The Colonization of Hawaiian Identity The idea that identity can be measured, reduces the complexity of a person’s social identity to their biology and functions to shape race narratives in a way that leaves the indigenous people at a disadvantage. A continuous battle over sovereignty and claims to land continue today as many struggle with meeting the strict blood quantum regulations required.
The attempt to define Hawaiian identity without having it come from the Native Hawaiians themselves, is rooted in settler colonialism and a misunderstanding of Hawaiian kinship that continues to be perpetuated by legislation. This strict colonial imposition onto the Native peoples of Hawaii has aided in the slow erasure of the Native Hawaiian peoples
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The Eurocentric views of whiteness being directly correlated to superiority and civilization was used a tool to exploit native peoples while legalizing entitlement to lands that have already been discovered (Miller, 2010, p.87). The process of land dispossession had a profound negative impact on Native peoples. Their identity became outlined by colonial institutions rather than from their own definition. The conflicting methods of defining identity is integral to Kauanui’s Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity. In her work, she describes how indigenous Hawaiians themselves have historically determined their identity through genealogy and a system of common descent. This inclusive and expansive method of determining identity established relationships and was the basis of social identity in their hierarchal class society (Kauanui, 2008, p.38) In contrast to this, the 1921 Hawaiian Homes and Commission Act imposed an arbitrary blood quantum in an effort to measure cultural orientation. In order to claim indigeneity, one had to have at least 50% blood “purity”. Although this 50% rule was viewed as more “scientific,” the blood quantum made assumptions about indigenous concepts of genealogy which undermined its fluidity and attempted to quantify race, a …show more content…
In light of the hostility towards the Asian community, the Chinese Exclusion Act was integral to the blood racialization of the Hawaiians through the Hawaiian Homes and Commission Act. By doing so, the US Government defined Hawaiians as US Citizens, therefore excluding Asian immigrants from land entitlement (Kaunuai, 2008, p.68) Through the HHCA, the US government limited those who qualified for the land provisions that was proposed by the Hawaiian rehabilitation plan. Hawaiians who fulfilled the 50 percent rule were deemed eligible for land leasing but could not gain title to those lands due because they were not viewed as capable enough. On the other hand, those with a blood quantum of less than 50% were assumed to be able to secure their own property and compete in the free-market economy therefore restricted from land leasing (Kaunuai, 2008, p.164). Because the restrictions and assumptions of Hawaiians were based on arbitrary measures of blood, the Hawaii rehabilitation plan failed in truly helping Hawaiians who were facing high rates of impoverishment and unemployment. This land distribution parallels the Dawes Act of 1887, which privatized land ownership and facilitated the Native Americans into Eurocentric culture. The act justified their land dispossession and reduced the amount of land they were entitles to over time (Sturm, 2014, p.592). Additionally, both acts
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Show MoreToday, Hawaii had one of the world's’ most multicultural populations. If we didn’t imperialize on Hawai who knows what history could be like today, but I know it has helped the U.S. in battles, economy, and dominance over communist countries today. Today, Hawaii is granted representation in the congress and senate, and the birthplace of our current president, Barack Obama. Hawaii, as a U.S. state, is guaranteed the freedom of all citizens and safe from foreign aggression. If we didn’t imperialize on Hawai who knows what history could be like today, but I know it has helped the U.S. in battles, economy, and dominance over communist countries
In 1742 the chief of Onondaga of the Iroquois Confederacy knew that his land that the people shared would become more valuable than it has ever been. (Doc B)The reason for this was because the “white people” also known as the Americans wanted the land of the chief. The feelings of the Chief result in complaining to the representatives of Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia,
The Dawes Allotment Act of 1887 authorized individual allotment of reservation lands to to be tribal citizens and granted citizenship to the allotte upon the termination of the trust status of the land. This created a checkerboard map where Native Americans were mixed with whites. Hence the word, "checkerboard" effect. The Act affected Natives by taking away millions of acres of their land. Furthermore, this Act is the reason why many Native land is separated into nations.
Even though people have no direct connection with one another, they could find similarities and differences within each other by observing individual’s life. In the memoir, The Red-Headed Hawaiian by Chris McKinney and Rudy Puana, a life of Rudy has been described from his childhood to his adulthood. The journey of Rudy Puana starts with cultural identity and ends in cultural identity, in which Hawaiian and haole culture became obstacles as well as solutions to his problem. Throughout Rudy’s educational period, he experienced mistreatment, hardship, and recoveries from the undesirable conditions. His life is especially different from other life as well as from my life.
