| Personal Statement |
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I am standing next to my father in a hospital room as he is checking Mr. Nishio's abdomen for the aneurysm. His health has been deteriorating, but he seems in very good spirits and quite alert. I had never before had the opportunity to meet him in person, although all these years I had always known him by name as he was a collector of sheet music that he gave copies to my father who in turn passed them onto me. In high school I had been an active trumpet player, favoring the big band swing and jazz from the war years. He seemed very interested in the fact that I was going to school in Madison. "How you like it up there?" He asks me grinning. "I was up there you know, Camp McCoy, 1942." "With the 100th." He tells me how he and his friends had gone up there as volunteers, training in the cold Wisconsin winters, preparing for the European campaign. As my dad continues his check up, Mr. Nishio tells me how when he was at McCoy, he played the alto saxophone, and apparently was good enough to be offered a place in the military big band that would travel to the bases playing music. "That was out of the question." He said. "I didn't come all the way from Hawaii to play music." Hawaiian, Japanese, Okinawan, Korean, Filipino, Poidog "Nisei" soldiers, they came to the mainland to train for a war, overseas as well as at home. They were proving their loyalty, their patriotism to the rest of the world at a time where racial tensions were being settled by relocation camps and internment. The transition from Hawaii to Wisconsin was probably the key defining event in my life so far as one of questioning of my true cultural roots, and seeking my true identity. For the first time my status as an "Asian/Pacific Islander" that had seemed like a joke on my college application and ACT/SATs was challenged and confronted by not only the experiences with Haoles on the mainland, but with those of Asian, African, Hispanic, European descent. To define Hawaii's multiculturalism is to define the culture conflict between the mainland and Hawaii. It is a system not of racial harmony, but rather of racial tolerance, one that encourages simultaneously ethnic pride in identity as well as respect for another ethnic group's existence. The culture of these islands is one of complex simplicity, unspoken understandings and other cultural idiosyncrasies between dozens of ethnic cultures that have formed an intricate web based on strong points of commonality. This multicultural relationship between the dozens of cultures making up Hawaii's communities was ironically founded by a system of "divide and conquer" set up by the plantation owners to keep a firm grip over the labor force through promoting competition between ethnic groups. Yet over time, exposure, and intermarriage, this competition has given way to something different, something unique. I spent the first 18 years of my life living in a literal bubble of Hawaii, racial unorthodoxy, and cultural pluralism. I grew up unappreciative and oblivious to the luxury of not only living as an ethnic minority, but in a place where no single group represents an ethnic majority; in Hawaii everyone is a minority. School on the mainland for me was an endless lesson of culture shock. I learned quite quickly that in mainland college campus that boast "ethnic diversity" and "multiculturalism", race relations are much more strained and the boundaries are very clearly set. Ethnic minorities in America face several hardships in opportunity, racism, and most destructive, in the way in which they view themselves. The college atmosphere is understandably for many one of soul-searching, and identity formation. It is especially in college that I have seen many minorities on the mainland seek out their cultural and ethnic roots that they have ignored growing up in the dominant white culture which sometimes evokes a negative and racist response toward the world. I met a bunch of hapa guys who expressed their feelings of being "half-breeds" growing up in the public school systems. Yet the other interesting phenomenon is that of the Korean adoptees especially common in Minnesota, who sometimes after living a white-bred life in a haole family realize in college that they are what they appear to be: Asian. And when they make this realization sometimes they go overboard and go hard-core Asian-American. In Hawaii I noticed that if there is any major racial tensions it is between Haole and non-Haole. On the mainland racial tensions are so stratified that specific ethnic groups within the Asian-American community have scuffles. The best example of this was the numerous fights I saw and heard about between Koreans and Hmong students in Madison. A strict contrast to Hawaii standards of the attractive cosmopolitan man and woman, Asian-American males are at the bottom of the dating food chain, short in stature, stigmatized as having small genitals and no social skills. It is a double insult many Asian Males to see that Asian-American women are quick to run off with the prototype of the blond-haired, blue-eyed Joe America. Talking to friends, I learned that African-American women find it appalling that their strong Black "Brothers" are quick to run after the white girl as a sort of status symbol while the neglect and abuse their Black "sisters". A girl in my chemistry class shared with me some of her experiences with anti-Semitism. These racial conflicts were all examples of anger and hatred that I did not grow up accustomed to, all stories that I listened and responded to, but honestly the closest incident I had growing up in Hawaii was the occurrence of reverse racism against Haoles. The very idea of it possibly happening in some part of America was one that all of my friends I met were fascinated by the thought of. In the spring my friend Maria waved at me as I cross the intersection on my way to class. We started talking about my research project I was planning on doing with elevators and people of color. Somehow we got onto the topic of what each of us define as our ethnic classification. "Well Dan, I