The Chinese Civilizational “Threat” and White Supremacy Construction in Hawaii before Annexation

CHINESENESS AS THE ANTITHESIS OF CIVILIZATION

To reinforce their position as the indisputably dominant group, haoles lost no opportunity to de-civilize Chinese immigrants, the largest group of non-whites since 1876. This impressive Chinese presence threatened haoles’ claim to supremacy in the islands. To foreground the “danger,” they cast Chinese as uncivilized hordes by playing up the contrast between Chineseness and their own Anglo-American civilization. Without defining Chineseness in any systematic way, haoles just labeled whatever Chinese did and believed in as abnormalities from their own behaviors and beliefs. To them, these differences not simply marked off Chinese as a peculiar people but symbolized Chinese inferiority and lack of civilization.

One “uncivilized” trait of Chinese was their alleged obstinacy, which vaporized their zeal to get “civilized” in the haole way while encouraging them to stick to age-old traditions. To some censurers, this proclivity was simply habitual and self-evident. An article in the Advertiser of August 30, 1879, charged the Chinese with having “no thought of conforming to our customs or laws.” Instead, he was devoted to “himself and to his race in antagonism to the rules which govern enlightened society.” He thus lacked “moral character, liberality, charity, pride of country” as well as other qualifications that could make him a good citizen. Because of the “incalculable injury to the interests” of Hawaii, people should resist “the influx of this immoral, polygamous, opium eating scourge” (N.O.M., 1879, p. 4).¹N.O.M., “The Danger of Unrestricted Chinese Immigration.” Pacific Commercial Advertiser (Honolulu), 30 August 1879. On December 2, 1887, the haole-dominated Committee on Foreign Relations submitted a report to the Legislative Assembly. Explaining why Hawaii must regulate and control Chinese immigration, the document declared that Chinese did not “easily assimilate.” They were outside “the influence of the civilization which now dominates the country” and were therefore not “desirable for Hawaii,” concluded the report (“The Legislative Assembly,” 1887, p. 11).²“The Legislative Assembly,” Hawaiian Gazette (Honolulu), 6 December 1887.

Other prejudiced voices attributed Chinese “obstinacy” to their national vanity. On June 10, 1876, a person under the name of “H.” wrote to the Advertiser, denying that the Chinese could ever become “a citizen in the true sense of the word, of any country” other than “his Celestial Empire.” He could “never feel patriotism for any country outside of China.” It was based on this assumption that the letter called Chinese “a curse to any and every civilized country” (H., 1876, p. 4).³H., “Shall We Import More Chinese?” Pacific Commercial Advertiser, 10 June 1876. The Advertiser repeated the accusation on January 4, 1879. Viewing the Chinese as not “susceptible of Christian civilization,” it held his “national egoism and exclusive training” accountable. The “average Mongolian” could neither understand nor appreciate “the Christian religion in its broad sense, as taught by its Divine founder.” He “never changes; once a Chinaman, always a Chinaman,” the Advertiser declared. This alleged stubbornness turned the Chinese into “a moral and material blight” wherever he went outside China (“This Little Kingdom,” 1879, p. 2).⁴“This Little Kingdom,” Pacific Commercial Advertiser, 4 January 1879.

In 1888, two Chinese repudiations of haole prejudice backfired, provoking another condemnation of Chinese egoism. In a letter to the Bulletin on September 25, S. H. Chun Sing, an elite Chinese in Honolulu, scolded haoles for depriving Native Hawaiians and Chinese of their “political rights.” Tom Dow, a merchant who would become the treasurer of the Chinese Y.M.C.A. in December, wrote to the same paper, rejecting Anglo-American customs and habits as “inferior and mean” and unworthy of Chinese adoption (“A Letter from a Chinaman,” 1888, p. 1; “Mr. Tom Dow,” 1888, p. 2; “Tom Dow’s,” 1888, p. 1).⁵“A Letter from a Chinaman,” Daily Bulletin (Honolulu), 2 October 1888; “Mr. Tom Dow Speaks,” Daily Bulletin, 3 October 1888; “Tom Dow’s Last,” Daily Bulletin, 16 October 1888. These remarks incurred the wrath of a haole named Reef Orme. In his letter that the Bulletin carried on October 30, Orme denounced Sing’s and Dow’s words as “flings at Caucasian civilization.” He accused the “Celestials” of being “so well satisfied with Chinese habits and customs.” However, Orme continued, Chinese “self-conceit and affected superiority” had never retarded the progress of “the enlightened world.” Rather, they had “arrayed other intelligent nations” against China (Orme, 1888, p. 1).⁶Reef Orme, “Reply to Mr. Gribble,” Daily Bulletin Weekly Summary, 30 October 1888.

Equally noticeable was certain haole intellectuals’ attempt to explain Chinese “intransigence” ethnologically. The social scientist M. M. Scott was one example. An immigrant from California in the early 1880s, Scott was a well-known educator in Hawaii. Sanford B. Dole, once the president of the Hawaiian Republic and the first governor of the U.S. Territory of Hawaii, remembered him as “a very useful man, very public spirited, very quiet unselfish and…blameless” (“Tribute,” 1921, pp. 228-229“Tribute to Mr. M. M. Scott.” (11-24 August 1921) In: Pan-Pacific Union: First Pan-Pacific Educational Conference. Honolulu: Program and Proceedings.). Yet even such a highly acclaimed haole was not immune to racial prejudice. In January 1889, the Advertiser carried a scholarly paper that Scott read before the Honolulu Social Science Association. He stated resolutely that much like a donkey unable to “come forward again a horse,” Chinese could not adopt “our civilization” and become “like us.” Their “channels” of development, unidentified but “entirely different” from Western ones, destined them to fail. “The internal economy of the Chinaman” also differed from “that of the white man,” the accusation continued. Chinese organs might be “anatomically” identical but must be “functionally…profoundly different.” That was why Chinese had “no assimilative tendency,” Scott argued. No matter how skillfully he adopted “some of our less important tools and machines,” a Chinese could never become “anything else than a Chinaman.” He might ask for “the white man’s wages,” but would have “none” of the latter’s civilization, concluded the paper (“Thoughts on the Chinese Question,” 1889, p. 2).⁷“Thoughts on the Chinese Question,” Daily Pacific Commercial Advertiser, 29 and 30 January 1889.

