Dem Haoles: Imagining Whiteness, Hawaiian Style

By Brian M. Gilpin

Dem Haoles is an innovative and entertaining study of white privilege. Set against the backdrop of Hawaii, Dem Haoles explores how white people or haoles are portrayed and why. The exploration is guided by the concept of images or archetypes, employed to classify and dissect haole representation. Dem Haoles mines normally mundane entertainment vehicles like romantic comedies and action hero dramas and reveals that these artifacts of popular culture are more than mindless entertainment. They are in fact well camouflaged political messaging.

The focus on popular culture examined through image analysis makes Dem Haoles entertaining and informative. The examination of popular media is detailed and thorough and will evoke deep nostalgic sentiments. While the insightful analysis of images, its mechanics, and intent will provoke critical thinking. Together this combination makes Dem Haoles a unique and rewarding experience that will both invalidate old perceptions about Hawaii and ruin the simple pleasure of mindless entertainment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 27, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664176393

Brian M. Gilpin

Brian M. Gilpin is a dedicated student of history and advocate of diverse thought. Recently retired from a long career as a Business and Technology Executive, Dem Haoles represents his first publication. Originally born and raised in Hawaii, Gilpin identifies himself as local boy with bi-racial heritage, having a Caucasian father and Japanese mother. His experiences, living in a white minority society and navigating the space between two distinctly different heritages forms the basis for his writing. He currently resides in the upwardly mobile town of Novato in Northern California where he lives with his wife Patty. They have two adult children, an AI scientist daughter and an aspiring writer son.

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Copyright © 2021 by Brian M. Gilpin.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 07/27/2021

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

823202

To Patty my wife and

biggest fan, our children who inspire us

everyday, and my parents for their pioneering courage.

Contents

Glossary of Hawaiian Terms

Preface

Introduction

Early Musings

Approach and Methodology

My Turning Point

Haole Images

Shades of White

Book ’Em, Danno

The Big Kahuna

Image and Purpose

Commander and King

Kill Haole Day

You No Live Hea, You No Surf Hea

Other Haole Images

The Coming of Lono

Image/Other Dynamics, Purpose, and Function

A Challenge to the Divinity Model

A Divine Feast

Manifest Destiny

The Vanishing Frontier

Convergence in Hawaii

The King

Whip

Art Imitating Life

Another Apotheosis?

Hanna Ho

Be There, Aloha

The Prequels

Enter the Demigod

Kumu Baby

The Man

Book ’Em

Wo Is Me

Who Dat?

Fairly Lucky You Live Hawaii

Action Hero

Bromance

Ohana

Fatman

Mythologies

Strangers in Paradise

Haoles in Paradise

On the Reef

Rock a Hula

Building Aloha

Cowabunga

Real Kine

Made Men

New Kine

Continuation

Doing Good and Well

Tending the Flock

Making Confession

Myth Making

The Bounty Hunter

The White Knight

All Creatures Big and Small

Homegrown

Das Why Hard

Kamaaina

Tiki Culture

Arizona Dreamin’

Bustin’ Down the Door

Nifty Fifty

Noir

Protecting the Union

Anchors Away

Connections

Damn Yankees

The Wanderers

The Stash

Who Done It?

Are We There Yet?

Bad Dreams

It Is the Destination

Picture This

Armchair Surfing

Beyond Images

Story Time

Talkin’ Story

The Golden Man

Defaultin’

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Glossary of

Hawaiian Terms

W ords and concepts unique to Hawaiian society are part of the text. Where possible, I have attempted to maintain the integrity of the Hawaiian, including the use of diacritical markings. While definitions of words and terms are explained in the text, this short list of the most frequently used terms is included below for convenience.

