(Whoops, long comment is long...please forgive the rambling, this history is close to my heart.)
The whole pattern of immigration, community building, daily experience of institutional prejudice, etc., was very very different for the smaller Japanese and Chinese communities on the U.S. west coast, so there was much more organic community-building, and earlier on, in Asian communities in the islands. (And broader acceptance of intermarriages, again going back to the pre-annexation kingdom days when many of the first Chinese immigrants married Hawaiian women...whereas on the mainland U.S., along with the restrictions limiting Asian women from immigrating, anti-miscegenation laws in many states barred Asians from marrying whites.) And for the island folks, the experience of racial issues and prejudice were very different in a place where whites came to have an upper hand politically and economically, but numerically were very much the minority, and the non-white majority population from many different lands was living and working alongside each other, and continuing to intermarry as well. So in Hawaii, Asian family-owned businesses, community and business and political associations, all had a more favorable climate to develop early on, and the Japanese community in particular did not suffer the massive economic setbacks that AJAs on the mainland did during the internment camp era. So where most mainland nisei vets were coming home to face rebuilding their family's businesses and lives from the ground up, the island vets came home fired up from proving themselves and galvanized by their experiences of prejudice on the mainland (http://www.pbs.org/thewar/detail_5281.htm), free to build on their families' ongoing business interests, pursue G.I. Bill educations, and get politically organized.
GEE I WONDER WHY THEY SENT THE 100TH THERE OF ALL PLACES.
Yeah...not to mention how it then took FIFTY GODDAMN YEARS (http://www.goforbroke.org/history/history_historical_medal.asp) before Nisei soldiers who'd proven their loyalty in blood a thousand times over were recognized with Medals of Honor...
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The whole pattern of immigration, community building, daily experience of institutional prejudice, etc., was very very different for the smaller Japanese and Chinese communities on the U.S. west coast, so there was much more organic community-building, and earlier on, in Asian communities in the islands. (And broader acceptance of intermarriages, again going back to the pre-annexation kingdom days when many of the first Chinese immigrants married Hawaiian women...whereas on the mainland U.S., along with the restrictions limiting Asian women from immigrating, anti-miscegenation laws in many states barred Asians from marrying whites.) And for the island folks, the experience of racial issues and prejudice were very different in a place where whites came to have an upper hand politically and economically, but numerically were very much the minority, and the non-white majority population from many different lands was living and working alongside each other, and continuing to intermarry as well. So in Hawaii, Asian family-owned businesses, community and business and political associations, all had a more favorable climate to develop early on, and the Japanese community in particular did not suffer the massive economic setbacks that AJAs on the mainland did during the internment camp era. So where most mainland nisei vets were coming home to face rebuilding their family's businesses and lives from the ground up, the island vets came home fired up from proving themselves and galvanized by their experiences of prejudice on the mainland (http://www.pbs.org/thewar/detail_5281.htm), free to build on their families' ongoing business interests, pursue G.I. Bill educations, and get politically organized.
GEE I WONDER WHY THEY SENT THE 100TH THERE OF ALL PLACES.
Yeah...not to mention how it then took FIFTY GODDAMN YEARS (http://www.goforbroke.org/history/history_historical_medal.asp) before Nisei soldiers who'd proven their loyalty in blood a thousand times over were recognized with Medals of Honor...