Yet in fact, Chinese never refused assimilation into Anglo-American civilization. Learning from haoles both in and outside schools constituted one important part of their life in Hawaii. In the petition to the haole-controlled Provisional Government on May 17, 1894, “nearly four hundred Chinese residents” in Honolulu declared that having lived alongside Anglo-Americans “so long commercially, financially and socially,” the Chinese community had “learned your language, manners and customs” (“The Councils in Session,” 1894, p. 1).⁸“The Councils in Session,” Hawaiian Gazette, 18 May 1894. Goo Kim Fui, the Chinese Commercial Agent in Hawaii for many years, echoed that Chinese, both old and young, had “responded to all calls of the educational and religious missionaries.” He added that to “the workers amongst the Americans for higher civilization,” older Chinese had offered their “heartiest co-operation” while the young and children, their “enthusiastic and earnest and constant attention” (“Chinese to Stay,” 1898, p. 2).⁹“Chinese to Stay,” Hawaiian Gazette, 28 August 1898.

Chinese assimilability even won some haoles’ acknowledgment, which directly contradicted the general denigration of Chinese. One example was Alfred S. Hartwell, an American lawyer and Civil War veteran who served as a cabinet member and supreme court judge in Hawaii beginning in 1868. In the Advertiser of January 5, 1895, he contended that if “trained in English-speaking schools,” Hawaiian-born Chinese could “illustrate most happily the effect of [Hawaii’s] national institutions upon inherited tendencies” (Hartwell, 1895, p. 1).¹⁰Alfred S. Hartwell, “Cannot Stand Aloof: United States Will Not Ignore Its Hawaiian Interests,” Pacific Commercial Advertiser, 5 January 1895. In a paper read before the Social Science Club in Honolulu in April 1897, Dr. G. P. Andrews buttressed this belief by reporting a “most interesting and cheering” discovery at Chinese “schools and kindergartens.” That is, if properly instructed, Chinese could become “intelligent, educated and probably patriotic.” What judgmental haoles needed to do was break down “the walls of prejudice and exclusiveness” against Chinese in “the grand sentiment of the American Constitution, ‘All men are born free and equal,’ in Hawaii nei” (“Race Mingling,” 1897, p. 6).¹¹“Race Mingling,” Hawaiian Gazette, 23 April 1897.

But for the purpose of highlighting the stark contrast between their civilized state and the uncivilized one of the more numerous Chinese, more haoles ignored these signs of Chinese assimilability. Not only did they find fault with Chinese ability to assimilate, they even saw “evidences” of Chinese savagery in daily habits. “Subpar” subsistence was one detail that haoles cited to reinforce the stereotype. Chas. B. Patterson (1885, p. 2), a house painter in Honolulu, did just this in a letter to the Bulletin on October 2, 1885. He accused Chinese of living in “filth and pestilence,” huddling together “like so many sheep,” disregarding Hawaii’s “sanitary laws,” and spending “five or ten cents” on rice each day. But that money was hardly enough for a Christian’s decent, civilized life, Patterson professed. It could not “pay for one day’s support, for a Christian family,” not to mention other necessities of “a Christian life.”¹²Chas. B. Patterson, “Chinese Superseding the White Race,” Daily Bulletin, 2 October 1885. On September 6, 1888, “E.” (1888, p. 2) wrote the Advertiser to reemphasize spending as the sign of civilization. He held that haoles needed money to sustain churches, libraries, lyceums, and “all the appurtenances of civilization.” The daily expense of a Chinese “will not suitably maintain an Anglo-Saxon.” E. therefore charged Chinese immigrants with dragging Hawaiian civilization “below a certain standard” and crippling its “indefinite development.” The islands faced the danger of being “paganized by a deluge of Chinamen,” he announced arbitrarily.¹³E., “The Chinese Question Again,” Daily Pacific Commercial Advertiser, 8 September 1888.

W. A. Kinney was another who denounced Chinese cheapness as a mark of barbarianism. Born of immigrant parents from Maine, Kinney was an attorney and politician in Hawaii. He participated in the drafting of the 1887 Constitution, which greatly strengthened the haole oligarchy’s control over Hawaiian politics and drastically undermined royal powers. He was one of the three Hawaiian representatives who signed the annexation treaty with the United States in 1898. Back on October 22, 1889, his letter to the Gazette called the Chinese “a barbarian” because he worked “cheap.” The American, “ten times as much as a man,” must demand more to keep himself above “the level of the homeless street herds of China.” “Human progress shows itself in a fall of prices and a rise of wages,” Kinney asserted, instigating other haoles to resist Chinese immigration “for the sake of republicanism and civilization.” Otherwise, their “political and social future” in Hawaii would suffer “such a fate as swallowed up Roman civilization” (Kinney, 1889, p. 6).¹⁴W. A. Kinney, “Reply to Mr. Macfie,” Hawaiian Gazette, 22 October 1889. It is no surprise that lower-class Chinese always economized. That would be the case with people of any race who were trying to earn a living. That Kinney and other critical haoles described frugality as a uniquely Chinese trait only indicates their intention to dramatize the disparity between Chineseness and Anglo-American civilization.