“I worked and raised my crops, pineapple, bananas, onions, yams, pumpkins, watermelons, sugar cane, oranges, replanted and all began to grow again were all pulled up” (Puamana). This shows that the division of land had an economic impact on the Hawaiian people because it shows first-hand an account of how the division caused land to get taken away from natives. The sectioning off takes away room for crops to be grown, therefore, fewer crops to sell. Those lost crops could have been used to make money by selling to customers, therefore losing money for Hawaiian landowners who grew crops on their lands. Before the Mahele, people who used to grow crops on their lands would be able to sell most of those crops for money and save some for food.
1. How did Dawes Act effected the Native Americans? Dawes Act is the 1887 General Allotment Act. This act was to force the American Indians, who lived in communal way of life, to live Europeans style of individualism. It provided 160 acres of land for each family head and 80 acres to single persons over the age of eighteen (Reyhner and Eder,2006, p.81).
In an article on Hawaiian Language Policy and the courts, it talks about how Hawaiians nearly lost their whole culture because missionaries wanted to get rid of the Hawaiian language. But the Hawaiian language was the root of the Hawaiian culture. In fact, according to “A Timeline of Revitalization, “Education through the Hawaiian language in both public and private schools is outlawed on the model of U.S. policy towards the use of American Indian languages in education. Teachers are told use of Hawaiian with children will result in termination of employment.”
With the arrival of Anglo-Americans, Native Americans lost much more than just their land. Tribes were forced onto reservations, stripped of their culture, wealth and place in society, with no hope of regaining what they owned unless by complete assimilation. For the latter half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, many Anglo-Americans continually pushed for Native Americans to abandon their cultures and “savage” ways. However, despite the many attempts to force Natives into Anglo-American culture, many Native Americans found ways to negotiate with the demands of the Anglo-Americans through mainly social, economic and legal means.
The United State’s annexation of Hawaii in 1898 led to the gradual destruction of the Hawaiian culture and the almost-extinction of native-born Hawaiians. The majority of the Hawaiian natives opposed the annexation of Hawaii and wanted to maintain their sovereignty. Although the Japanese could have taken over the Hawaiian islands if the United States had not, the annexation of Hawaii by the U.S. was unjustified because of the treatment of the monarchy and natives, the infringement of the natives’ self-established culture and government, and the natives’ overwhelming opposition to the U.S’s involvement in Hawaii. From 1795 to 1874, the Kamehameha Dynasty ruled over the kingdom of the Hawaiian islands. Up until the death of Kamehameha III, the U.S. had stayed out of interfering with the islands.
Hilary Weaver argues in her piece of writing; that identifying indigenous identity is complex, complicated, and hard to grasp when internalized oppression and colonization has turned Native Americans to criticize one another. Throughout the text, Weaver focuses on three main points which she calls, the three facets. Self-identification, community identification, and external identification are all important factors that make up Native American identity. The author uses a story she calls, “The Big game” to support her ideologies and arguments about the issue of identity. After reading the article, it’s important to realize that Native American’s must decide their own history and not leave that open for non-natives to write about.
Dawes Severalty Act De Juan Evans-Taylor Humboldt State University Abstract The Dawes Act of 1887, some of the time alluded to as the Dawes Severalty Act of 1887 or the General Allotment Act, was marked into law on January 8, 1887, by US President Grover Cleveland. This was approved by the president to appropriate and redistribute tribal grounds in the American West. It expressly tried to crush the social union of Indian tribes and to along these lines dispose of the rest of the remnants of Indian culture and society. Just by repudiating their own customs, it was accepted, could the Indians at any point turn out to be genuinely "American."
Losing one’s cultural knowledge, and therefore the reality of their culture, allows others to have control over their collective and individual consciousness as well as their destiny. In this case, it is clear that the United States government has had the dominant relationship over the Native
Science journalist, Charles C. Mann, had successfully achieved his argumentative purpose about the “Coming of Age in the Dawnland.” Mann’s overall purpose of writing this argumentative was to show readers that there’s more to than just being called or being stereotyped as a savage- a cynical being. These beings are stereotyped into being called Indians, or Native Americans (as they are shorthand names), but they would rather be identified by their own tribe name. Charles Mann had talked about only one person in general but others as well without naming them. Mann had talked about an Indian named Tisquantum, but he, himself, does not want to be recognized as one; to be more recognized as the “first and foremost as a citizen of Patuxet,”(Mann 24).
This insensitive approach and method of development in Hawaii leaves the local community departed from its own identity, showing that there is not a single respect and a mercy to the native people. What more clear evidence of cultural prostitution than the desecration and annihilation of very holly burial places of the
Who can speak for a people? I will attempt to shed some light on these questions, using the writings this week of Sahlins, Obeyesekere and Borofsky. I feel the most important question of the three is who can speak for a people, in this case, the Hawaiian people. In this week’s reading, How “Natives” Think, Marshall Sahlins is focused on the question of whether the Hawaiian people were “victims of magical thinking and their own traditions” (p. 1) when they perceived Captain Cook “as a manifestation of their returning year-god Lono” (p. 1).