Ali’i: Hawaiian noblity

Aumakua: Family guardian spirits that often take animal form

Hapa: Mixed race person usually half Caucasian and half either Hawaiian or Asian

Haole: Term for foreigner, usually Caucasian

Heiau: Hawaiian temple and high place of whorship

Kahuna: Hawaiian shaman or expert in a particular field of study

Kama’aina: Long term Hawaii resident that is not native Hawaiian

Kanaka (Maoli): Indigenous Hawaiians

Kapu: System of rules and laws defining the Hawaiian social structure

Kuleana: Concept of responsibility for the greater good

Kumu: Teacher of any discipline (kumu hula = hula teacher; kumu kula = school teacher)

Luau: Hawaiian feast

Mele: Song or chant

Menehune: Legendary nocturnal Hawaiian dwarfs who were superb builders and mischievous pranksters

Mo’olelo: Stories, myths, and legends

Ohana: Family of choice or birth

Okolehau: Hawaiian moonshine made from the root of the ti plant

Paniolo: Hawaiian cowboy

Pake: Hawaiian term for Chinese

Pidgin: Hawaiian creole based on the merging of Hawaiian, English, and Asian immigrant languages

Preface

T his is a very personal and as a result a very biased history. It is in large part dictated by my experiences growing up hapa haole or, to make it sound a little more exotic, Eurasian. Implicit in that statement is the fact that ethnicity is a huge part of who I am. And the fact that I had to frequently bridge two cultures allowed me a level of objectivity and sensitivity, not usually available to those possessing a singular ethnic alignment. In short, I could culturally detach myself and view my situation through the eyes of the other.

This concept of the other, which is very big in literary criticism (more about that later in the section on methodology), is the basis for my exploration of the haole image. In Hawaii, haole is the label no local, or want-to-be local, ever wants to acquire. It carries various negative stigmas and in general signifies not belonging. It is shorthand for outsider. Now there is the term kamaaina, which sort of means you are white but accepted. Kind of like white folks from the mainland who went native and have completely bought into the Hawaiian lifestyle. This book is not about them.

Rather, this book is about the different images of whiteness against the backdrop of Hawaii. You might say it is about haole archetypes and how those archetypes mirrored changes in both Hawaiian society and the larger American context. Although archetypes by definition imply a sense of stasis, the fact of the matter is that archetypes constantly evolve within the context of the larger society.

Haoles have alternatively been characterized as gods, demigods, saints, seekers, rogues, and vagabonds. Within those broad categories there have been sub-images that align with specific historical periods. For instance, the basic haole as villain or the rogue image is repeated with historical variation, as sailors during the nineteenth century, second-generation missionary businessmen in the early twentieth century, and military interlopers during the ’20s and ’30s. Likewise, the haole as god image was first established with the arrival of Captain Cook in the eighteenth century and repeated in the mid–twentieth century with Governor John A. Burns and the quest for statehood.

Not that all haoles, or for that matter any group of people, can easily fit into convenient categories. These categorical containers are in essence structures that bring order to chaos. Put another way, they are filters that help us comprehend the complexity and variety that exists in our world. Some might simply call them generalizations, but that would discount the dynamic nature of images. On the surface, an image like the haole is a form of classification. Deeper, however, the image of the haole is a form of societal reinforcement. It conveys values on the haole but also communicates something about the other, the nonhaoles. For instance, if the haoles are villains, their villainy must be compared against the naivete of the nonvillains. The wickedness of sailors has to be compared against the innocence of natives. Image does not exist in a vacuum. There must always be an other or opposing portrayal as legitimizer. There must always be dialogue.

But who controls and popularizes the image? Usually whoever controls the vehicle of communication. And though the focus here is on the image of whiteness in Hawaii, the audience for that image is much less local Hawaiian society than it is the larger American or mainland one. From books and magazines that provided information and entertainment, to films and television shows, the haole image was engineered for consumption by American society and only transmitted back to Hawaii as an export. Is it no wonder that real locals will seldom admit watching Hawaii 5-O!

