Islands in Motion: The Transnational Ties Between Japan and Hawaii, 1885-1945

Native Hawaiians have been joined on their islands by Japanese, Filipino, Chinese, and Europeans in recent centuries. Because of this, Hawaii has generally had a more tolerant attitude towards racial diversity. However, the relationship between Hawaii and Japan is a transnational one that has evolved over generations. In 1941, 37% of Hawaii’s population was Japanese. Beginning with only 150 contract laborers in 1868, immigrants had come from Japan to Hawaii in droves throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries, attracted by steady work and wages. Since then, Japanese people and their descendants have had a marked impact on the culture of Hawaii. Japanese food, language, music, and clothing is inherent to modern Hawaii culture, just as Hawaiian culture is omnipresent in Japan. But when 353 Japanese planes bombed Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, the Japanese-American identity became a threat in the United States. In Hawaii, the intertwining of Japanese and Hawaiian culture fostered an interracial community on the islands, such that when Japan became the enemy of the United States, Japanese-Hawaiians were largely exempt from suspicion. But retaining so much of traditional Japanese culture, as well as trying to assimilate into American culture, created an intricate identity for Japanese-Hawaiians that complicated their relationships to Hawaii, the United States, Japan, and a world at war in general. Part of the panel: Asia in Collision Moderator: Professor Jennifer Kerns