consider myself Mexican before I am American." "Do you consider yourself Hawaiian before Asian? Because I don't consider you Asian." When I told her that I wasn't Native Hawaiian by blood, she responded "You don't seem like you're ashamed of being Asian-American, you don't surround yourself with a bunch of stuck-up Asians and walk around with attitude." "When I look at you I see a Hawaiian. I don't know, you just really don't act like the Asians I know." Seeing the puzzled and confused response to her statement, she told me that she had no other word to classify me since from our previous talks she had come to realize that my perspective on race relations was influenced by my upbringing in a truly multicultural place. One evening there was a theme-dinner in our cafeteria Native American. They served roast buffalo, wild turkey, Indian beans, etc. They were a group of Native Americans beating a drum and singing traditional Indian songs of the land that the University is built on. A bunch of girls standing nearby bade some remarks accompanied with enthused facial expressions "this is college?" and "THIS is what our tuition is going to?" and " Oh YEAH, but remember, THIS is important". They started imitating the motions and the sounds of the Indian singers like a bunch of idiots. The little adopted Korean girl from the Twin Cities sitting next to me gave them a piece of her mind. Then the Haole girl across from us starts talking about how some Native Americans don't take advantage of their special scholarship offers that are provided by the federal government due to their ethnic standing. Her words dripped with sarcasm, as if the Native Americans have so many benefits and services available to them, but too lazy to take advantage of them. The girl next to me was still be pretty upset at the other two girl's remarks, and I blurted out "Well what do you expect at a university with 80-90% white?" The Haole girl across from me glared at me. "We're not ALL like that you know" she said quickly. Generalizations again or at least implied anyway. I could see the frustration in her eyes, perhaps from the recent protests held on campus for minority rights and on affirmative action, being part of the white majority must attract unfair attitudes occasionally. Another time my Japanese friend Haruko introduced me to the rest of her friends from Japan after a long night of studying. She had spent most of the evening bothering me asking for translations of her notes in English so much to the point that I felt like I understood her class better than my own, which I was supposed to be studying. Her Japanese friends looked at me with discerning eyes, as a few asked me some questions politely in Japanese to which I answered a simple response. After that, they continued in more complicated, faster Japanese, to which I will respond "Pardon me, my Japanese is very bad" in Japanese. Slightly taken aback, one of the girls says to me in broken English, "but your accent is so natural sounding!" They all were also surprised that I have a Japanese middle name. "Satoru-kun" they called me for the remainder of the evening, just like my Grandma used to on occasion when I was little. There were several times that I felt like these new friends in Madison, like a foreign student, yet not being fluent and having a lot of pidgin words thrown into my Japanese vocabulary, I cannot say that I am totally comfortable in my communication skills. Perhaps one of the most interesting experiences I've had so far in Madison was trying to explain to my adopted Korean roommate about race relations in Hawaii and realizing that it was a much more difficult task than I had imagined. Is there any possible way to explain the fateful institutions and events of history that had brought together the ancestors of my friends and families and the foundation of the Aloha spirit that was instilled by an ancient people into me regardless of blood right? For a person of color living in America watching TV and the media portray the white American dream as he gazes into his adopted parent's faces and constantly asking himself why he doesn't look like them, Hawaii may seem like a dream world to him. Before he fell asleep, he told me that Hawaii seemed like a paradise for him. He said that he would like to move there with his girlfriend and raise their kids because they would be Hapa, and that he would hate to see them grow up in the Midwest. "Do you think it fit in if I moved to Hawaii?" He asked. "Just as long as you don't open your mouth too much." I said. I have become a sort of novelty, or at least that is what I feel like sometimes, especially when I am introduced to people as "Dan the Hawaiian" or "This is my friend Dan, he's from Hawaii". Recently I applied for an international co-op that featured 13 domestic, 13 international students for 26 very competitive spots in a newly renovated graduate dorm. I am going to make the assumption that my place of birth had something to do with the selection. Usually I am stuck dumb by the stories and emotions I see in the issues of race on the mainland, no where even close to an image of multiculturalism. Understandably trying to define Hawaii's multiculturalism to outsiders to Hawaii's culture is almost impossible, but I have found one simple example that I have been able to use with some success: At the Wailana Coffee Shop in Waikiki one evening I shared a conversation with friend and her grandparents. Grandfather here starts talking about his grandparents. His grandfather was from China, who married a woman from Madeira, Portugal. His other grandfather was full-blooded Hawaiian, married to a woman from England. They all met here in the islands. Grandma here is Chinese, Hawaiian, English and Japanese. They all also met on the island of Hawaii more than a century ago. Now imagine the legacy of such multi-ethnic offspring on a large community-wide scale. Racial tensions between ethnic groups would have to cease because the powerful issue of race has become a point of commonality. The biggest difference from Hawaii and the rest of the world in terms of multiculturalism is the sincere