Insincerity was also taken as a demonstration of alleged Chinese barbarity. On November 12, 1884, “A Farmer” (1884, p. 2) wrote to the Bulletin, mentioning Chinese “deception” in land deals to showcase their lack of “civility.” In his narration, Chinese took up lands “at a high rental,” put in “a crop of rice,” and finally sold the lease to other Chinese “at an advance.” Each successive land holder repeated the process while the original proprietor pretended to have placed his kin in charge. In so doing, the Chinese managed to evade “the ‘not transferrable’ clause,” reaping profits “out of high-priced land” instead of “the actual production of the soil.” Not viewing the practice as a mere commercial irregularity, the “farmer” considered it a sign of the “uncivilized” nature of Chinese. No “white man, whose habits of life were formed by Western civilization,” could hope to “succeed under the same conditions,” he said. Chinese “deception” was thus “a barrier to the country’s progress.”¹⁵A Farmer, “The Real Drawback,” Daily Bulletin, 12 November 1884.

Haoles emphasized Chinese resort to crooked practices too when condemning Chinese “insincerity.” An epistolary exchange that the Advertiser carried in 1888 well illustrated this accusation. On May 18, a Chinese named Sam Shue wrote to the paper, demanding people to avoid singling out “the heathen Chinee” when criticizing “ways that are dark and tricks that are vain.” Shue denied that Chinese business was “any more secret” than other people’s dealings. This statement infuriated some haoles. “Justice” was one of them. Writing the Advertiser on May 19, he refuted Shue’s conclusion as “unqualifiedly false.” Just because of Chinese immigrants’ “dark and devious ways,” few people would be willing to support that “‘childlike and bland’ contingent,” he declared affirmatively (“Sam Shue,” 1888, p. 2; “Justice,” 1888, p. 2).¹⁶“Sam Shue after Justice,” Pacific Commercial Advertiser, 18 May 1888; “Justice Replies to Sam Shue,” Pacific Commercial Advertiser, 22 May 1888. “V.” (1888, p. 2) denounced the alleged bribing habit of Chinese. In a letter to the Gazette of September 25, he called bribery “eminently the Chinese method” that turned Chinese into “a bad lot” both “politically and morally.” This was a “fact…recognized by every civilized government throughout the world,” V. assured the readership.¹⁷V., “Anti-Chinese,” Hawaiian Gazette, 25 September 1888.

What V. had in mind was a bribery charge that four native legislators faced in 1888. According to the allegation, they accepted Chinese money to kill an anti-Chinese amendment to the Constitution. The bill was indeed defeated, but there was no firm evidence to support the charge. In the Legislative Assembly hearings in September, witnesses either denied knowing the bribe or based their judgment on hearsay. For their part, the accused legislators denied receiving “anything…from the Chinese…to change vote.” S. H. Chun Sing, the leading Chinese in Honolulu, bolstered their innocence by challenging the investigating committee to substantiate any allegation with evidence (“The Legislative Assembly,” 1888a, p. 3; “The Legislative Assembly,” 1888b. p. 3; “A Letter from a Chinaman,” 1888, p. 1).¹⁸“The Legislative Assembly,” Daily Pacific Commercial Advertiser, 13 September 1888 (a); “The Legislative Assembly,” Hawaiian Gazette, 18 September 1888 (b); “A Letter from a Chinaman,” Daily Bulletin Weekly Summary, 2 October 1888.

By censuring whatever Chinese did and said from the civilizational perspective, haoles not only disregarded anything that contradicted their reasoning but portrayed Chinese as uncivilized. To them, Chineseness was the negation of Anglo-American civilization. Given their inherent “barbarian” nature and obstinacy with it, Chinese were believed to have no chance of being “civilized” in the haole way. While serving as a pressure on the Hawaiian government to restrict Chinese immigration, this maneuver degraded Chinese to highlight white superiority in Hawaii.

CRIMINALIZING CHINESE IMMIGRANTS

As Chineseness was allegedly barbarian, the continuous arrival of Chinese naturally created a psychological ordeal for haoles. Not only did haoles cast Chinese as an inferior race, they also believed that unregulated Chinese immigration sounded the death knell for their civilization in Hawaii. Chinese were therefore held guilty of breaking the social norm and should be punished accordingly. Having triggered this alarm, Chinese appeared not simply uncivilized, but criminal.

Many haoles played on the trope of civilizational war to highlight Chinese criminality toward American influences in the islands. Some cautioned that Chineseness was already clashing with Anglo-American civilization in a contest to control Hawaii’s future. A. Marques (1885, p. 4), who would later become the executive councilor of the pro-annexation Hawaiian government established in 1893, was such an alarmist. Writing to the Gazette on October 7, 1885, he reprehended Chinese for superseding all other races “rapidly.” “No sensible man” should ignore such a life-and-death struggle that was to determine if “Western or…Asiatic influence” would dominate the islands, alerted Marques.¹⁹A. Marques, “The Chinese Question,” Hawaiian Gazette, 7 October 1885. Another agitator, signed as J. E. (1888, pp. 2-3), agreed. He was even more theatrical in saying that the struggle between Chineseness and Anglo-American civilization had already reached the decisive stage. Either the “enterprising” and “progressive” Occident or the “backward” and “conservative” Orient “shall triumph” in the kingdom. There could be no compromise between the “diametrically opposite” Chinese and American “social customs,” declared J. E.²⁰J. E., “Reflections on Mr. Kinney’s and Mr. Hartwell’s Letters,” Daily Bulletin Weekly Summary, 11 December 1888.

Hawaii, for its part, had to cautiously choose sides, urged haole voices. The Bulletin gave a reminder to this effect on November 18, 1885. It claimed that with the incessant arrival of Chinese immigrants, Hawaii faced the “great problem” of making a decision on whom to follow. If the nation chose Anglo-Americans, it was advocating “civilized institutions.” But were it to follow the Chinese, it offered no “moral support to the institutions of civilization” (“Disturbing,” 1885, p. 2).²¹“Disturbing Elements,” Daily Bulletin, 16 November 1885. The Advertiser of October 7, 1892, repeated the warning. It regarded Chinese immigration as an issue that concerned both Hawaii’s “financial interests” and “position as a civilized State.” If the nation did not want to become “an Asiatic colony,” it “must not throw the doors wide to let the Chinese in,” cautioned the paper (“The Labor Bill,” 1892, p. 4).²²“The Labor Bill,” Daily Pacific Commercial Advertiser, 7 October 1892.

