 the think tech Hawaii's law across the sea program. Today we're going across the sea of humanity to talk with Jonathan Okamura. Jonathan Okamura was born and raised on Maui. He is a professor emeritus in the Ethnic Studies Department at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, and a research specialist on topics related to race and ethnicity. I've asked John to open our eyes to race and ethnicity in Hawaii. Welcome, John. Hi. Thanks, Mark. My pleasure to be on your program. Thank you very much. Good to see you. And I want to ask you kind of a personal question first. You were born and raised on Maui. Now, was there anything about Maui that eventually influenced your choice of profession as a professor of ethnic studies and your study of race and ethnicity? Well, it was probably the ethnic diversity of Maui and Hawaii in general and having classmates, friends from a number of different ethnic groups as I was growing up. That led to perhaps a later interest about issues related to race and ethnicity when I pursued graduate studies in anthropology. And my first dissertation research was on Filipino immigrants and colleagues, which I think is the result of this interest I had about the experiences of different ethnic minorities in Hawaii. Okay. Well, I want you to know, I want to kind of focus on the topic. What is racism and is there racism in Hawaii? Sure. Well, we can start with a minimum definition of racism, which is the belief, the perception and the inherent inferiority of a group of people considered a race, inferior in terms of say, intelligence or general abilities. But the term systemic racism has become very much a media buzzword in the past three years since the killing of George Floyd. And this, well, it's a theory that was introduced by a race scholar named Joe Fagan, perhaps 15 years prior to the killing of George Floyd. And I think he hasn't really been given enough credit for developing this theory. So what Joe Fagan emphasizes in his notion of systemic racism is, well, there's institutional racism and institutional discrimination. There's material inequalities and all of these factors work together as a system to maintain racial oppression, racial inequality in society. And so this is what we see historically in Hawaii especially, and in contemporary terms, on the US continent, systemic racism. Okay. Well, I mean, you said that's what we see in Hawaii. What do we see in Hawaii as far as that's concerned? I mean, you're right. I mean, we're talking a lot now about racism in the United States. And it's a topic that there's even a debate about whether we should talk about it. But what do you see in Hawaii as far as racism is concerned? Well, there is racism in Hawaii in terms of the perceptions of groups, some being viewed as inferior to others. But the notion of inferiority now is not based on the biological beliefs inherent in the inferiority as was the case previously. Most people in the US use a notion of cultural racism. The reason that groups are inferior in their abilities, socioeconomic status, educational attainment, et cetera, has to do with their cultural values, but these traditions, for example, well, people, you know, these people in racial minorities don't value your education enough. They don't want to work hard enough. They don't, they're unwilling to sacrifice for the sake of their children. These are cultural ideas rather than what prevailed previously, the notion that racial minorities are born inferior. And that's the reason why they have a lower status in society. In Hawaii, we don't necessarily have those kinds of extreme views, but we do have a system of institutional discrimination that limits the opportunities for advancement of minorities. This especially takes place in terms of public education and the funding of public education at the K to 12 and University of Hawaii levels. I consider this one of the more oppressive forms of institutional discrimination through the policies of our particularly legislature not to fund K to 12 schools and University of Hawaii such that equal educational opportunity is being provided to the 70% of students in our public schools who are from ethnic minorities. Okay, and that's interesting because Hawaii, yeah, we do have a history of private versus public schools here that I'm, it's quite a predominant theory and conflict in a way or competition. And now, you know, talking more about Hawaii, Hawaii has always been known as the aloha state, welcoming people from all over the world. But I mean, is that a correct perception or what is Hawaii's history as the aloha state with respect to race and ethnic relations? Well, let me go back to the point you made about public and private schools. So Hawaii has the highest percentage of private school enrollment in the nation, 16 and 17% of K to 12 students attend the private school. And that's a reflection of the perception of those the parents of those children about the quality of public education of the available. It's also a reflection of their financial ability to provide that private school education for their children. Regarding Hawaii being the aloha state, well, when can question what happened after Captain Cook and his three ships arrived in Hawaii? Whether or not Hawaiian's really welcomed them to Hawaii because what happened consequently was the decimation of the Hawaiian population from an estimated 660,000 Hawaiians to a meter less than 40,000 by 1900. And over time, with the immigration or labor recruitment of different groups to Hawaii, one can