Again, the chapters that follow are my interpretation. It is a very personal kind of history that allows me to share my introspection on the subject. Although I do try to be historically accurate and logical, the truth this book produces is relative to my experiences and insights. Years ago, I read a wonderful history of a sixteenth-century semiliterate Italian merchant who devised his own theory of creation based on his observations of rotting cheese. Written by Carlos Ginzburg and called The Cheese and the Worms, this story was an intriguing window into how the merchant Domenico Scandella tried to make sense of his world based on his unique frame of reference. Alas, poor Domenico was tried for heresy, tortured, and burned at the stake. My ambition is not to create a cosmology, only to share an authentic perspective that I hope tortures neither you nor me.

Introduction

I remember days when we were wiser

When our world was small enough for dreams

And you have lingered there my sister

And I no longer can it seems

—Jerry Santos and Rick Beaumont, Home

Early Musings

T he idea for this inquiry was not a linear one. Rather, a series of seemingly unconnected events, mostly readings in the beginning and later movies and TV programs, combined to produce a kind of mental catharsis that resulted in my thinking about the haole image. Of course, being hapa and growing up in Hawaii was also part of the mix. In addition, I had always had an interest in history and particularly in how history is written and the perspective from which it is written. This means that I tend to look at any phenomena or collections of facts from multiple perspectives and usually spend as much time trying to understand those intellectual biases as I do on the actual argument of the narrative. Being tuned to that kind of analysis, or what is fashionably referred to as critical thinking, means I tend not to accept the default value of anything. It means that I am inclined to want to explore the question of why and what if.

The reading part of my intellectual gestation began during one of my periodic family visits to Hawaii, when I had the good fortune to stay at the Moana Hotel in Waikiki. One of my best friend’s daughters was getting married, and the Moana was the venue for the event. For those of you who have never been to the Moana or have never visited Waikiki, staying at the hotel is like a voyage back to the early years of the twentieth century. The hotel is a virtual living symbol of white haole colonial privilege from that period. Some might argue that this honor belongs to the Royal Hawaiian (also known as the Pink Palace) or even the Outrigger Canoe Club. Regardless, all are in the business of selling a manufactured Hawaiian safe haven (read: tourist friendly).

Ironically it was here, in that symbol of Hawaiian haoleness, that I unconsciously began to form the broad outline for this book. The Moana has a great lanai (porch) where I would indulge myself in early morning reading, before the rest of the family awoke. I plowed through a couple of histories and reflected on a third. The experience of absorbing the histories and perspectives in these studies and then reflecting on them provided the genesis for my exploration of the haole image.

I started with H. W. Brands’s American Colossus: The Triumph of Capitalism, an excellent multidimensional study of America’s meteoric expansion in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Brands’s reference to Hawaii places the haole usurpation of 1892 firmly within the context of America’s obsession with Manifest Destiny, an ideology that rationalized American expansion and the consequent injustices against a host of indigenous and minority peoples, both in the continental United States and across the globe. Brands’s history started me thinking about haoleness.

As I finished Brands’s book, I noticed that Sarah Vowell had just published her interpretation of Hawaiian history, Unfamiliar Fishes, the title being a reference to an early nineteenth-century quote from David Malo describing the advent of haole migration and its consequences for Hawaii’s future.

If a big wave comes in, large and unfamiliar fishes will come from the dark ocean, and when they see the small fishes of the shallows they will eat them up. The white man’s ships have arrived with clever men from the big countries. They know our people are few in number and our country is small, they will devour us.¹

Vowell’s style is very engaging. It is a mixture of pedestrian language and practicality, peppered with wit and irreverence, as well as a deep-rooted indignation at any kind of injustice. She has elsewhere been described as a hipster social commentator, but I think that discounts the quality of her work. She does her own primary source research and then uses that to come to her own well-thought-out conclusions. Her easy confidence in using her unique voice to retell the story of Hawaii’s acquiesce is novel and compelling. Hers was a very hard book to put down. On a personal level, Vowell provided license for me to pursue my own voice.