Haoles did not simply dwell on the Chinese “threat” in the general sense but devoted themselves to revealing specific ways in which that threat unraveled. One “discovery” was the quick Chinese “decimation” of the economic foundation of Hawaii’s Anglo-American heritage. Though scholars have noted haole restrictionists’ construction of Chinese as a financial menace, they did not go far enough to expose the civilizational anguish that those persons underwent due to the rivalry (Glick, pp. 5, 8, 11-16; Char, p. 61; McKeown, pp. 228-231McKeown, A. (2001) Chinese Migrant Networks and Cultural Change: Peru, Chicago, Hawaii, 1900-1936. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.).

To haoles, the thriving of Anglo-American civilization depended on the presence of a well-occupied and well-fed civilized population. They accused Chinese of making that goal unreachable. In the above-cited letter, Orme warned that Chinese “inferior competition” for jobs damaged the interests of haole laborers, who observed “principles prevailing in…civilized countries.” Hawaii was “on the threshold of an irrepressible conflict between a superior and an inferior civilization,” the letter continued. In the end, “one or the other must give way.” Totally agreeing to this analysis, another correspondent signed as G. called the perceived Chinese menace “a fact” that could “be regarded as a truism by the entire community” of Hawaiian residents (Orme, p. 1; “Another Point,” 1888, p. 2).²³Orme, “Reply to Mr. Gribble”; G., “Another Point in the Chinese Question,” Daily Bulletin Weekly Summary, 30 October 1888. “A large and representative gathering” of haoles in Honolulu reached the same conclusion on the evening of September 23, 1889. They charged that Chinese posed an “unnecessary danger and uncertainty” to Hawaii’s Anglo-American heritage by encroaching on the occupations of people practicing “our own civilization” (“The Amendment,” 1889, p. 3).²⁴“The Amendment,” Daily Bulletin, 24 September 1889.

Even when seeking ways to fend off the Chinese “challenge” in workplaces, what haoles had in mind was still the safety of their own civilization in the face of menacing Chinese. They thought of revoking the latter’s trade licenses to force them back to plantations or to China. “Anglo-Saxon” (1885, p. 4) made this suggestion in a letter to the Bulletin on July 2, 1885. Intending to thus minimize the Chinese “peril,” he prodded the Hawaiian government to “by all means attract and encourage civilized laborers” instead. Hawaii could then avoid being “run under by Asiatic preponderance of uncivilized barbarian hordes,” believed “Anglo-Saxon.”²⁵Anglo-Saxon, “Asiatic Ascendancy,” Daily Bulletin, 2 July 1885. But the government seemed to have not adopted this proposal. To the Gazette and the Advertiser, both of January 16, 1894, registering each Chinese could be a viable solution, because it would help locate the whereabouts of Chinese immigrants and drive them away from haoles’ jobs. “Chinese competition with white labor” would then dissipate, with its “menace to European civilization” disappearing like “a cloud from the horizon,” prophesied the papers (“The Immigration Laws,” 1894a, p. 4; “The Immigration Laws,” 1894, p. 4).²⁶“The Immigration Laws,” Hawaiian Gazette, 16 January 1894, and Pacific Commercial Advertiser, 16 January 1894. Though Chinese registration did not become law until annexation, demands for it spoke much about haoles’ eagerness to win the civilization war.

At the same time, haoles characterized Chinese as saboteurs of the political basis of Anglo-American civilization in Hawaii. Adam McKeown (2001, p. 231)McKeown, A. (2001) Chinese Migrant Networks and Cultural Change: Peru, Chicago, Hawaii, 1900-1936. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. mentions their disdain for Chinese “inability” to understand and appreciate democracy. The newspapers did prove that but revealed more. Chinese were portrayed not only as strangers to Anglo-American politics but as a threat to its survival. In a letter carried by the Bulletin on December 11, 1888, Hartwell did not yet admit Chinese assimilability as he would in the above-cited letter of 1895. Instead, he believed that since Chinese were not “of our civilization,” they could only subvert “free institutions,” bringing forth “untold danger to the entire body politic” of Hawaii (“Reply to,” 1888, p. 2).²⁷“Reply to W. A. Kinney,” Daily Bulletin Weekly Summary, 11 December 1888. On October 15, 1890, another Anglo-American resident, who signed himself as “Chinese Dragon” (1890, p. 3) to stress the abhorrence of Chinese, warned that unchecked Chinese immigration could “swamp every civilized institution in the country.” Hawaii must take actions and “prevent any such great evil befalling the country.”²⁸Chinese Dragon, “Chinese Immigration,” Daily Bulletin, 15 October 1890. A petition that the Executive and Advisory Councils of the Hawaiian government received on January 18, 1894, delivered a similar admonishment. The document came from the American League, a racist haole organization devoted to promoting American interests and civilization in the islands. It straightforwardly defined the Chinese population as both “a menace to free labor and a frowning obstacle in the development of a Republican form of Government” (“Session of the Councils,” 1894, p. 5).²⁹“Session of the Councils,” Hawaiian Gazette, 19 January 1894.

