Hawaii! To my family, newly arrived in 1959, it must have seemed as if the earth itself, weary of stampeding armies
and bitter civilization, had forced up this chain of emerald rock where pioneers from across the globe could populate
the land with children bronzed by the sun. The ugly conquest of the native Hawaiians through aborted treaties and
crippling disease brought by the missionaries; the carving up of rich volcanic soil by American companies for
sugarcane and pineapple plantations; the indenturing system that kept Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino immigrants
stooped sunup to sunset in these same fields; the internment of Japanese-Americans during the war-all this was recent
history. And yet, by the time my family arrived, it had somehow vanished from collective memory, like morning mist
that the sun burned away. There were too many races, with power among them too diffuse, to impose the mainland's
rigid caste system; and so few blacks that the most ardent segregationist could enjoy a vacation secure in the
knowledge that race mixing in Hawaii had little to do with the established order back home
and bitter civilization, had forced up this chain of emerald rock where pioneers from across the globe could populate
the land with children bronzed by the sun. The ugly conquest of the native Hawaiians through aborted treaties and
crippling disease brought by the missionaries; the carving up of rich volcanic soil by American companies for
sugarcane and pineapple plantations; the indenturing system that kept Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino immigrants
stooped sunup to sunset in these same fields; the internment of Japanese-Americans during the war-all this was recent
history. And yet, by the time my family arrived, it had somehow vanished from collective memory, like morning mist
that the sun burned away. There were too many races, with power among them too diffuse, to impose the mainland's
rigid caste system; and so few blacks that the most ardent segregationist could enjoy a vacation secure in the
knowledge that race mixing in Hawaii had little to do with the established order back home