question also if they were welcomed with aloha with their low paying jobs, poor quality housing restrictions to unskilled labor with limited opportunities for advancement. And more recently, we can also question the aloha for migrant Asians, the most recent immigrant group to Hawaii. How is that evident? Calling people leeches, cockroaches, some of the most racist kinds of terms being used against them, and people not even thinking there's any problem, making fun, making jokes about migrant Asians. Okay, so and is this, we're just going back again to this public private school. I have a sense that it's not all racist based in it, but it's kind of the result somehow of different races going to different schools. And maybe that has made the consequence of whether parents want to send their children to a public or private school or the financial ability. I mean, is it racist? I mean, I'm just trying to understand that. No, no, I'm not saying it's racist. What I'm saying is the high percentage of private school enrollment is a reflection of the ethnic inequality in Hawaii. And as I mentioned before, the discriminatory policy of our state legislature not to fund the private public schools K to 12 to the extent needed to provide an adequate education How do we know this? Well, there's a teacher shortage every year when the school is open in August. This is after trying to recruit teachers from the continent and hiring emergency hire staff. They're called teachers, but they're not because they don't have a professional diploma that qualifies them to teach. They only have three years rather in which to obtain that credential. But that's a reflection of underfunding. If the schools are fully funded, they could attract more teachers and we wouldn't be facing this teacher shortage that has been chronic over the decades. And that does affect different racial categories of people? Absolutely. The largest group in the public schools are now Filipinos, almost 25% and closely behind the Hawaiians. That's almost half of the graduates each year from our public high schools. But if you go to Manoa, those groups are represented substantially below those percentages. And that has been the case for decades. That has not improved significantly over time. Okay. All right. And you mentioned Micronesians. You mentioned the schooling. Is there any other current racial or ethnic issue in Hawaii besides those two that come to mind? Well, this is the issue that you raised in one of your questions that you had sent me. The major problem I see in Hawaii is ethnic inequality, which is deeply entrenched in Hawaiians society. Previously, even during the plantation period, there were avenues for socioeconomic mobility that enabled Chinese, Japanese, Koreans to move off the plantation, to find jobs other than plantation labor over time to enter the middle class using the public schools as an avenue for that kind of collective socioeconomic mobility. Over time, as tourism became the dominant industry, with this creation of largely service and sales work, low mobility, low wages, the opportunities for collective socioeconomic mobility have declined substantially. It is still possible for individual mobility to take place for members of minority groups, Hawaiians, Filipinos, Samoans to graduate from a public school, to attend the University of Hawaii, it's different campuses, Manawa, Hilo, West O'awa, to get a college degree, to get a professional job, to become homeowners and enter the middle class. But it's limited to individuals. That kind of mobility isn't large enough so that we can speak of collective mobility. And so what we have now, and I would say over the past several decades, is a society in which the dominant groups are holidays, Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, and the subordinate groups are Hawaiians, Filipinos, Samoans, Tongans, and now most recently, Micronesians. And that gap is not being closed because of our over dependence on tourism, which became quite apparent during the COVID epidemic. Tourism does not create jobs for socioeconomic mobility. It's labor intensive, as opposed to the kind of economy we require, knowledge intensive industries that can provide viable avenues for socioeconomic mobility. So our college graduates don't have to leave Hawaii for the U.S. continent in search of a job commensurate with their college education. Well, there's been a lot of talk quite recently about the number of Hawaiian folks that have left Hawaii. And I'm trying to make sure I understand this. That's a kind of a combination of race and economy issues. But I guess it's going back to the racial background also that has provided very little opportunity. Am I seeing that correctly? Well, you know, I wouldn't necessarily directly attribute it to race. And it's kind of saying, well, there's something about being Hawaiian that these people believe. That's not the case. But other groups have been leaving also like Filipinos. And this is a process that's been ongoing since the late 80s, early 90s. But it has emerged more critically in the close pandemic period because of the loss of job and the rising cost of housing, which of course has been a long-term problem here in Hawaii. And that can be also attributed the inability to purchase a house to the kinds of jobs that we have in Hawaii that don't necessarily require college education. So the wages are low, which prevents people from becoming homeowners and which leads them to move to the continent in search of better-paying jobs. And as long as they