As a non-Native Hawaiian person who was born and raised in Hawai’i, I am permanently suspended in a space that is neither American, nor Hawaiian. I could discuss this space at length, but for the time being, let’s just say it’s difficult to navigate. The questions I get stuck on all the time are often along the lines of: How should I speak--pidgin, or proper English? What do I believe about Hawaiian sovereignty? Am I an invasive species here in Hawai’i, even though I’ve called it home all my life?
The following comes from a place in my heart that truly hopes that I am not. It is an examination of a local slang, haole, woven together with stories from my own life. I offer it to you, my readership, as an unconventional look into the Hawai’i I call home.
I feel that it may be strange, and even rude for my first article to stretch the conventions of the Odyssey as far as it does, but please bear with me and the story I would like to tell.
Haole
It’s been suggested that haole—the word used by Hawaii locals to refer to (usually white) non-locals—is a portmanteau of the Hawaiian words hā (to breath) and a’ole (no), literally meaning “no breath.” This is because the white foreigners didn’t practice honi, the Polynesian tradition of pressing noses and foreheads together and sharing breath upon meeting, nor did they breathe deeply during their prayers.
In Hawaiian, the hā is not only physical breath, but the spirit of the mouth: life itself. Therefore, their “breathlessness” indicated to the Hawaiians a lack of spirituality, and even the lack of a soul.
Hā-‘a’ole: having no spirit.
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My father likes to tell stories about Kaumakani, the plantation village he grew up in on the island of Kaua’i. His father, my grandfather, was a flagman for the trucks that carried harvested cane out of the fields. “He didn't have a flag, though. He really just waved a cane knife,” my father relates.
Sugar plantation workers were segregated by ethnicity until 1942. This was enforced by white plantation owners as a mechanism for paternalistic control. There was Japanese Camp, Korean Camp, Spanish Camp, Filipino Camp, you name it.
“The haoles were never the harvesters, or planters, or the ditch diggers,” my father says in proper, but Pidgin-inflected English, “they were always the bosses—the Lunas, grandpa called them. So the bosses were all white, all haole. And they all lived in the bigger, nicer houses that we called Haole Camp. And when they retired, the new bosses were Portuguese, so they all had white skin, still.”
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This etymology is incorrect.
In reality, the word haole precedes western contact. In traditional Hawaiian literature, it is used simply to mean “foreigner,” or “stranger,” alongside malihini, meaning “guest,” or “newcomer.” It is most often used to refer to Tahitian voyagers, and is overall benign and without racial connotations.
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One weekend, my friends and I took the 52 bus to Hale’iwa. The new shopping center wasn’t there yet, and Aoki’s shave ice was still across the street from Matsumoto’s. The four of us—two Japanese, two Filipinos—were walking down the street looking for somewhere to eat lunch when a caucasian tourist on a moped called to us from his flock of caucasian tourists on mopeds, “Hey, are you Hawaiians? Alowhaw!” We side-eyed each other quietly. No, none of us were Hawaiian.
“Aloha uncle! Need something?” I politely answered him.
“Oh, good, you speak English!” he said, gesturing too largely for the whole island.
Of course I was speaking English. And so were my parents, and my grandparents, and the native Hawaiians, and their last reigning queen, and everyone in between. After all those generations, I wonder if we’ll ever really be speaking the same language.
I guess we’re used to it, though. It’s no use getting too frustrated; most of them simply come and go anyway.
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Still, Pukui’s Hawaiian dictionary also includes “White person, American, Englishman, Caucasian” under the definition of haole. This reflects that the term has evolved over time to align with this flawed etymology, regardless of its validity. This dictionary takes it a step further, and defines haole as “to act like a white person; to assume airs of superiority.”
Haole is a racial term, like “nigger”—a blade that, though softened by time, sits overtly on its original grindstone: the entire history of white oppression, exploitation and annexation of Hawaii’s people.
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My best friend Samantha is Hispanic, and moved here from California when we were in the third grade. Because of her skin color, she escaped the automatic haole label given to most military kids. But after that, it was her heart that kept it off her back. She was kind, and humble—not like the other haoles we knew. She learned our language, and saw us as more than people from postcards.
In high school, Samantha began work with the Protect Kaho’olawe Ohana, a grassroots organization dedicated to restoring the island of Kaho’olawe, which was decimated by military training exercises in the 1950s and 1960s.
By technical definitions, Samantha will always be a “foreigner.” She cannot “make herself Native Hawaiian” any more than a pine tree can make itself a palm tree. But haole tells us more than where a person came from and what they look like. It tells us about who they are.