As I pondered the possibility of using my own voice to produce a historical work on haoles, I remembered another eccentric history, Dead Certainties by Simon Schama. Although I had read this many years ago, what stuck with me was Schama’s mission. He believed that the job of a historian is to recreate the story in a way that would most engage the reader. To that greater end, he accepted not just recreating events, but enhancing them or fabricating vignettes to make the larger story more interesting. He did this in the two histories he included in Dead Certainties: the first the death of General Wolfe in 1789 at the battle of Quebec and the second the murder of Boston elite George Parkman in 1849. This focus on the larger truth provided my second inspiration, that the creation of containers of truth is much more important that the strict adherence to facts and that these personal interpretations fuel critical thinking and ultimately allow us to have individual perspectives.

The third influence in my haole project was Judy Rohrer’s Haoles in Hawaii. I view this as a seminal study of the haole image in Hawaii. It is a history of interaction between the haoles and Hawaiians (Kanaka Maoli) and haole and locals (Portuguese and Asian immigrants), focusing on the clash of cultural values within the context of a colonial social structure and the ensuing development of cross-cultural animosity. Rohrer also provides great insight into how haole attempts at acculturation have inadvertently heightened that animosity. The perspective that Rohrer advocates, however, does not explore how haoles have alternatively used image as a means to legitimize their behavior. Her study was limited to how others perceived haoles, not how haoles managed their image in contrast to the others. The latter is where my interest lies.

In retrospect, the early influences on the project were Brands providing a historical context, Vowell a voice, Schama a perspective, and Rohrer prepping the field but leaving one part fallow. Already present through personal experience was a desire to better understand the haole presence in Hawaii. What I was missing was a focus and a methodology.

Approach and Methodology

As previously mentioned, I have an affinity for history. Truth be told, I have meandered through history both as an undergraduate and graduate student, and it is a prominent component in my intellectual makeup. One of my many areas of study was historiography or the study of the craft of history. In particular, I was drawn to historical models and systems or the underlying intellectual philosophies employed to present the facts and tell the story. One of my favorite historical philosophers was and continues to be Michel Foucault.

Foucault concentrated on how the ruling class(es) maintained their power in society, spending a lot of time studying the fringes of society, like the birth and management of asylums during the Enlightenment and post-Enlightenment. His generalized thesis is that as Western culture has modernized, power has become more invisible and yet more entrenched. So that in the Middle Ages the power of the monarch was demonstrated by the public torturing of criminals as a deterrent to crime while in today’s society, the unwritten rules of belonging to a social group compel us to comply as in the almost-robotic daily commute routine. Hence, the threat of punishment is hardly as effective as the threat of not belonging.

This sense of belonging presupposes that to be part of a group, there must be others that are not a part of a group. Alternatively, if you are to define yourself as belonging to a group, you must have a contra group to compare against. In probably the most famous of Foucault’s examples, Madness and Civilization, he demonstrates that in order to have a rational populace, you must have a populace that is irrational; you must have at least a minority of the mad so that you can say everything that is not mad is rational or civilized. This is the concept of the other.

Employing Foucault’s model in the context of past and contemporary colonial politics in the Middle East, Edward Said provided diverse examples of the effectiveness of the other as a societal control. Said’s seminal work, Orientalism, focused primarily on British colonialism in the Middle East. The concept of the other justified British occupation by not only promoting British superiority, but more importantly comparing that superiority against the inferiority of the indigenous population. In a kind of vicious cycle, the dynamic of the other imposes inferiority on the other necessitating domination in a self-perpetuating logic.

Image and image building are the products of otherness. Positive images are built for those in power and negative for those that are powerless or less powerful. The diametrically opposed images become so ingrained that they are accepted as truth’s default values² and are hardly ever challenged. One need only look at recent history to witness a time when white men were viewed as superior in all things and minorities and women as a result relegated to inferior positions in society. The dynamics of otherness and the construction of images are creations, both conscious and unconscious, that are used to establish and control a society by those in power. They are not truths; they are deliberately manufactured tools that serve specific political and societal purposes. As Daniel Boorstin so succinctly stated in The Image, An illusion, on the other hand, is an image we have mistaken for reality.