Deemed as a “threat” to Anglo-American politics, Chinese naturally could not enjoy political rights. But they kept on demanding suffrage, which sparked more mockeries of their “barbarity.” In May 1894, nearly four hundred Chinese petitioned the President and the Provisional Government for the right to vote. Commenting on this action, the Gazette editorialized that suffrage belonged only to people who had “completely assimilated the ideas of the world of western freedom.” Chinese, judging from “everything which makes up the civilized man,” were “essentially aliens” and did not understand “our laws and civilization,” so they could not enjoy the franchise, averred the paper (“The Councils in Session,” 1894, p. 1; “With Us,” 1894, p. 4; “Chinese Citizenship,” 1894, p. 4).³⁰“The Councils in Session,” Hawaiian Gazette, 18 May 1894; “With Us, But Not of Us,” Hawaiian Gazette, 18 May 1894; “Chinese Citizenship,” Hawaiian Gazette, 22 May 1894. On July 27, the Gazette reiterated that voters, besides sharing morality and ideals, must embrace “the same political hopes and aims.” Bringing “the Orient with him,” the Chinese was said to have made himself a political misfit in Hawaii. Were he to have suffrage, the nation’s “political community” would cease to be homogeneous, warned the paper. “Fundamentally,” the Chinese was “not excluded, but excludes himself” (“A Vain Attempt,” 1894, p. 4).³¹“A Vain Attempt,” Hawaiian Gazette, 27 July 1894.

Still, those Chinese who decided to remain did not stop striving for political equality with Anglo-Americans. Once they stabilized themselves economically in Honolulu and other areas “better” than plantations in the early twentieth century, especially after achieving “a stable population” with more women coming in, they established more “social and political associations for further assimilation.” In 1930, they had already won “recognition as a minority group” eligible to vote. Hawaii’s 1934 election saw 33 Chinese or part-Chinese seeking offices among a total of 256 candidates (Char, p. 119).

Anglo-American civilization is also heavily religious, with Christianity as one essential pillar. The un-Christian beliefs of most Chinese simply added to their destructiveness in the eyes of haoles. That is how they appeared to the white minister “Mr. Cruzan” (1882, p. 5) in his November 1882 sermon. Either Americans “must Christianize” Chinese, or Chinese would “heathenize these islands,” he warned. The Advertiser nodded its approval by saying that Cruzan represented “a great many persons.”³²“Mr. Cruzan on the Chinese in Hawaii,” Pacific Commercial Advertiser, 4 November 1882. There were indeed echoes to this alarmism. For instance, the Bulletin of October 30, 1885, called Chineseness and Christianity “two diametrically opposite elements in society,” with the former tending to ruin “everything better” than itself and the latter ready to promote “the best development of enlightened civilization.” Chinese immigration would therefore destroy Hawaii’s “respectable, industrious transplants from Christian nations” and cripple “every institution constituting…modern civilization,” alerted the paper (“The Great Competition,” 1885, p. 2).³³“The Great Competition,” Daily Bulletin Summary, 30 October 1885. D. M. Crowley, who operated a company in Honolulu, sounded similarly pessimistic when addressing a mass meeting on the “Mongolian question” in Wailuku on March 26, 1888. He praised Euro-American immigrants for planting “the seeds of Christian civilization” to “grace and gladden” cottages, but condemned Chinese “human locusts” for bringing forth nothing but an “avalanche of pagandom” (“Mass Meeting,” 1888, p. 2).³⁴“Mass Meeting at Wailuku,” Daily Bulletin, 30 April 1888.

Actually, for the purpose of highlighting the Chinese threat, haoles had intentionally overlooked Chinese readiness to convert. As a man signed as “B.” (1887, p. 2) wrote in the Bulletin of February 21, 1887, Christianity made “growing success” with the Chinese in Hawaii, “under conditions far more favorable than in China, or in any other country” to which Chinese had emigrated. “Large numbers” of Chinese converts proved that the mission among them did “not look much like a ‘hopeless task.’”³⁵B., “Joss Not Yet Ahead,” Daily Bulletin, 21 February 1887. Even when denying Chinese susceptibility to “Christian civilization,” the Advertiser of January 4, 1879, duly acknowledged the existence of Chinese conversions. Though “extremely rare,” there were always “sincere converts to Christianity among Chinamen,” it “gladly” admitted (“This Little Kingdom”).³⁶“This Little Kingdom,” 2.

Haoles were too convinced of Chinese ruinousness to allow any undermining of their alertness. On the one hand, they brushed aside lofty ideals when approaching Chinese immigration. In June 1888, the Advertiser and the Gazette denied that Chinese deserved justice. Though justice was “dear to the heart of an Anglo-Saxon,” haoles must abandon “all their love of fairness” in the face of the worsening Chinese “threat,” the papers stated (“The Chinese Question,” 1888a, p. 2; 1888b, p. 4).³⁷“The Chinese Question,” Pacific Commercial Advertiser, 25 June 1888, and Hawaiian Gazette, 26 June 1888. Neither did haole voices consider humanitarianism applicable. For example, on September 29, 1885, the Bulletin alleged that since Chinese destroyed “everything that constitutes good society,” practicing “the humanitarian theory” on them could “more grossly” violate “the rights of society” than “any other process ever known in the history of man.” It challenged skeptics to take “a month’s sojourn” in the Chinatowns of either San Francisco or Honolulu. They would then throw into the dustbin “the biggest theory of humanitarian immigration ever constructed,” predicted the Bulletin (“Pauper Labor,” 1885, p. 2).³⁸“Pauper Labor,” Daily Bulletin, 29 September 1885. But the paper simply swallowed prevailing stereotypes without elaborating on how those Chinatowns violated “the rights of society.”

On the other, haoles would label sympathizers of Chinese as opponents of Anglo-American civilization. Sugar planters, who hired the most Chinese among white employers, desired continuous but regulated Chinese immigration. The Planters’ Labor and Supply Company, established by Hawaii’s largest planters in 1882 to coordinate labor recruitment, was the main advocate. When expressing its expectation, it mainly focused on the economics of Chinese laborers rather than their praiseworthy attributes. For example, a report read at a meeting on October 16, 1888, deemed China “the only country” that Hawaii could rely on as “a source of cheap labor.” Yet it defined Chinese as “a shrewd clanny race” (“Planters’ Labor,” 1888, p. 2).³⁹“Planters’ Labor and Supply Co.,” Daily Bulletin, 17 October 1888. At the annual meeting of 1890, company secretary W. O. Smith demanded “sufficient numbers” of Chinese laborers to keep Hawaii’s agriculture afloat. Meanwhile, he was much concerned that the nation might be “flooded with an irresponsible and uncontrollable class of Chinese” and become “a Chinese colony” (“The Planters in Council,” 1890, p. 2).⁴⁰“The Planters in Council,” Daily Bulletin, 6 October 1890.