stay out of certain parts of California, like San Francisco, they can come home. Okay. Now, I want to kind of go off a little bit. We have different groups of people that you've mentioned that are here in Hawaii. Do these different folks, do they hang together? Is there a cultural group for each of them? Or do they mix in Hawaii? How do you see that? And also, it seems like every year there's various cultural celebrations for different groups of races. Am I seeing that right? And what do you think about those? Well, people congregate with those from their same ethnic group as themselves, depending on which school they attend. I'm not necessarily focused on those kinds of interpersonal relations. But if you think about the three dominant groups, as I mentioned before, the Japanese, Chinese, Holly, again, I'm not necessarily concerned with how they get along with each other as classmates or workmates. But these groups have high rates of intermarriage among themselves, especially young people in college when I was last teaching, if not before. These members of these three groups also live in the same ethnic communities, East Honolulu, Manaua, et cetera. They send their children to the most academically selective schools in Hawaii and also on the continent. And this contributes to that divide. This is my concern, the larger divide between those three dominant groups and the subordinate groups, Filipino, Samoan, Samoan. Those groups also enter marriage to a certain extent at higher rates than with members of the dominant groups. But more generally, I'm concerned about the ethnic inequality between three dominant groups and subordinate groups that has not been closed over the decades. But to me, it appears to be widening. And that has resulted in better economic opportunities for those three groups. Oh yes, just the reason why they're able to send their children to private schools, or even if they send their kids to public schools, the better public schools, Kalani, Kaiser, one has to have the income to live in those more affluent neighborhoods in East Honolulu. And subsequently, they're able to afford to send their children to college on the US continent. And for their graduates of our most academically selective high schools, they send them to the top schools on the continent. Having said that, though, Kamehameha schools graduates also attend the top universities in the country. Okay, so I see a lot of this as historically created somewhere in Hawaii's history from Captain Cook that you mentioned to the present. And it's a difficult topic, and it deals with both race and economy and how they work together. And that's interesting. It seems like the background of somebody, and maybe of those three groups that hang together, allows them to do better economically. And that's what I hear you say. No, no. It's not the groups themselves. I mean, that gets into like, whoa, it's their cultural values, their beliefs, their traditions. And that's not the kind of argument I'm making. There's nothing necessary specific about Japanese American culture, the results and their children doing well, or how they culture that enables their children to succeed. Think about all the poor whites in the continental US. Why aren't they successful as they are in Hawaii? No, what I'm saying is that historically, over time, there were avenues for socioeconomic mobility, even for groups that sort of own the plantations. But as our economy became so dependent on tourism, those avenues became closed. And subsequently, the underfunding of public education, the percentage appropriated by state legislature for public education has declined over the decades. Okay. All right. Thank you. Because of the poor quality of our public schools. Yeah. Now I want to ask a question about politics. And how does race and ethnicity affect local Hawaii politics? There's primarily in the two areas. One is ethnic block voting. That's still significant. If voters have the opportunity, they will vote for a candidate from the same ethnic group as themselves. I've written about this topic. When it comes to Japanese Americans, that is also true as long as the candidate is not a Republican. Japanese Americans, for the most part, will not vote for a Japanese American political candidate. We can point to a number of examples of this. Pat Psyche will testify that it's true. The other side is campaigned by political candidates. They will do targeted campaigning for certain groups, certainly their own group, but also Japanese Americans, even though they're not the largest group of voters. Sorry, take it back. The largest group in Hawaii population one, because whites are the largest, candidates seem to target Japanese American voters because of the assumption that they're more likely to register and vote in a state which has had the lowest voting rates in the nation. So over time, we've seen candidates with Japanese American wives called well, Mufi Hanaman, head case, using their wives in their campaigns, in their campaign literature, in their campaign advertising, standing by the freeway, waving signs, as people go by. I haven't really noticed this among other candidates with non-Japanese wives, but to me, it's obvious. These candidates are saying vote for me while they're targeting Japanese American voters in particular. Vote for me because I have a Japanese wife, which hardly seems a valid reason to vote for anyone, right? Yeah, I understand. You're not discriminating against Japanese wives, but you're saying you should look at the person who's