這次這些文章是紀錄我在美國讀書的進步路程,所以可能有些部分寫得很糟, 請多包涵, 假如有看到錯誤的地方,還請你們幫忙指證
Hsuan pi
Bianca Louie
Asian American Experience Since 1820
12/11/17
“Hawai’i”, when people first heard this word, they will say it is a tropical island, or a vacation paradise. Nevertheless, for a native Hawaiian, it is more than a place; it is their home, their spirit belonging. Just like the quote said in native Hawaiian language: “E taku ptiki, kua puta mai r koe i te toi i Hawaiki.” Which means “my child, your origin, you come from Hawaii.” By analyze this quote; it is a reminder to tell their descendant remembers their dignity, their culture, and their belonging “Hawaii” the place where they come from. However, nothing comes out as planned, Hawaiian culture start to vanish into thin air. On January 17, 1893 Hawai'i's Government was illegally overthrown by the United States of America and it speeds up the process of the extinction of the Hawaiian culture. In addition, nowadays native Hawaiian cultures are almost disappearing. Therefore, when the native people see the Hawaiian culture plays an important role of humanity history and their ancestor’s spirit of symbolic, they start to recover it, and take the advantage of the social movement to fight for the true history and preserve their culture.
“In 1778, the first recorded western contact with Hawai'i. Captain James Cook, an English explorer, sailed on the HMS Resolution into Waimea Bay on Kaua'i. The next year he sailed into Kealakekua Bay in Kona on the Big Island of Hawai’i” (Stephanie Launiu). As has been noted, for the western people, it is a new discovery, and a great thing. However, for the native Hawaiian people, it is a nightmare. Because Hawai'i is a group of islands isolated from other land masses and people, diseases known in the rest of the world were not known in Hawai’i. Therefore, just like the most native people who live in South America, within a century after Cook first landed, the Native Hawaiian population had dropped to about 40,000. Deaths were attributed to a number of "new" diseases including smallpox, measles, influenza, sexually-transmitted diseases, whooping cough and the common cold. Later, in 1810 Kamehameha 1 united the islands and the Polynesian people into a single kingdom and deciding to make it into a monarchy. In 1820, the first Christian missionaries came to Hawai’i, and according to the “white burden” they start to teach native Hawaiian people how to become more civilize. With this in mind, Hawaiian children began attending school and learned to read and write in the Hawaiian language. In 1869, a newspaper article reported that Hawai’i was the only government from the Pacific area to attend a Paris exposition. At the event, Hawai’i displayed newspapers, Bibles, textbooks, books of law, agricultural products and other examples of “civilization.” However, as soon as Hawaiian people becoming more civilization, which is assimilate by western people, western people start to desire the resource and the export profit of Hawaii.
When Hawaiian people start to become more civilization and establish the high value sugar industry, sugar became a major export from Hawaii. However, despite sugar industry is the main support of Hawaii export economy and being large expanded, the profit of sugar industry still cannot be maximize, because during the 1850s, the U.S. import tariff on sugar from Hawaii was much higher than the import tariffs Hawaiians were charging the U.S. Afterward, in order to expended sugar production from 12,000 acres to 125,000 acres, the king of Hawaii David Kalākaua start to negotiate with U.S. government. In 1875, the king of Hawaii David Kalākaua was pressured by the U.S. government to surrender Pearl Harbor to the Navy, and consider the traditions of the Hawaiian people, who believed that the land was fertile, sacred and not for sale, he decide to let U.S. government to lease Ford island for seven years. On January 20, 1887, the United States began leasing Pearl Harbor. Shortly afterwards, a group of mostly non-Hawaiians calling themselves the Hawaiian Patriotic League began the Rebellion of 1887. They drafted their own constitution on July 6, 1887 to use the Hawaiian militia to threaten Kalākaua to dismiss his cabinet ministers and sign a new constitution that greatly lessened his power. It would become known as the "Bayonet Constitution" and this constitution benefited the foreign plantation owners. With the legislature now responsible for naturalizing aliens, Americans and Europeans could retain their home country citizenship and vote as citizens of the kingdom. Along with voting privileges, Americans could hold office and still retain their American citizenship; something not afforded in any other nation and even allowed Americans to vote without becoming naturalized. Asian immigrants were no longer able to acquire citizenship or vote. Later, on January 17, 1893, because of the Hawai’i tactical position is vital for the defense of America west coast, and the profit of sugar industry are enormous, U.S. Marines from the USS Boston, two companies of U.S. sailors, and U.S. Government Minister John L. Stevens landed at Honolulu Harbor and, along with U.S. and European businessmen, effectuated an illegal coup against Queen Lili'uokalani. They successful overthrow of the kingdom of the Hawaii. After the overthrow, Native Hawaiians tried to fight back through the U.S. legal system. However, it didn’t worked, neither an investigation by the U.S. government, or the petition of native Hawaiian people and the Queen of Hawaii Lili'uokalani. It is because by that time, the Spanish American War was brewing and the U.S. didn’t want to give up Hawai’i’s prime location in the Pacific. In short, the concept of colonialism starts to affect and suppress native Hawaiian people.
