and parents signed that petition. Given the fact that the district including Molokai voted 97% for Statehood in 1959, and the vote was 94% for Statehood overall, many of the unverifiable claims by activists are simply not credible.
Tsai argues that only “35 percent of all eligible voters” backed Statehood in the 1959 referendum. The 1959 referendum turnout of 140,000 was then the highest turnout ever in a Hawaii election. To imply that this throws into doubt the broad support for Statehood in 1959 falsely presumes that many eligible voters who did not cast a ballot was against Statehood. In fact there were large spontaneous celebrations of Statehood throughout the islands and by Hawaiians on the mainland as well.
Former Big Island Mayor Lorraine Inouye explains to the Hawaii Tribune-Herald:
“It was very exciting. There was just that excitement in the air. I went down to (Hilo) town, and that was pretty much a year before the tidal wave. People who had heard the news were honking their horns and kissing each other in celebration. Just a great, great feeling. I've lived through the territory days. We were very fortunate just to be part of the United States."
In contrast to Tsai’s description, there is zero evidence that the 6% opposition in the 1959 referendum was based on “trauma” left over from the 1893 overthrow. Campbell's public opposition had to do with being a landed aristocrat fearful of facing a government elected by her employees and tenants.
Even Kekuni Blaisdell and Chris Conybeare’s anti-Statehood propaganda site www.StatehoodHawaii.org points out, “the district that registered the most ‘no’ votes came from the more affluent and Caucasian dominated Diamond Head/Kahala district.” (In Oahu’s 17th Dist, the vote was 8.3% against Statehood.) This result is completely in line with the fears expressed in Campbell’s 1949 anti-Japanese pro-Territory testimony. As for Campbell herself, on November 25, 1956 she wrote a letter to the editor of the Advertiser arguing that no more Congressional investigations of "communism" were needed in Hawaii. After the March 18, 1959 signing by President Eisenhower of the Hawaii Admission Act, she told reporters, “I have always been opposed to statehood, but now it is here and many of my friends like it, I shall try to like it too."
Tsai points out that, “The only precinct to reject the invitation was Ni'ihau, the restricted island whose population is almost entirely Native Hawaiian.”
Given the results from Molokai’s heavily Hawaiian district, where only 75 people voted against Statehood, it cannot be claimed that the Niihau vote was a reflection of Hawaiian anti-American or pro-Monarchy sentiment. More likely it was a reflection of the same anti-Japanese attitudes expressed by Campbell.
Niihau had been the site of a December, 1941 incident where a downed Japanese fighter pilot from the Pearl Harbor attack force was spontaneously aided by a Japanese-American employee of the Robinson family (owners of Niihau) in holding the entire island’s population at gunpoint for two weeks. Niihauan Beni Kanahele, eventually freed the island by killing the pilot after being shot three times. He was immortalized in the song:“They couldn’t take Niihau no how.” Such an incident may have caused Niihauans to share some of Campbell’s fears 18 years later. Their vote may also have reflected the attitude of the island's owners.
Campbell explained her views in 1949:
Mrs. Campbell. Why, any more than I should keep saying “I am an American of Hawaiian ancestry.” Who cares? Another American only wants to know “Are you an American?” I am an American “period.” My Hawaiian ancestry does not mean a thing. It is: What am I today? An American. I may be wrong, Senator, but I don’t like having them ram down my throat all the time “I am an American of Japanese ancestry, “ trying to make me feel that they went away with the Four Hundred and Forty-second or the One Hundredth Battalion—they went away to fight for a foreign country because they were Japanese? No. Why don’t they say “We went away to fight for our country”? It is always, “Americans of Japanese ancestry.” Why? Because they want the praise of the Japanese—fighting for your country and my country. I can’t see it. I am too much of an American. I am an American “period.” That is all I know. And that is why I may be a little bit bitter down here, when they try to ram down my throat “Japanese.”
No one but those who were here in Hawaii, and lived in Hawaii, as I do, will ever forget December 7. Who was it that brought on that attack of December 7? The people who were here, right here in this country, whom I thought were loyal to my country. I thought they were Americans. They gave out the information to their own people in Japan. Blood is thicker than water. That is my contention. I cannot help it. I am basing a lot of these things on that. I am interested in the safety of Hawaii; in the safety of the people. It includes the Japanese too, but it is Hawaii first, last, and always in my heart, and I will fight and fight for that. Who wants Hawaii to be a State? They cater to the Japanese. Why? Because the Japanese vote is what everyone wants.
Under the Hawaiian Kingdom and the Hawaii Republic, Asian laborers were brought to Hawaii under terms of indentured servitude—semi-slavery—to serve the profit needs of the Hawaiian and Haole landowners. Conditions on Hawaii’s sugar plantations were often compared unfavorably to the treatment of black slaves in the antebellum US South. It was only with the adoption of American law under the 1900 Organic Act that semi-slavery was abolished in Hawaii.
Sovereignty activist Kekuni Blaisdell describes the Act which abolished semi-slavery thusly: “for us Kanaka, the subsequent 1900 U.S.-imposed Organic Act, spelled official U.S. domination, subjugation and exploitation.”
In 2008 the UH Manoa Ethnic Studies published a book of Trask-sister scribblings titled, “Asian Settler Colonialism: From local governance to the habits of everyday life in Hawai`i.” This writer is unable to find any other example of other cultural nationalist movements anywhere characterizing slaves, semi-slaves, or their descendants as “colonial settlers”.
But perhaps the lesson is that the modern sovereignty activists are just as reactionary, and erratic as Alice Campbell. They both represent thin elite groups seeking to rule over and exploit the general public: Campbell, by virtue of her land ownership, in alliance with the US with Hawaii as a Territory -- The “sovereignty movement”, by virtue of their purportedly greater “consciousness”, in alliance with the US with Hawaiians as a Tribe.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
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Newsreel footage of 1959 Statehood Celebrations
Results of 1959 Statehood Referendum
Honolulu Record V2 #23-24-25 has excerpts from Campbell's testimony:http://www.hawaii.edu/uhwo/clear/HonoluluRecord1/volume2.html
Book Kodomo Tame Ni has excerpts of Campbell testimony (pp 397-401): http://books.google.com/books?id=EYewUv20s7AC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false
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