In the pages that follow, I will be using this concept of image building and the other to shed light on portrayals of haoleness. I propose that there are a handful of archetypal haole images that are recycled throughout Hawaiian history for specific political and social purposes. The images show up in various forms of media: short stories, travelogues, novels, television programs, and movies. And because they show up in media that is primarily owned, controlled, or consumed by haoles, the images have a political purpose. Whether the image is right or wrong, good or bad is not the focus of my exploration. Rather, my goal is to use select historical examples to show how the images are being recycled and enhanced to promote an agenda and challenge you to think critically about that agenda.

But beware. As I have learned in my research, knowledge has its own pitfalls. The images that you took for granted and maybe even enjoyed will become subjects for critical thinking. Instead of following the fantasy of a grade B movie plot, you may find yourself totally immersed in examining the otherness dynamic in the formation of an image. You may even be compelled to investigate underlying political, social, and even economic agendas. What you won’t be is bored.

My Turning Point

With my intellectual foundation set, the catalyst for the book really came while I was watching The Descendants, a movie about a haole family that just happens to live in Hawaii and how they cope with a major life crisis. The story would have been compelling regardless of the setting. But to me what stood out was how the haole is depicted as the classic hero on a journey. Matt King, the main character, has a series of challenges or, in classic Greek mythology, labors he has to overcome: his wife’s impending death, his disintegrating nuclear family, his wife’s lover, and the breakup and sale of the family estate held in trust. And like his heroic Greek predecessors Ulysses and Heracles, he rises to each of the challenges in heroic fashion. In the end, with his quest successfully realized, he enjoys the comfort of a bowl of ice cream with his daughters, while sharing a traditional Hawaiian quilt, as an NPR program on emperor penguins plays in the background.

The haole image of Matt King is packed with information, some of it quasi confessional as when he laments about their outsider life in Hawaii:

Even though we’re haole as shit and go to private schools and clubs and can’t even speak pidgin, let alone Hawaiian, we still carry Hawaiian blood, and we’re still tied to this land. And our children are tied to this land. It’s a miracle that for whatever bullshit reason 150 years ago, we own this much of . . . paradise, but we do.

Matt King and his family may live in Hawaii and even have Hawaiian blood, but they are not of Hawaii. They live a very different and privileged lifestyle, and they differentiate themselves from the local culture both consciously and unconsciously. In short, their haoleness is everything that localness is not. This is the dynamic of the other.

Another great example of this dynamic comes early in the movie, in the scene in which Matt needs to take his youngest daughter, Scotty, to apologize for tormenting one of her local classmates. Not looking forward to this confrontation, Matt laments, See what I mean? Everybody sees me as the rich guy, the inheritor. People resent us. I resent us. Even our last name—King. How irritating. Here Matt acknowledges the existence of otherness. This fundamental distinction is further illustrated in the actual visit to the local family. Their home, being very local, has a sense of disorder, which in itself is very authentic and thematically neutral. However, that image will later contrast with the upper-class gentility of the Kings’ house in Manoa. So if the viewer missed the elevated status of the King family in some of the opening dialogue, it is firmly reinforced here.

More subtle and powerful though are Matt’s heroic actions and how those actions build the heroic persona or the haole image, particularly as compared to actions by the non or fringe haole characters. Matt is the devoted husband, father, and trustee, struggling to do what is right and what is hard. He is deceived by his wife, alienated from his children, disrespected by his father-in-law, and financially pressured by his extended family. Against all of this, Matt King perseveres and meets every challenge in the image of the common man hero. He expresses the deepness of his devotion to his wife, he reunites with his children on a quest, he accepts his father-in-law’s blame as a demonstration of grief, and he preserves the sanctity of the family trust in the spirit of the founders. No small list of achievements in a 115-minute film!

I now had a theme and a focus, the haole image. Matt King was just one such image, but there were others I began to think about. What about Elvis in Blue Hawaii and Steve McGarrett in both versions of Hawaii 5-O? What image of haoleness were those characters trying to project and to what end?