running. Yeah, I'm a nice guy. I have a Japanese wife. You can trust me. Well, yeah, okay, I get that. Now, have you noticed any racial or ethnic reactions to the election of Josh Green as Hawaii governor? Not really. No, because he won by such a large margin. It's somewhat difficult to tease out what extent there were substantial voters against him. Yes, he was running against a Hawaiian candidate, Luke Iona, but that Republican ticket wasn't really valid. They were so underfunded. They hardly had any campaign funds at all, and his running mate was anti-abortion when he campaigned in the primary. So they had to work out that issue when they ran as a team in the general election. So in that case, I didn't see much competition at all provided by the Republicans, which is a virtual problem in Hawaii. I think in Iona's case, his difficulty will come from the Speaker of the House and the Senate President, even though they're belonging to the same party. But I don't think it's based on ethnicity or race. It's just who's going to control Hawaii, the governor, or the legislature. I mean, so you mean Josh Green's problems will come from within what you're saying? Because the Democrats dominate politics so much in Hawaii, including in the legislature. But you don't think it's race or ethnic based, any of this dispute? I mean, Josh Green as opposed to the other Democratic people? I don't think so at this point, because he hasn't been in office very long. That's governor. I haven't seen that kind of cleavage emerge so much. If you look at Ike, he's Okinawan slash Japanese, he was highly criticized by, well, particularly the House Speaker, less so the Senate President, and they overcame five of his vetoes. The most in Hawaii history of a Democratic governor. He's a politician. By a Democratic controlled legislature, how does race figure into that? No, it's politics. When I ask another quick, politic question, Barack Obama, a Hawaii-born boy, it became the president of the United States. Is that hopeful? Was that a good thing? It was at that time. If one had a great deal of optimism, you would point to, well, this heralds a colorblind America or a post-racial America that has transcended race. Some people were saying that, but it's much too early to make those kinds of predictions, as we've seen. What Obama's election did was usher in this extreme right-ward shift in racial politics in America. We had the birtherism, the rise of birtherism, led by Trump, the Tea Party, the Freedom Caucus, and Trump being elected as president as a result. And now we've had the Republican Party move more so to the right in their attempts to re-elect themselves to the presidency. So that's the unfortunate consequence I see with Obama's election, this white backlash that has sent America back decades as evident by most recently the overturning or the elimination of race-based friends of action. So really, there was pros and cons of Obama, and that brings up my last question for you, is what can we do in the future here in Hawaii to make it truly the aloha state? I mean, what can we do to help? Well, I'll go back to what I said was the major problem I see in Hawaii when it comes to issues of race and ethnicity. That's an ethnic inequality. So what we need to do is diversify the economy. The leadership has to come from the legislature of putting money into that to create knowledge-intensive industries, as I said, but a much more immediate step can be to increase funding for public education and the University of Hawaii. This provides opportunities for students from minority groups to get a college degree, to be able to obtain a professional job. If the legislature does not fund a university at higher rates, the university has to lower tuition, take that back, cannot raise tuition. This is what has been the case the past several decades, several years. It will continue because enrollment was declining. The effect of tuition so high even students from Hawaii could not attend the OHS Manoa. Therefore, increased funding from the legislature for the university is required so that tuition can get affordable and more students from those minority groups can enter. So in order to, as I hear you saying, we need to increase the opportunities through better education, more opportunities in education and also look for something besides tourism to move us ahead and help with the divisions that might have been historically caused here in Hawaii. No, absolutely. We need to lessen substantially our dependence on tourism. I thought that would be one of the consequences from the pandemic because the industry shut down, although it left thousands of people unemployed, but this is an opportunity to rethink our economy, what kinds of alternatives are possible. There was also a very strong anti-tourism movement or sentiment at least in Hawaii with cause for the abolition of the Hawaii Tourism Authority, but that hasn't necessarily followed through. Yeah, the debate is ongoing and I want to thank you, John Okamura, for your insight and giving us ideas and thoughts that maybe we, I mean I certainly haven't thought before opening our eyes to race and ethnicity and it's a broad topic is, we can talk for hours on it, but I want to thank you very much for being my guest today. Aloha best wishes. Thanks for having me on Mark, my pleasure. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please click the like and subscribe button on YouTube, you can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Check out our website thinktechawaii.com. Mahalo.