From People to Place

When place is central to the construction of one’s identity, perhaps it is only natural that humans, and especially historians, make sense of the world through strictly defined spaces. As a unit of analysis, the nation-state is often taken to be the most legitimate representation of a defined space. The flaw in this tendency, as Deacon, Russell and Woollacott point out, is that “the mobility, confusion and sheer messiness of ordinary lives threatens the stability of national identity and unsettles the framework of national histories.” (Pg. 2) Their stories of transported convicts and the wives of both explorers and sailors demonstrated that an individual’s history is by no means confined to the state. While reading through the various chapters, I wondered if one could refocus this type of transnational history and shift the unit of analysis from an individual to a place or geographic area. Rather than focusing on how an individual or product circulated space, I wanted to discern how a singular space can be circulated by a diverse, transnational array of groups or individuals. This would stipulate that the history of a town, city, or even a state can shake off the confines of one single political and cultural identity. This seemed logical to me, as at some point in history every politically defined territory was established out of some previous entity. When each place undergoes a historical transition, individuals moved through those spaces, some of them settle and others simply passed through.

In the case of my home state, Hawaii, I find a shining example of how the history of a place cannot be defined by a one cultural and/or political identity. In realising this, I drew on what I know of the history and demography of Hawaii. Simply put, it is one of the most diverse places on Earth. It is a ‘majority-minority’ state and the only state within the U.S. that has never had a majority white population.

For some context, the Pacific archipelago that I grew up on was originally settled by Southern Polynesian people over 1,500 years ago. An indigenous culture flourished on the islands until the arrival of the British explorer James Cook in 1778. European diseases brought by explorers and missionaries decimated the indigenous population and led to increased Western involvement in the political affairs of Hawaii. Once the rich agricultural potential of the islands was realised, foreign companies poured money into establishing plantations, primarily for the production of sugar. While the largest sugar companies were owned by Americans and Englishmen, those who worked the plantations came from across the world. The largest immigrant groups were from Japan, China, Portugal and the Philippines. A distinctive local culture flourished out of the diversity on the plantations. One of the most identifiable products of cosmopolitanism on the islands remains Hawaiian pidgin, the English-based creole that became the dominant language as immigrants and native Hawaiians sought to communicate amongst each other and their Caucasian employers.

The central location of the islands in the pacific along with its deep ports has made it a prime location for strategic military operations. In the late 19^th century the U.S. government’s annexation of the islands became increasingly likely, leading Japan to send a warship in a show of strength and determination in protecting its interests on the islands. Half a century later during the Second World War, Hawaii was the primary staging ground for U.S. naval operations in the Pacific and was subject to the only foreign attack on American soil during the duration of the war. The Japanese military is even said to have had plans to take over the islands should the U.S. navy had capitulated at the Battle of Midway in 1942. The military tug-of-war ended after the war but the islands to this day hold deep cultural ties to Japan and the Western Pacific. Having grown up in a small town on an outer island, I’ve always believed that the lifestyle and values of Hawaii more closely resembled that of Southern Polynesia – like Samoa, Tahiti and Fiji – rather than the contiguous United States. Is Hawaii’s history and demographic makeup transnational? If so, how can we look at the history of other places or states as transnational?