Hawaii Suffering From Racial Prejudice
INTELLIGENCE REPORT
The Intelligence Report is the SPLC's award-winning magazine.Subscribe here for a print copy.
HAWAII SUFFERING FROM RACIAL PREJUDICE
2009
Fall Issue
August 30, 2009
Larry Keller
For years, Hawaiians have avoided talk of race and hate crimes. That doesn't mean the island state doesn't have a problem
Celia Padron went on a Hawaiian vacation last year, lured by the prospect of beautiful beaches and friendly people. She, her husband and two teenage daughters enjoyed the black sand beach at Makena State Park on Maui. But a Hawaiian girl accosted her two teenage daughters, saying, "Go back to the mainland" and "Take your white ass off our beaches," says Padron, a pediatric gastroenterologist in New Jersey.
When her husband, 68 at the time, stepped between the girls, three young Hawaiian men slammed him against a vehicle, cutting his ear, and choked and punched him, Padron says. Police officers persuaded the Padrons not to press charges, saying it would be expensive for them to return for court appearances and a Hawaiian judge would side with the Hawaiian assailants, the doctor contends.
"There is no doubt in my mind [the attack] was racially motivated," she adds.
With no known hate groups and a much-trumpeted spirit of aloha or tolerance, few people outside Hawaii realize the state has a racism issue. One reason: The tourism-dependent state barely acknowledges hate crimes. That makes it hard to know how often racial violence is directed at Caucasians, who comprise about 25% of the ethnically diverse state's 1.3 million residents. Those who identify themselves as Native Hawaiian — most residents are of mixed race — account for nearly 20%.
Professor Haunani-Kay Trask believes Native Hawaiians have every right to feel hostile toward whites.
Hawaii has collected hate crimes data since 2002 (most states began doing so a decade earlier). In the first six years, the state reported only 12 hate crimes, and half of those were in 2006. (All other things being equal, the state would be expected to have more than 800 such crimes annually, given the size of its population, according to a federal government study of hate crimes.) There was anti-white bias in eight of those incidents. But that doesn't begin to reflect the extent of racial rancor directed at non-Native Hawaiians in the Aloha State, especially in schools. For example:
Little wonder then that as Hawaii prepares to observe the 50th anniversary of becoming the 50th state on Aug. 21, it will a muted celebration, devoid of parades or fireworks.
Classroom Warfare
Tina Mohr has lived in Hawaii for 25 years. She has Native Hawaiian friends. But in the 2003-04 school year, her twin blond-haired daughters, aged 11 at the time, began getting harassed by Native Hawaiian kids at their school on the Big Island. "Our daughters would come home with bruises and cuts," she tells the Intelligence Report.
One of her girls was assaulted twice in the same day. In one scuffle, she had her head slammed into a wall, and her attacker continued to threaten her. Her daughter suffered a dislocated jaw and had headaches for five weeks, Mohr says.
The torment continued in the summer between 5th and 6th grades. Native Hawaiian girls stalked and threatened her daughters and yelled "fukking haole" at them. Midway through the 6th grade, Mohr began to home-school her daughters.
She filed a complaint with the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Education in 2004. It was only recently, on Dec. 31, 2008, that the division finally released its report. The report concluded there was "substantial evidence that students experienced racially and sexually derogatory name-calling on nearly a daily basis on school buses, at school bus stops, in school hallways and other areas of the school" that Mohr's children attended.
The epithets included names such as "f*****g haole," "haole c**t" and "haole whore," according to the report. Students were told "go home" and "you don't belong here." Most of the slurs were directed by "local" or non-white students at Caucasians, especially those who were younger, smaller, light-skinned and blond.
The report also concluded that school officials responded inadequately or not at all when students complained of racial harassment. Students who did complain were retaliated against by their antagonists. "They learned not to report this stuff," Mohr says of her own daughters.
'A Hateful Place'
A violent incident with racial overtones in 2007 near Pearl Harbor prompted a good deal of soul searching about race in Hawaii. A Native Hawaiian man and his teenage son brutally pummeled and kicked a Caucasian soldier and his wife near Pearl Harbor after the soldier's SUV struck the other man's parked car. The son shouted "fukking haole" while attacking the soldier. The husband and wife suffered broken noses, facial fractures and concussions. A prosecutor said the assault was a road-rage incident, not a hate crime. But it generated much debate on newspaper websites and blogs about the use of the word haole and whether whites are the targets of racism in Hawaii.
"It is a hateful place to live if you are white," wrote a woman on one Hawaii website's comments section. A Hawaii native who is white wrote, "Racism exists in Hawaii. My whole life I've never really felt welcome here." A sailor stationed at Pearl Harbor added that "this island is the most racist place I have ever been in my life."
INTELLIGENCE REPORT
The Intelligence Report is the SPLC's award-winning magazine.Subscribe here for a print copy.