But such stances, with all their deep concern over Chinese destructiveness, appeared too weak against the Chinese threat to other haoles. They angrily scolded planters for sacrificing “Anglo-Saxon civilization” and their own “flesh and blood” in importing Chinese labor. Planters were ridiculed as “latter day saints,” but the “eternal justice” that they tried to secure for Chinese allegedly harmed the “civilized community” of Hawaii (Hawaii Nei, 1888, 2; Altar Material, 1889, p. 2).⁴¹Hawaii Nei, “What Is Ahead of Us?” Daily Bulletin, 29 June 1888; Altar Material, “Humbug and Such Like,” Daily Bulletin, 17 October 1889. W. A. Kinney, the above-cited Anglo-American supremacist, was another critic of sugar planters. On August 16, 1889, he condemned their disregard for the Chinese “threat” to “western civilization.” Planters should “make sacrifices…for patriotism” in the face of “a hostile civilization and religion,” demanded Kinney (“The Problem of the Hour,” 1889, p. 2; Kinney, 1889, p. 5).⁴²“The Problem of the Hour,” and W. A. Kinney, “The Chinese Question,” Daily Bulletin, 16 August 1889.

Ever since American missionaries and merchants established a domineering influence in Hawaii in the 1820s, the nation had been undergoing a steady process of Americanization. No other group and its civilization could hope to derail that course. But haoles insisted on depicting Chinese immigration as an unprovoked menace. In so doing, they successfully criminalized Chinese and established their own purity and innocence, which formed a crucial step toward confirming their dominance in Hawaii.

Aided by the political influence that haoles had accumulated over the years, the success continuously translated into laws restricting Chinese arrivals and the jobs that Chinese could take. The 1883 regulation, which should be the first Chinese restriction legislation, allowed 2400 Chinese to enter the nation yearly while the 1884 rule changed the quota to 25 per ship. A new act in 1888 permitted at most 300 Chinese to land in one quarter. Starting from 1890, Chinese were explicitly required to engage only in agricultural and domestic service jobs. Violators were subject to punishment in the form of deportation, fines, or imprisonment (McKeown, p. 34; “Foreign Office,” 1886, p. 4; “An Act to Regulate,” 1888, pp. 1-2; “An Act to Limit,” 1888, p. 2; “An Act to Authorize,” 1890, pp. 1-2; Chinese Bureau, 1893).⁴³“Foreign Office Notice,” Pacific Commercial Advertiser, 12 February 1886; “An Act to Regulate Chinese Immigration,” Hawaiian Gazette, 17 January 1888; “An Act to Limit the Time within Which Permits for Chinese to Enter the Kingdom May Be Used,” Hawaiian Gazette, 24 July 1888; “An Act to Authorize the Introduction of Chinese Agricultural Laborers,” Hawaiian Gazette, 9 December 1890. As a result of haoles’ push to criminalize Chinese, these laws not only confirmed Chinese criminality and haole purity from the legal perspective but further lodged the impression in the public mind.

AMERICANS AS ONE TARGET AUDIENCE

By degrading and criminalizing Chinese as well as exhibiting the popularity of their civilization, haoles succeeded in presenting themselves as the predominant group in Hawaii. They referred to the Chinese threat in the process not only to pressure the Hawaiian government to restrict Chinese immigration but equally or even more importantly, to nourish a pro-American, pro-annexation atmosphere by demonstrating a concern for American worries on the issue of annexation. As stated earlier in the essay, Americans expected their country to be white. To achieve that end, they ostracized non-whites domestically while remaining cautious on taking territories mainly populated by non-white races. No doubt aware of these apprehensions, haoles took much care to turn their Chinese-referenced self-construction into a show of American whiteness. In this sense, they actually kept Americans in mind as one target audience even though the papers may have circulated mainly within Hawaii.

As excluding Chinese was instrumental to America’s effort at keeping itself white, caring for America’s anti-Chinese sentiment was naturally one way for haoles to prove their American-like whiteness. Since the first group of Americans reached China aboard the merchant vessel Empress of China in 1784, “Idealized China” quickly gave way to “Unvicilized and Threatening China” in American imaginations. Idealized China was “a ‘dreamworld’ of ancient mystery and exoticism.” But the information that American merchants and missionaries brought back, plus China’s humiliating defeat in the Opium War of 1839-1842, helped construct China as uncivilized. To nineteenth-century Americans who styled themselves as civilized, uncivilized China was undoubtedly “a danger to the United States’ Caucasian foundations.” The massive Chinese immigration starting in 1849 only exacerbated Americans’ fear of an uncivilized and threatening China and its people (Turner, 2014, pp. 40-58Turner, O. (2014) American Images of China: Identity, Power, Policy. London: Routledge.).

From then onward, the image of China as a threat became ingrained in American minds, even into the present, though with varying contents. This sentiment, further fanned by politicians for the sake of votes, eventually resulted in the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, which banned the immigration of Chinese laborers for ten years (Gyory, 1998Gyory, A. (1998) Closing the Gate: Race, Politics, and the Chinese Exclusion Act. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.). Americans kept on agitating for harsher measures until exclusion became permanent in 1904. This policy was only abolished in 1943 when China had become an ally of the United States during World War Two. Obviously, while haoles were condemning the Chinese threat, America’s anti-Chinese movement was in full swing. To show their being of one mind with American whites, haoles unsurprisingly presented their Chinese depiction as an echo to America’s Sinophobia.

