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In Hawai'i, ethnicity rather than race structures social and economic inequalities
Ethnicity and Inequality in Hawai'i
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Jonathan Y. Okamura
"What is most compelling about Ethnicity and Inequality in Hawai'i is the detail and historiography. Okamura’s knowledge of local issues and ethnic identity in Hawai'i is impressive. This book will make a wonderful contribution to conversations about race and ethnicity in American studies, ethnic studies, and perhaps sociology too."
—Dana Takagi, Department of Sociology, University of California, Santa Cruz"Hawai'i is widely viewed as a multicultural paradise where people live in racial harmony. But Jonathan Okamura takes a different tack. With attention to detail and analytical rigor, he forcefully argues that Hawai'i is characterized by a system of ethnic inequality that limits life chances and economic opportunity. This is a bold and thought-provoking study that deserves a broad readership."
—Franklin Ng, California State University, Fresno
Challenging the dominant view of Hawai'i as a "multicultural model"—a place of ethnic tolerance and equality—Jonathan Okamura examines how ethnic inequality is structured and maintained in island society. He finds that ethnicity, not race or class, signifies difference for Hawaii’s people and therefore structures their social relations. In Hawai'i, residents attribute greater social significance to the presumed cultural differences among ethnic groups than to more obvious physical differences, such as skin color.
According to Okamura, ethnicity regulates disparities in access to resources, rewards, and privileges among ethnic groups, as he demonstrates in his analysis of socioeconomic and educational inequalities in the state. He shows that socially and economically dominant ethnic groups—Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, and whites—have stigmatized and subjugated the islands’ other ethnic groups—especially Native Hawaiians, Filipino Americans, and Samoans. He demonstrates how ethnic stereotypes have been deployed against ethnic minorities and how these groups have contested their subordinate political and economic status by articulating new identities for themselves.
Excerpt
Reviews
"In a carefully documented study, Okamura demonstrates persistent ethnic inequality characterized by stereotypes in the press, criminal justice unfairness, and differential access to scarce goods and resources.... [R]ecommended for its insight into how racial/ethnic conflicts in the continental US may evolve, as well as for its less sunny view of Hawai'i."
—Choice
"[T]his book is a fascinating and provocative read. One is left with the overall sense that Hawaii has at least the potential to truly achieve the ideal of a society based on ethnic harmony and unfettered opportunity for all."
—Asian Affairs
Contents
1. Introduction
2. Changing Ethnic Differences
3. Socioeconomic Inequality and Ethnicity
4. Educational Inequality and Ethnicity
5. Constructing Ethnic Identities, Constructing Differences
6. Japanese Americans: Toward Symbolic Identity
7. Filipino Americans: Model Minority or Dog Eaters?
8. Conclusion
Notes
References
Index
About the Author(s)
Jonathan Y. Okamura is an Associate Professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa. A social anthropologist, he is the author of Imagining the Filipino American Diaspora: Transnational Relations, Identities, and Communities.
Subject Categories
Race and Ethnicity
Asian American Studies
Sociology
In the series
Asian American History and Culture, edited by Sucheng Chan, David Palumbo-Liu, Michael Omi, K. Scott Wong, and Linda Trinh Võ.
The "standard" written histories of Asian immigrants to the United States have been imbued with Western cultural biases. As a critique and corrective to earlier work, Asian American History and Culture, edited by Sucheng Chan, David Palumbo-Liu, Michael Omi, K. Scott Wong, and Linda Trinh Võ, aims to develop a history of Asian Americans that is compatible with their own experience, that treats Asian Americans as agents of historical change and as creators of a new culture. In addition, this series intends to focus on the groups that are flourishing in the contemporary U.S.—Filipinos, Koreans, Vietnamese—about whom little has been written as well as to add to the substantial work done on the Chinese and Japanese in this country.