HAWAII SUFFERING FROM RACIAL PREJUDICE
2009
Fall Issue
August 30, 2009
Larry Keller
For years, Hawaiians have avoided talk of race and hate crimes. That doesn't mean the island state doesn't have a problem
Celia Padron went on a Hawaiian vacation last year, lured by the prospect of beautiful beaches and friendly people. She, her husband and two teenage daughters enjoyed the black sand beach at Makena State Park on Maui. But a Hawaiian girl accosted her two teenage daughters, saying, "Go back to the mainland" and "Take your white ass off our beaches," says Padron, a pediatric gastroenterologist in New Jersey.
When her husband, 68 at the time, stepped between the girls, three young Hawaiian men slammed him against a vehicle, cutting his ear, and choked and punched him, Padron says. Police officers persuaded the Padrons not to press charges, saying it would be expensive for them to return for court appearances and a Hawaiian judge would side with the Hawaiian assailants, the doctor contends.
"There is no doubt in my mind [the attack] was racially motivated," she adds.
With no known hate groups and a much-trumpeted spirit of aloha or tolerance, few people outside Hawaii realize the state has a racism issue. One reason: The tourism-dependent state barely acknowledges hate crimes. That makes it hard to know how often racial violence is directed at Caucasians, who comprise about 25% of the ethnically diverse state's 1.3 million residents. Those who identify themselves as Native Hawaiian — most residents are of mixed race — account for nearly 20%.
Professor Haunani-Kay Trask believes Native Hawaiians have every right to feel hostile toward whites.
Hawaii has collected hate crimes data since 2002 (most states began doing so a decade earlier). In the first six years, the state reported only 12 hate crimes, and half of those were in 2006. (All other things being equal, the state would be expected to have more than 800 such crimes annually, given the size of its population, according to a federal government study of hate crimes.) There was anti-white bias in eight of those incidents. But that doesn't begin to reflect the extent of racial rancor directed at non-Native Hawaiians in the Aloha State, especially in schools. For example:
- The last day of school has long been unofficially designated "Kill Haole Day," with white students singled out for harassment and violence. (Haole — pronounced how-lee — is slang for a foreigner, usually white, and sometimes is used as a racial slur.)
- A non-Native Hawaiian student who challenged the Hawaiian-preference admission policy at a wealthy private school received a $7 million settlement this year.
- A 12-year-old white girl new to Hawaii from New York City needed 10 surgical staples to close a gash in her head incurred when she was beaten in 2007 by a Native Hawaiian girl who called her a "fukking haole."
- A vocal segment of Native Hawaiians is pushing for independence to end the "prolonged occupation" by the United States and governance by natives.
- Demonstrators shouting racial epithets at whites disrupted a statehood celebration in 2006.
Little wonder then that as Hawaii prepares to observe the 50th anniversary of becoming the 50th state on Aug. 21, it will a muted celebration, devoid of parades or fireworks.
Classroom Warfare
Tina Mohr has lived in Hawaii for 25 years. She has Native Hawaiian friends. But in the 2003-04 school year, her twin blond-haired daughters, aged 11 at the time, began getting harassed by Native Hawaiian kids at their school on the Big Island. "Our daughters would come home with bruises and cuts," she tells the Intelligence Report.
One of her girls was assaulted twice in the same day. In one scuffle, she had her head slammed into a wall, and her attacker continued to threaten her. Her daughter suffered a dislocated jaw and had headaches for five weeks, Mohr says.
The torment continued in the summer between 5th and 6th grades. Native Hawaiian girls stalked and threatened her daughters and yelled "fukking haole" at them. Midway through the 6th grade, Mohr began to home-school her daughters.
She filed a complaint with the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Education in 2004. It was only recently, on Dec. 31, 2008, that the division finally released its report. The report concluded there was "substantial evidence that students experienced racially and sexually derogatory name-calling on nearly a daily basis on school buses, at school bus stops, in school hallways and other areas of the school" that Mohr's children attended.
The epithets included names such as "f*****g haole," "haole c**t" and "haole whore," according to the report. Students were told "go home" and "you don't belong here." Most of the slurs were directed by "local" or non-white students at Caucasians, especially those who were younger, smaller, light-skinned and blond.
The report also concluded that school officials responded inadequately or not at all when students complained of racial harassment. Students who did complain were retaliated against by their antagonists. "They learned not to report this stuff," Mohr says of her own daughters.
'A Hateful Place'
A violent incident with racial overtones in 2007 near Pearl Harbor prompted a good deal of soul searching about race in Hawaii. A Native Hawaiian man and his teenage son brutally pummeled and kicked a Caucasian soldier and his wife near Pearl Harbor after the soldier's SUV struck the other man's parked car. The son shouted "fukking haole" while attacking the soldier. The husband and wife suffered broken noses, facial fractures and concussions. A prosecutor said the assault was a road-rage incident, not a hate crime. But it generated much debate on newspaper websites and blogs about the use of the word haole and whether whites are the targets of racism in Hawaii.
"It is a hateful place to live if you are white," wrote a woman on one Hawaii website's comments section. A Hawaii native who is white wrote, "Racism exists in Hawaii. My whole life I've never really felt welcome here." A sailor stationed at Pearl Harbor added that "this island is the most racist place I have ever been in my life."
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