For one thing, haole newspapers kept reminding readers that they must be firm in confronting the Chinese threat, for the United States would not like to see Hawaiian benevolence on Chinese immigrants. On October 12, 1881, the Gazette wrote that America was “very hostile” to the “continued influx of Chinese” into Hawaii. “Our country” must make “headway” in understanding the liking of “its powerful neighbor,” the paper demanded (“Central Committee,” 1881, p. 3).⁶⁷“The Central Committee,” Hawaiian Gazette, 12 October 1881. It reemphasized this point on February 15, 1882. Since “our powerful neighbor over the water” would not view large-scale Chinese immigration “with favor,” the Gazette stated, haole planters must take “great care” when importing Chinese laborers. If not, they would commit “a grave political and social mistake” (“In the Matter,” 1882, p. 3). ⁶⁸“In the Matter of Labor,” Hawaiian Gazette, 15 February 1882.

Other comments straightforwardly called on haoles to mind Americans’ anti-Chinese feeling when resisting the Chinese “intrusion.” The Gazette of August 10, 1881, carried a letter from a San Franciscan to convey that message. The letter cited U.S. Senator John Franklin Miller (R-CA) as saying that America would not and should not “allow the Sandwich Islands to come under the government of the Chinese” (“Our,” 1881, p. 8).⁶⁹“Our San Francisco Letters,” Hawaiian Gazette, 10 August 1881. While delivering the platitude that Chinese constituted a menace to “a Republican form of Government,” the annexationist American League openly announced that haoles’ vigilance was aimed at satisfying Americans’ dislike of Chinese. In a resolution submitted to the Executive and Advisory Councils of Hawaii on January 15, 1894, it explained that haoles must ward off the Chinese threat because Chinese were “dangerous and distasteful” not only to haoles, “but [to] our steadfast friends in the United States” (“Session of the Councils,” 1894, p. 5).⁷⁰“Session of the Councils,” Hawaiian Gazette, 19 January 1894.

Besides displaying their readiness to care for Americans’ anti-Chinese sentiment, haoles even regarded America’s Chinese exclusion laws as the criterion of their own conduct. This equaled an erasure of Hawaiian sovereignty in the face of the United States, showing how eager haoles were to prove their affinity with American whites. Characterizing Chinese immigrants as “uncivilized barbarian hordes” in the Bulletin of July 2, 1885, “Anglo-Saxon” strongly resented Hawaii’s then relative tolerance of those people. He accused the government of committing a “defiance of the laws of our mother country, the United States of America.” It needed to curb the coming of Chinese and stop them from “disgusting...every civilized member of the community,” he demanded (“Asiatic,” 1885, p. 4).⁷¹“Asiatic Ascendancy,” Daily Bulletin, 2 July 1885. On July 10, 1897, just at the height of American debates on annexation, the manager of Hawaiian Commercial and Sugar Company C. A. Spreckels reiterated haoles’ intention to deal with the Chinese menace in line with American laws. He reassured Americans that since no new contracts would be signed with Chinese laborers after Hawaii joined the United States, “American laws will apply to the labor conditions” (“Coolies,” 1879, p. 3).⁷²“Coolies in the Islands,” Evening Bulletin, 21 July 1897.

Another means for haoles to showcase their oneness with American whites was to define the Chinese threat that both faced as of the same nature. In 1880, Governor George Clement Perkins of California accused Chinese immigrants of knowing “nothing” of America’s home culture and having no “respect for law” or “love of freedom.” Consequently, they could not become “a useful portion of the political fabric.” Perkins made these charges at his inauguration, obviously not thinking of Hawaii’s Chinese immigration. But in order to demonstrate haoles’ identification with Americans, the Advertiser of March 13, 1880, not only reprinted Perkins’s condemnation verbatim but called his remarks “well-chosen and strikingly truthful words.” They were “as applicable to our case at the islands as to that of our neighbors over the sea,” it claimed (“Chinamen,” 1880, p. 3).⁷³“Chinamen,” Pacific Commercial Advertiser, 13 March 1880. On May 19, 1888, to prove that Chinese were “dark and devious” in character, the haole signed as “Justice” cited “the history of the Six Companies in California” as evidence. Formally established in 1882, the Six Companies was an umbrella organization for the entire Chinese community in America. Because of the “long train of bribery and corruption, slavery, prostitution and murder” under its auspices, Justice claimed, America had just passed a “stringent Restriction Act” (the Scott Act) to ban Chinese from reentering the United States. Hawaii was “quite close to the necessities of the hour,” he believed (“Correspondence,” 1888, p. 3).⁷⁴“Correspondence,” Pacific Commercial Advertiser, 22 May 1888.

Haoles also stressed that just like Americans’ anti-Chinese movement, their castigation of Chinese was aimed at bringing forth a white man’s country. For example, on October 2, 1888, the Gazette editorialized that the “majority of people” in Hawaii wanted “this country for a white man’s country.” As Chinese were “undoing the work of more than half a century of white colonization of Hawaii,” one must take measures to protect the fruit of “the white man’s doing.” In this way, Hawaii could remain “different from and superior to the other archipelagoes of the Pacific,” stated the paper (“We Are,” 1888, p. 4).⁷⁵“We Are Inclined,” Hawaiian Gazette, 2 October 1888. In a letter carried by the Bulletin on December 11, Kinney (1888, pp. 1-2) too claimed that haoles had always desired to transform Hawaii into “a white man’s country.” To “make the white man’s civilization dominant at the islands” was just the motive behind their “revolution” in 1887, which effectively curbed royal powers in the Bayonet Constitution. But the increasing “influence and power” of Chinese necessitated “a fresh infusion of white blood,” Kinney wrote.⁷⁶Kinney, “An Interesting Letter to Col. V. V. Ashford,” Daily Bulletin Weekly Summary, 11 December 1888.

