What really kills me about this photo, of firefighters at Pearl Harbor? The lovely woman who is second from the left? Likely ended up illegally detained in an interment camp months after this photo was taken.
Notice that none of the ladies in that Hawai'i photo look white?
I most certainly did!
And thanks for the links - I was assuming that the americans of asian descent had a similar time as did some of the japanese americans over in my part of the country, which they clearly didn't.
Thanks so much for the link.
Monte Cassino, an ancient monastery, blocked the Allied advance to Rome. Some military experts called Monte Cassino one of the world’s greatest natural defenses with walls 10- to 15-inches thick
GEE I WONDER WHY THEY SENT THE 100TH THERE OF ALL PLACES.
Yeah, Hawai'i really is a different world: the history, demographics, cultural milieu, are such that you really can't view it through the lens of the assumptions you might be used to from mainland US history. The Asian experience in the islands vs. the mainland U.S. was a very different thing from the very beginning -- you have to remember that in Hawai'i, the first immigrants from China, Japan, Korea, and the Phillippines (along with folks from several non-Asian countries, especially Portugal) were coming in when it was still a sovereign kingdom. There was a huge demand for more warm bodies to work in the early boom sandalwood industry at first, cattle ranching, and later the better-known pineapple and sugar cane plantations; and while even in the pre-annexation days there was already a small but politically and economically powerful oligarchy of white American business and land owners, the population of the islands was (and still remains) predominantly non-white. The islands had rapidly growing industries and not enough workers, so the various waves of immigration weren't subject to the same sorts of limitations they faced on the mainland, where there were protectionist immigration quotas meant to keep cheaper immigrant labor from taking jobs from native-born citizens, and restrictions on immigration of women, families, pretty much anything beyond young able-bodied men, spawned by "yellow peril" racist fears of being overwhelmed by "inferior" races. Asian immigration to the islands was much more inclusive of women and families -- married laborers might come to the islands alone initially, then send for their wives and children or other relations as they saved up enough money to do so; single men might save up and work with matchmakers to have brides brought in from their homelands. And even after the kingdom's illegal overthrow and annexation, it was in the oligarchy's interests to continue bringing in the cheap labor they needed...territorial status, rather than full statehood, was in the best interests of these white landowners, because it allowed them to bypass the immigration quotas and restrictions imposed on the mainland U.S.! (The eventual post-WWII statehood movement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_Revolution_of_1954_%28Hawaii%29) was essentialy a populist uprising, with much representation from the descendants of this non-white immigrant labor force, against the minority of wealthy white plantation owners who in the annexation and territorial years had pretty much run the islands as their own little fiefdom.
(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...
Oh, please don't apologize! I have greatly missed your epic comments. And history is one of the subjects where I really feel my HS education screwed me over, so I am ALWAYS grateful for more information, especially about non-mainstream things.
I find the way the labor was arranged differently and the different immigration laws changed the whole dynamic of the islands to be fascinating.
Yeah...not to mention how it then took FIFTY GODDAMN YEARS before Nisei soldiers who'd proven their loyalty in blood a thousand times over were recognized with Medals of Honor...
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I most certainly did!
And thanks for the links - I was assuming that the americans of asian descent had a similar time as did some of the japanese americans over in my part of the country, which they clearly didn't.
Thanks so much for the link.
Monte Cassino, an ancient monastery, blocked the Allied advance to Rome. Some military experts called Monte Cassino one of the world’s greatest natural defenses with walls 10- to 15-inches thick
GEE I WONDER WHY THEY SENT THE 100TH THERE OF ALL PLACES.
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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...
no subject
I find the way the labor was arranged differently and the different immigration laws changed the whole dynamic of the islands to be fascinating.
Yeah...not to mention how it then took FIFTY GODDAMN YEARS before Nisei soldiers who'd proven their loyalty in blood a thousand times over were recognized with Medals of Honor...
Grrr.