The Dilemma of Being Haole

The term haole literally means “without breath,” ha being the breath of life that is shared in such many-faceted words as aloha. Thus the initial designation the Hawaiians gave to foreigners, or white people, may well have had negative connotations already. Albeit or because of their ever-increasing influence in Hawaiian history, haole has become a derogatory term, a label that nobody wants to wear. The opposition Local-haole probably derives from the pre-WWII era, when a growing military presence began to cause open hostilities as evidenced in the Massie case. Though translated today as “Caucasian,” the word also connotes outsider, intruder, nosey and greedy foreigner, legatee of explorers, missionaries, and sugar barons.

In several of Ian MacMillan’s short stories, the contemporary position of Caucasians in Local society is negotiated. In “Termites,” a short story from his 1998 collection Exiles from Time, the male narrator is troubled by his wife’s bluntness in

“politically sensitive” matters, as exemplified by her newspaper column: As a descendant of poor Swedish immigrants who had no part in the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, she refuses to accept charges of responsibility and shrugs off “the burden of white guilt.”⁴⁰⁷ When their blonde little daughter angrily asks if the family was not “at least part Japanese,” she replies that they are “Caucasians, of Swedish and English descent.” The seven-year old goes on: “But aren’t I one local people den?” and is lectured: “’First,’ she said, ‘it’s ‘then’, not ‘den’. Second, the word ‘local’ here would mean those whose families have been here generations, and we have been here fifteen years. Third, it’s ‘am I not a local person?’ Not, ‘aren’t I a people?’” (12). Nevertheless, the teenage son is sure he is “as local as you can get,” and the following scenes of interaction with the neighbors,

406 In Hawai’i Review 22 No. 2 (Summer 1999): 50-62, here 51.

407 Ian MacMillan, “Termites,” in Exiles from Time, Honolulu 1998: 13. MacMillan, who is renowned for his World War II novels (and has been labeled “the Stephen Crane of World War II” by Kurt Vonnegut), grew up in rural New York State and came to Hawai’i to teach creative literature. He probably has a good idea of what it is like to be a newcomer in the islands.

Rocky and Akelina Souza, suggest that Caucasians can belong if they ‘play by the rules.’⁴⁰⁸ They may not be considered Local by some, but they bond over universal/gendered/island concerns such as worrying over their kids, sharing beer, and discussing pest control.

The more recent arrivanls in “Brain Food,” on the contrary, are outsiders, and in the case of the parents, will remain so. The son, however, with the telling haole name Rich Harrison, devotes himself to fishing, and learns how to prepare a Local dish from the squid he caught. Moreover, he goes through a kind of initiation when he bites out the octopus’ eyes to win the respect of his Local peers, endowed with the equally telling names Skippa Moniz and Clayton Leong. The story seems to say that while you might have to ‘grow up Local’ in order to speak Pidgin and be a true insider, you can ‘taste’ and accept the place by sharing lifestyle, behavior, and food, by letting Locals teach you their way of doing and seeing things. Openness and humility will get you much further than arrogance and prejudice. MacMillan illustrates this point in a more recent story entitled

“Aquatic Social Dynamics:” Coming out of the water, a haole skin diver spots some Hawaiians whom he had encountered in the ocean. To him, they look menacing and ferocious, but when they recognize their fellow underwater-addict, “in two seconds all three faces underwent an amazing metamorphosis – the defiant looks melted away, replaced by three smiles as amiable and warm as I can ever remember seeing.”⁴⁰⁹

Asked about reverse discrimination (now that Hawaii’s literary scene is finally Local/Asian-dominated), MacMillan agrees:

In the old days it didn’t matter who wrote something, but nowadays it does. The identity of the author is connected with the work, particularly in authenticity of voice, which is assumed to be connected with ethnicity. […] Projection of the imagination is what it’s all about. It’s the exact opposite of what seems to be going on right now. Circumstances seem to urge people to write about themselves.

Contrary to that, I write about whatever gets my imagination going.⁴¹⁰

408 The name ‘Souza’ suggests Portuguese origin. In Hawai’i, people of Portuguese origin are not

considered haole but are accepted as Local, because the Portuguese came as poor laborers, not as members of the missionary/sugar planter/annexationist class.

409 Ian MacMillan, “Aquatic Social Dynamics,” in Ullambana and Other Stories from Hawai’i, Honolulu 2002, quoted from a review article in Honolulu Weekly, 02/12-18/2003: 13.

410 Ibid.

While this may be true, this statement ignores a Local literary history of denying ethnic writers their voices: In the ‘old days’ as today, matters of economy and discourse decided whose text got published and advertised, and whose writings were ignored and disqualified – bear in mind Michener’s assessment that “these Orientals did not produce a literature of their own.” One can hardly blame the Bamboo Ridge group for taking care of the voices that were neglected before, for catering to their own kind. They have worked hard for an avenue, an arena, and they continue to put all their efforts into this provision.

Some sentences from Maxine Hong Kingston’s preface to the 1998 paperback edition of her essay collection Hawai’i One Summer may serve to complement the label discussion, indicating that haole does not simply mean “white” but connotes foreigner, outsider, usurper:

The literary community in Hawai’i argues over who owns the myths and stories, whether the local language and writings should be exported to the Mainland, whether or not so-and-so is authentic, is Hawaiian. […] I felt the kapu – these are not your stories to write; these myths are not your myths; the Hawaiians are not your people. You are haole. You are katonk.⁴¹¹

While being critical of an apparent provincialism and resenting an authenticity discourse she had to enter in the controversy over The Woman Warrior, Kingston acknowledges that Locals, and especially native Hawaiians, might have a point in holding on to the stories that are uniquely their own. Although she did not hesitate to write the stories she felt were hers to tell, the writer was sensitive enough to imaginatively accept the idiosyncrasy of the Hawaiian microcosm: “Once, on the Big Island, Pele struck me blind.

She didn’t want me to look at her, nor to write about her. I could hear her say, ‘So you call yourself Woman Warrior, do you? Take that.’ I feel fear even now as I write her name” (xii).

In his 1998 Hawai’i novel The Red Wind, MacMillan has dealt differently with the presumptuousness of projecting his imagination, writing “a metafictional indication of my awareness of my presumption.” The protagonist reflects on his building of a canoe, thinking: “The wood was sacred. The Red Wind was in the hands of an alien, one not born worthy of it, and more than anything else he feared that he didn’t have the skill to do

411 Kingston 1998: xi-xii. Kapu means taboo, one of the few Polynesian words besides tattoo and hula that have made it into the English language. Katonk is a Local term for mainland Japanese.

it justice. He had to have the nerve, or the arrogance, he wasn’t sure, to cross beyond that.”⁴¹²

In other words, if America, like China or Japan or Korea is part of a vast Asian-Pacific network, then claiming America is not necessarily a denial of Asia, but rather, a disclaiming of the United States as an Anglo-Saxon preserve. Replacing or vying with the notion of America as an extension of European civilization is the idea of an Asia-Pacific that extends into America.

Rachel C. Lee – The Americas of Asian American Literature: Gendered Fictions of Nation and Transnation⁴¹³