respect and interest in each ethnic group in Hawaii in other cultures and other traditions regardless of their own ethnic background. You on one hand have a full Local Haole born and raised, blue-eyed, blond-haired studying Japanese in high school and a member of a Hula Halau. Over here you have an Yonsei local Japanese who frequents Palama supermarket for Kim chee and Char Hung Sut for Manapua, and Yama's for Hawaiian Plate lunch. Go to any Bon dance on the island and try and guess the ethnicity of the people attending and dancing. Go to Chinatown and see if you see only Chinese shops there and only Chinese customers on the streets. Go to Honolulu cemeteries and see how many racially mixed names you find on the headstones. I have seen on the mainland, to a certain extent that minorities and people of color seem to have an overlying need for self-identity and definition to the point that it comes defensive, racist, unpleasant. There is an enormous difference between Ethnic pride and Ethnic identity. Everyone should have a sense of pride in their ethnicity and identity that they can stand behind, but it should never be to the point that they impose their views and opinions on others that are different. Hawaii's multiculturalism is a result of the mixed up collection of people from diverse walks of life, backgrounds, and ethnicity all living here in a warm, crowded place, with no single group dominating every aspect of human existence, the media, money, land, politics, culture, food, language. For me personally defining my cultural roots has become a sort of quest for me. Like a flood of memories and realizations of 20+ years this course has come as an outlet for this internal search that I continue each return home. Multiculturalism in Hawaii is living and breathing well in the events and people that still reside in the islands. Every memory, every thought, every action, every person is a part of the microcosm of Hawaii's ethnic and cultural mix. It resides in the powerful response that comes from hearing Bradda Iz recite the words of "Hawaii 78". It is about the meaning of "Onipa'a", the drive of the Hawaiian people to right the wrongs committed against a sovereign nation in 1893 against a noble and strong Queen under protest. The naturalization status of Hawaiian subjects prior to the 1893 overthrow, the Massie trial, the Fukunaga murder case, Pearl Harbor, the fact that there was only one small internment camp in Hawaii during WWII because 30% of the workforce was of Japanese ancestry. It is about Lois Ann-Yamanaka, It is Kanakapili and Hoolauluea, the Kahiko and Ballad hula. It is the honest belief of marchers of the night, the faceless woman of the Waialae drive-in, the Kanashibari choking ghosts. It is about the significance of the Democratic revolution of 1954, the Haole plantation system, divide and conquer, "Okinawa-ken butta kaukau". It is heard in the laughter of booga booga, James Grant Benton, Rap, Andy Bumatai, Mel Cabang, Frank Delima, Bu Lai'ia. The occurrence of Omiyagi, Chinese new years, Korean bar maids and the Kuhio grill. The correct way to pronounce "Karate", "Karaoke", "Kaneshiro". About new year's soup, firecrackers, mochi and gau. Plate lunch from L&L, spam musubi, laulau, lomi salmon, kakimochi, li hing mui shave ice, mango chutney from the Punahou Carnival. It is about sunrises at Makapu'u, hotel parties, and throwing pennies at the prostitutes down Kalakaua. I will tell him about my Portage-Hawaiian-Haole Aunty and my Hapa Aunty from Hong Kong, my tough Okinawan Nisei grandma. It is the Honolulu convention center sitting in the middle of Ala Moana collecting debt as my Father's Waikiki has become a plastic, community of hotels and tourists, choked like the Ala Wai canal by the Tilapia of Tourism. It is the fact that I have always considered myself Okinawan-Japanese by blood, American by citizenship, but forever Hawaiian at Heart. Multiculturalism in Hawaii means being who you are and what you are and still coexisting with the thousands of other people who find points of commonality with you as well as differences, but still have the malama, the respect for your differences. I-94 northbound, an hour out of Madison towards the Twin cities just before Eu Claire, between two large white bluffs, Fort McCoy, Wisconsin. I attended a forum discussion group in my dorm one evening last winter talking about the relocation and internment of AJAs on the mainland US during WWII. I was a little surprised that not one of the 60+ students and established professors had ever heard of the 442nd, let alone the 100th that had repeated their basic training just an hour away. I have had several conversations with people I have met at the university of all walks of life, all ethnic backgrounds, from cities like La Crosse, Oshkosh, Anoka, River Falls, Stevens Point, Milwaukee, Green Bay, Chicago, Boston, Kyoto, Tokyo, Taipei, Minneapolis, Bloomington, Urbana, Atlanta, Skokie. Nowhere nearly as noble and brave as Mr. Nishio's mission training there more then 50 years ago, I have to ask myself there must be some reason that I have found myself in the badger state, so far from home. An unsuspecting messenger of sorts, for the Hawaii model of multiculturalism perhaps, a living product of the confusing and ever-changing system of cultures and customs all mixed up to form what we define as "local culture" today. The model of Hawaii's multiculturalism is meant to serve just that, a model, nothing more. It is an experiment that continues today in the ever-changing world of people and cultures and identity. Multiculturalism as seen in Hawaii can only exist in Hawaii but the important message is human beings from diverse backgrounds and ethnic groups can find points of commonality and live in relative racial peace. Mr. Nishio passed away last summer, sadly a week before he was to come over for dinner to play some music. After coming home after this past spring semester I went with my father to Punchbowl cemetery to hang the beautifully woven haku lei that my mother had made to hang on his niche on the side of punchbowl. "PFC 100th, 442nd" embossed his marker. |