Paul Theroux: (Hawaii) Happily a State, Forever an Island
[Paul Theroux is the author of “Ghost Train to the Eastern Star.” His forthcoming novel is “A Dead Hand.”]
Once in the Elks Club in Honolulu, an elderly man of Chinese ancestry said in a low voice to me: “This club used to be very exclusive. And the one next door too.” He meant no Chinese were admitted — or anyone but haoles (whites) or ethnic Hawaiians — to the Elks or the Outrigger Canoe Club. This was true of nearly all of Hawaii’s posh clubs. “But all that changed,” his daughter said, “when Reverend King marched on Selma.”
So Hawaii’s statehood was not an occasion for the opening of clubs to other races or even an era of good feeling. That had to wait for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The eight main islands and many smaller islands and atolls that make up the archipelago we know as Hawaii became the 50th state 50 years ago today, but it was still old-fashioned in every sense, an island chain of pineapple and sugar plantations, with a scattering of good hotels, visited by a quarter of a million tourists — mainly from ships and, in that year of 1959, the first big jets.
Back then, as the newest star on the flag, Hawaii was a thinly populated place, with most of the people living in Honolulu and predominantly young — the state’s average age was among the youngest in the nation. Its soul was Polynesian, but its popular culture and its institutions were Small Town U.S.A., with drive-in eateries, carhops and a passion for Elvis (a frequent visitor) and for high school sports; on every island the social highlight of the year was the senior prom.
There were also pineapple harvesters, bundled up against the sharp spines of the plant, and cane cutters, coffee pickers and the local cowboys known as paniolos. Honolulu was a half-dozen small communities in search of a city. Downtown was one long street; Waikiki was two. Outside Honolulu, and on neighbor islands, the land was agricultural; people lived in villages, many in plantation housing, and shopped at the company store. The roads were narrow. Life was expensive, as it has always been in Hawaii because of the distance from the mainland, but the habit of frugality and the simplicity of life were strong and sustaining.
Long before statehood, proud of living in an American territory, people from Hawaii joined the United States military and distinguished themselves in World War II — the 442nd (mostly Hawaiian men of Japanese ancestry) was the most highly decorated regiment of its size and length of service in American history. That elderly man who was not allowed to join the Elks because of his race — my father-in-law, Ernest Mun Sung Loo — had years earlier fought at Guadalcanal.
With statehood came more financing, better schools, better hospitals, improved harbors, a jump in population, urbanization, military spending and many more tourists — lately as many as seven million annually. Three Interstate highways were built on Oahu, separated from the nearest others by 2,400 miles of ocean. That is a detail. The quickest way to infuriate someone here is to say (as many unthinking visitors do), “I’m going back to the States tomorrow.”
When I first came to live in Hawaii 20 years ago, I could determine which way to paddle or sail by assessing the speed and direction of smoke issuing from the tall chimney of the nearby Waialua Sugar Mill. The smoke stopped rising 12 years ago, when the mill closed. What remains is a rusted hulk in the middle of a bewildered town that has, tellingly, been the location for big-budget movies set in the third world; just down the road, nearer the beach, is a location for the TV drama “Lost.”
Other plantation lands have become bungaloid subdivisions or luxury housing or golf courses. Some children of the plantation workers have become doctors and lawyers, or construction workers and caddies. And an immense number have become politicians — each island has its own local government — which may account for its reputation for political buffoonery and philistinism. Public intellectuals do not exist; public debate is rare, except on issues that transgress religious dogma. Hawaii is noted for its multitude of contentious God-botherers. One hundred sixty-three years ago, Melville remarked on this in “Typee.” Yet “tipsy from salvation’s bottle” (to borrow Dylan Thomas’s words), they stick to specific topics (same-sex marriage a notable example). No one else pontificates. It is regarded as bad form for anyone in Hawaii to generalize in print, as I am shamefully doing now.
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Once in the Elks Club in Honolulu, an elderly man of Chinese ancestry said in a low voice to me: “This club used to be very exclusive. And the one next door too.” He meant no Chinese were admitted — or anyone but haoles (whites) or ethnic Hawaiians — to the Elks or the Outrigger Canoe Club. This was true of nearly all of Hawaii’s posh clubs. “But all that changed,” his daughter said, “when Reverend King marched on Selma.”
So Hawaii’s statehood was not an occasion for the opening of clubs to other races or even an era of good feeling. That had to wait for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The eight main islands and many smaller islands and atolls that make up the archipelago we know as Hawaii became the 50th state 50 years ago today, but it was still old-fashioned in every sense, an island chain of pineapple and sugar plantations, with a scattering of good hotels, visited by a quarter of a million tourists — mainly from ships and, in that year of 1959, the first big jets.
Back then, as the newest star on the flag, Hawaii was a thinly populated place, with most of the people living in Honolulu and predominantly young — the state’s average age was among the youngest in the nation. Its soul was Polynesian, but its popular culture and its institutions were Small Town U.S.A., with drive-in eateries, carhops and a passion for Elvis (a frequent visitor) and for high school sports; on every island the social highlight of the year was the senior prom.
There were also pineapple harvesters, bundled up against the sharp spines of the plant, and cane cutters, coffee pickers and the local cowboys known as paniolos. Honolulu was a half-dozen small communities in search of a city. Downtown was one long street; Waikiki was two. Outside Honolulu, and on neighbor islands, the land was agricultural; people lived in villages, many in plantation housing, and shopped at the company store. The roads were narrow. Life was expensive, as it has always been in Hawaii because of the distance from the mainland, but the habit of frugality and the simplicity of life were strong and sustaining.
Long before statehood, proud of living in an American territory, people from Hawaii joined the United States military and distinguished themselves in World War II — the 442nd (mostly Hawaiian men of Japanese ancestry) was the most highly decorated regiment of its size and length of service in American history. That elderly man who was not allowed to join the Elks because of his race — my father-in-law, Ernest Mun Sung Loo — had years earlier fought at Guadalcanal.
With statehood came more financing, better schools, better hospitals, improved harbors, a jump in population, urbanization, military spending and many more tourists — lately as many as seven million annually. Three Interstate highways were built on Oahu, separated from the nearest others by 2,400 miles of ocean. That is a detail. The quickest way to infuriate someone here is to say (as many unthinking visitors do), “I’m going back to the States tomorrow.”
When I first came to live in Hawaii 20 years ago, I could determine which way to paddle or sail by assessing the speed and direction of smoke issuing from the tall chimney of the nearby Waialua Sugar Mill. The smoke stopped rising 12 years ago, when the mill closed. What remains is a rusted hulk in the middle of a bewildered town that has, tellingly, been the location for big-budget movies set in the third world; just down the road, nearer the beach, is a location for the TV drama “Lost.”
Other plantation lands have become bungaloid subdivisions or luxury housing or golf courses. Some children of the plantation workers have become doctors and lawyers, or construction workers and caddies. And an immense number have become politicians — each island has its own local government — which may account for its reputation for political buffoonery and philistinism. Public intellectuals do not exist; public debate is rare, except on issues that transgress religious dogma. Hawaii is noted for its multitude of contentious God-botherers. One hundred sixty-three years ago, Melville remarked on this in “Typee.” Yet “tipsy from salvation’s bottle” (to borrow Dylan Thomas’s words), they stick to specific topics (same-sex marriage a notable example). No one else pontificates. It is regarded as bad form for anyone in Hawaii to generalize in print, as I am shamefully doing now.
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