Haole Images

Matt King’s heroic common man is one among a handful of images that are repeated in popular media involving Hawaii. Whether in fiction, nonfiction, television, or movies, there are six basic haole archetypes that are continually reincarnated. These are gods, demigods, saints, seekers, rogues, and vagabonds. Within those six, there is much variation and even overlap, but by and large the portrayal of haoles in the context of Hawaii falls into one of those major categories.

I want to emphasize that what follows is a discussion of image and image formation in the service of critical thinking. For clarity’s sake, I want to reemphasize that I am not focused on individual haoles or groups of haoles living in Hawaii. Rather, the focus is on the deliberate manufacturing of haole images through the media within the context of Hawaii. Although there is much ethnic diversity in Hawaii and for the most part there is peace and at times even harmony among them, differences can also spark confrontation. I do not want any of my concepts to add fuel to any potential interracial fire. I do not want my discourse on the haole image to be ammunition for haole bashing. I do want my interpretation of the haole image to challenge you and to get you to think critically about what the media forces us to consume. I do want to contribute to a movement that refuses to accept default values, a movement that seeks to understand others and the complex context in which we live. If you can accept that as a mission, please read on.

Shades of White

Mr Conrad Jones, got plenty swimming pool

Got plenty swimming pool, but he no gives to me

And he’s just a mean old Haole man

—Keola and Kapono Beamer, Mr. Sun Cho Lee

H awaii is one of the few places in the United States where there is only one shade of white. Being Irish, Swedish, Italian, or French doesn’t matter; the Hawaii gaze only sees haoles. Most of Hawaii’s haoles take the form of tourists whose temporary migrations to the islands have been estimated to boost the annual population by as much as ten million (calculated as unique visitors). ³ More recently, however, many of those tourists have been seeking more permanent accommodations. In fact, predominant haole communities seem to be a fact of life, with the west side of the Oahu (Kapolei) being specifically recommended for relocating mainlanders, as well as whole planned elite communities on the neighbor islands. HGTV programs like Hawaiian Life and Hawaii Hunters track primarily mainland haoles searching for their Hawaiian getaway. ⁴ No doubt part of the attraction is the climate and easy lifestyle, not to mention the prestige of owning a piece of paradise. Those coming from the mainland, many of them in the highest-earning stages of their careers, have money to burn. All that money entering the local economy has the tendency to increase real estate prices and add inflationary pressure to an already expensive place to live. In addition, most of those haole acquisitions are actually second homes. So even though haole property ownership appears to be increasing, haole residency as part of the total population has remained fairly steady at approximately 25 percent over the last twenty years. ⁵ Haole influence, however, far exceeds its proportion of the population. After a period of local cultural and political ascendency in the late twentieth century, haoles have begun to reassert their hegemony. Challenges to racial exclusion at Kamehameha and the designation of hate crimes for haole bashing are front-page news. ⁶ The invasive haole property trend coupled with a more aggressive haole politics can produce some very negative haole images. But that is not the image broadcast in the media. Over the last ten years, the most prevalent haole image in and from Hawaii has been Steve McGarrett in the rebooted version of Hawaii 5-O. ⁷

Book ’Em, Danno

Early in 2020, the remade Hawaii 5-O announced its tenth and final season after at least two major cast revisions and multiple plotlines arching to conclusion. The current 5-O is a remake of the 1970s long-running CBS classic that featured Jack Lord as Commander Steve McGarrett. Book ’Em, Danno was the signature tagline of the 70s 5-O delivered by McGarrett to his sidekick Danno, signifying the end of an episode. In simplest terms, 5-O past and present is a crime drama set in Hawaii starring an elite task force battling crime week after week. In its ten seasons, average viewership for the new series has ranged between 10 and 12 million people across the United States per episode.⁸ As it progressed into its fourth season, 5-O was moved to Friday-night prime time from Monday. Reruns are easily accessible via on-demand technology or cable subscriber websites. And TNT has bought rights to reruns that began airing in 2014. Next to reruns of Dog the Bounty Hunter (on A&E and available through streaming and its spin-offs, Dog and Beth and On the Hunt) and Hawaii Life (an HGTV