While showing themselves to be as white-hearted as mainstream Americans, haoles did not forget that the latter’s hesitance on annexation also arose from their concerns over Hawaii’s climate. The islands’ tropical locality was widely held unsuitable for large-scale white settlement. To debunk that theory, haoles kept emphasizing that the climate was actually not so hostile as usually depicted. At the open meeting of American League on the evening of March 5, 1894, one speaker forthrightly denounced the contention that white men could not work in Hawaii. To him, Hawaii was “not a tropical country” and its summers were “not as hot as those of Iowa and Illinois.” Since “white men work there [in Iowa and Illinois],” they could migrate to Hawaii and replace the Chinese, out of whom “you cannot make a citizen,” the speaker encouraged (The League’s,” 1894, p. 5).⁷⁷“The League’s Open Meeting,” Hawaiian Gazette, 6 March 1894. E. L. Fitzgerald, the Labor Commissioner of California, corroborated this view on his visit to the islands in 1897. In an interview carried by the Gazette on April 27, he claimed to “have taken the temperature in the fields” personally, but “fail to find it higher than in California.” White men could surely come and settle, stated Fitzgerald. This finding could help eradicate “any stiff resistance in America” against annexation and ensure that Hawaii continue to be “a white man’s country” rather than one of Asiatics, he said (“Now,” 1897, p. 1).⁷⁸“Now Is the Time,” Hawaiian Gazette, 27 April 1897.

Thus by condemning the Chinese threat, haoles not only meant to enhance their status as the indisputably dominant group in Hawaii, but intended to show their American-like whiteness plus their resolve and ability to make and keep Hawaii white. As a consequence, Americans should not worry about the islands’ racial composition and climate when considering annexation. Though one does not know exactly how much influence this reasoning had on Americans’ approval of annexation in 1898, it certainly fitted in with American annexationists’ change of tactic in the final stage of debates. As Love (pp. xi-xii, 144-158) rightly discovers, those people previously avoided placing race at the center of their arguments, choosing instead to emphasize Hawaii’s strategic importance to America. But due to opponents’ anxiety over Hawaii’s conglomerate racial composition and its tropical climate, their drive for annexation was repeatedly thwarted. Realizing where the sticking point was, annexationists changed their strategy by emphasizing the whiteness of Hawaii and its precariousness in the face of the Asian threat. The annexation resolution finally passed Congress as a result. One may reasonably presume that annexationists were much encouraged by haoles’ dealings with Chinese when they decided to switch tactics. Or, those opposed to annexation might have lowered their tone of resistance after learning how hard haoles had been trying to make Hawaii white.

In whatever ways, haoles’ castigation of Chinese from the civilization perspective was not simply a scheme to restrict Chinese immigration and maintain a balance between Chinese labor and labor of other races, but also a means to display white supremacy in the islands and create an atmosphere contributive to annexation. By inventing and battling the alleged Chinese threat, they intended to convince the white community both in Hawaii and the United States that whites could and did prosper in Hawaii. The islands were therefore suitable for American expansion and actually needed annexation to help consolidate the domineering position of whites against Asian challengers, first Chinese and then Japanese after the mid-1890s. Despite the lack of direct evidence to illustrate the exact impact of this discursive campaign on Americans, its relevance to anti-expansionists’ concerns and coincidence with annexationists’ final strategy indicates that haoles’ condemnation of the Chinese threat was actually one part of the Hawaii-U.S. cross-border effort at securing the former’s annexation into the latter.

At the same time, haoles’ Chinese-referenced self-construction miniaturizes Hawaii’s racial hierarchy. After haoles successfully imposed their, that is, American, values and institutions as the norm through various schemes, including the one presented in this essay, each racial group’s position on the ladder would be determined by how thoroughly and willingly it assimilated. While functioning to accelerate the Americanization of the islands, this paradigm engendered two interesting future developments. On the one hand, Asian immigrants, having no need to safeguard an indigenous sovereignty, quickly realized the necessity and desirability of full assimilation. A voluntary Americanization helped change their status from victims of American colonialism to its beneficiaries. As Candace Fujikane (2008, pp. 2-3, 8)Fujikane, C. (2008) “Introduction: Asian Settler Colonialism in the U.S. Colony of Hawai’i.” In: C. Fujikane and J. Y. Okamura, eds., Asian Settler Colonialism: From Local Governance to the Habits of Everyday Life in Hawai’i. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, pp. 1-42. puts it, “the overall effect of the Americanization movement was unquestioning Asian settler support of the authority of the U.S. settler state.” On the other, Native Hawaiians’ never-dying attachment to indigenous sovereignty increasingly conflicted with their forced assimilation to Americanism. Once the Americanization movement transformed Asians into haoles’ co-settlers after WWII, natives’ reluctance in acculturation appeared ever more jarring. Haoles gradually stopped taking them as a foil for Chinese and Japanese alienness. Instead, they began to regard natives as a persistent challenger to America’s Asian-supported sovereignty over Hawaii (Kauanui, 2008Kauanui, J. K. (2008) Hawaiian Blood: Colonialism and the Politics of Sovereignty and Indigeneity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.).

Finally, due to the scope and perspective of this essay, two caveats are worth mentioning. For one thing, by focusing on three major English-language haole newspapers, I have unavoidably bypassed other types of sources. It remains to be seen if haoles negotiated the same identity vis-a-vis Chinese in their minor papers and periodicals, Native-Hawaiian-language press, or non-periodical archives. For another, the essay offers few clues as to how non-haole groups-Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Native Hawaiians, and others-responded to haoles’ Chinese-referenced push for racial dominance and annexation. Their agency needs to be retrieved in other researches. Still, given the enormous influence of the three newspapers, the analysis as presented here could at least index haoles’ persistence at keeping Hawaii under American influence and appealing to Americans before annexation materialized.