Barack Obama once said: “The worst thing that colonialism did was to cloud our view of our past.” According to the research, there are two different points of view when it comes to the issue of whether U.S. government makes native Hawaiian culture disappearing. Some people believe that native Hawaiian culture is disappearing because U.S. government banned their language in the school. On the other hand, others assert that native Hawaiian culture is disappearing because native Hawaiian chooses not to use their own language and maintain their culture outside the school. Both of the opposite argument appear to be somewhat convincing and stand to reason. However, the true problem is U.S. government colonizing Hawaii and it lead to information asymmetry. Therefore, people cannot know the true history. To be sure, just like what we learn in class “The L’s of colonialism” which including the destruction of life, liberty, love, labor, language, land, and legacy. It is undeniable that when U.S. government starts to colonize Hawaii, it is already speeds up the process of the extinction of the Hawaiian culture. In addition, as I have shown, when U.S. government colonized Hawaii, Hawaiian people’s life, liberty, and labor is being destroyed by them. Because in that period, native Hawaiian becomes the secondary resident, and most of them cannot have the same privilege like American people. Secondly, love and language are also become the biggest problem while U.S. government colonized Hawaii. The destruction of love and language represents self-hate. Hawaiian people hate themselves that cannot stop the overthrow and hate their culture, because they think English is a symbolic of noble. After the territory of the United States in 1898, the Hawaiian language was officially banned from schools and the government. Note that people were still allowed to speak Hawaiian on a daily basis. However, since the official language in schools was English, many people believe that if they being more “civilization” like American people, they can earn more money in business and improve their live. With this in mind, the amount of native speakers decreased and English become a priority. Moreover, some Hawaiian people and American still believe “If everyone was to grow up speaking good English, such markers would vanish and it would be harder to discriminate against people of lower ethnic or social class by immediately recognizing their dialect” (Kenneth R. Conklin). The reason that people cannot see the whole picture of the problem and believe this kind of words, because of the last “L” of colonialism: “legacy”. The destruction of history legacy is the best “L” to represent colonialism, because of Hawai'i's Government was illegally overthrown by the United States of America, U.S. government tried to use many different things to cover the true history, and right now, it is still unclear or a lot of people are unknown about the true history of Hawaii. Eventually, as people see the value of democracy consciousness and the true history, people start to do the petition that ask the U.S. government of the true fact.
In 1993, President Bill Clinton signed an official apology to Native Hawaiians for the illegal overthrow of their nation. Public Law 103-150 was passed by a joint resolution of Congress in 1993 to acknowledge the 100th anniversary of the overthrow. Stipulations in the law stated that: Firstly, the overthrow was illegal. “Section 1 states: "The Congress...on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the illegal overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii on January 17, 1893, acknowledges the historical significance of this event which resulted in the suppression of the inherent sovereignty of the Native Hawaiian people;” (Stephanie Launiu). Secondly, the U.S. apologizes. "...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." Finally, “Native Hawaiians may have legal claims against the U.S. "Nothing in this Joint Resolution is intended to serve as a settlement of any claims against the United States” (Stephanie Launiu). Furthermore, when native Hawaiian people get the true of history and the official apologize, they start to active some movement and establish organizations to recover their culture. Native Hawaiians are revitalizing their language and culture. Although they are now only 12% of Hawai'i’s population, Native Hawaiians continue to work towards finding their rightful place in modern-day Hawai'i. In 1987, instruction in the Native Hawaiian language began again in public schools. Today there are 21 public Hawaiian immersion schools in the state of Hawai'i. Students are of diverse races that choose to be educated in all subjects in the Hawaiian language. A Hawaiian culture curriculum was introduced into the State of Hawaii’s public elementary schools teaching, like ancient Hawaiian art, lifestyle, geography, hula and Hawaiian language. In addition, some organizations like Hawaii state government, Hawai’i Community Foundation, and Language Documentation and Conservation (LD&C) are trying to prevent Hawaii culture from extinguishing. However, for Hawaii, the government didn’t just fought to preserve the language and culture in 1949 out of nostalgia. The Hawaiian Islands are essential that they preserve their very appealing culture and heritage for economic reasons. Because tourism plays a major part in the Hawaiian economy, the Hawai’i government needs to preserve what makes their country so special and unique.
All in all, right now, Hawaiian people are still struggling to recover and preserve the history heritage of Hawaiian culture. In order to prevent the Hawaiian culture and other minority’s culture disappearing, people should being aware of the history and learn from it. Just like the Chinese ancestor said: “A mirror will highlight your improper attire; Study history can help you identify the cause for rise and fall.” In other words, far from a “past” event, it connects things through time and encourages people who are in the present. Sometimes, people can see similar thing which happened between histories and present, maybe the names and places change, but the conflict remain same. Therefore, when people know the true history, rather than argue the conflict of our ancestor, people can learn the fail from the past event and look forward to seek the better future by respect each other’s culture differences.
Work cited
Stephanie Launiu. “Hawai'i and Native Hawaiians - What You May Not Know” WanderWisdom, August 3, 2016, wanderwisdom.com/travel-destinations/Hawaii-and-Native-Hawaiians-What-You-May-Not-Know. Accessed 10 December 2017.
Wikipedia. “History of Hawaii” Wikipedia, . en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Hawaii#Discovery_and_settlement. Accessed 12 December 2017.
Kenneth R. Conklin. “Was Hawaiian Language Illegal? Did the Evil Haoles Suppress Hawaiian Language As A Way of Oppressing Kanaka Maoli and Destroying Their Culture?” Angelfire, 2002-2017 .angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/hawlangillegal.html. Accessed 13 December 2017.
Rich Budnick. "Hawaii's Forgotten History 1900-1999" Aloha, January 1, 2005. Accessed 5 December 2017.
Liliuokalani. Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's Queen Mutual Publishing October 1, 1991. Accessed 1 December 2017.
joshua caumont. “Hawaiian language an endangered language ?” Prezi, 27 September 2014 . prezi.com/c4jucovxvc0p/hawaiian-language-an-endangered-language/?webgl=0. Accessed 16 December 2017.
Barack Obama, Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. .goodreads.com/quotes/tag/colonialism. Accessed 12 December 2017
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