Hostname: page-component-5b777bbd6c-ks5gx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-06-18T10:25:47.360Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

From White Supremacy to a Multiracial Mainstream in Hawai‘i

How the Color Line Can Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 May 2025

Richard Alba ,
John Torpey  and
Juan Dolores Cerna
Richard Alba*
Affiliation:
The Graduate Center, CUNY, New York, NY, USA
John Torpey
Affiliation:
The Graduate Center, CUNY, New York, NY, USA
Juan Dolores Cerna
Affiliation:
The Graduate Center, CUNY, New York, NY, USA
*
Corresponding author: Richard Alba; Email: ralba@gc.cuny.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Contemporary racial theorization about American society assumes the universality of White dominance as its point of departure. We argue here that Hawai‘i is an exception, where White supremacy has given way to a multiracial mainstream, shared by the Chinese, Japanese, and Whites. This was a surprising development in a state founded in settler colonialism and racial capitalism, which was moreover a racially hierarchical plantation society until the middle of the twentieth century. The pivot, in Hawai‘i as on the mainland, occurred during the post-World War II period, when the economy underwent a transformation requiring a more educated workforce. On the mainland, this socioeconomic shift opened up the mainstream to the so-called White ethnics. But these were few in number in Hawai‘i, and so the Chinese and Japanese ascended socioeconomically and socially instead. The ethnoracial hierarchy created in this period is still in evidence, as shown by pronounced inequalities among Hawaiian groups. However, the end of White supremacy has been associated with very widespread ethnoracial mixing in families. We discuss some ways in which Hawai‘i may offer a preview of twenty-first-century changes in the U.S. as a whole.

Keywords

MainstreamMultiracialMobilityIntermarriageSettler ColonialismRacial CapitalismHawai‘i
Type
Article
Information
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race , First View , pp. 1 - 25
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Hutchins Center for African and African American Research

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Abramitzky, Ran, and Boustan, Leah (2022). Streets of Gold: America’s Untold Story of Immigrant Success. New York: PublicAffairs.Google Scholar
Alba, Richard (2020). The Great Demographic Illusion. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Alba, Richard (2024a). Culture’s Role in Assimilation and Integration: The Expansion and Growing Diversity of U.S. Popular Culture, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 50: 27–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alba, Richard (2024b). The Unappreciated Centrality of Ethnoracially Mixed Americans to the Nation’s Demographic Future. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 121(47). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2415070121Google Scholar
Alba, Richard, and Duyvendak, Jan Willem (2019). What About the Mainstream?: Assimilation in Super-diverse Times, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 42: 105–124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alba, Richard, and Maggio, Christopher (2022). Demographic Change and Assimilation in the Early 21st Century. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 119(13). https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2118678119.Google ScholarPubMed
Alba, Richard, and Nee, Victor (2003). Remaking the American Mainstream. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Alexander, Michelle (2010). The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: The New PressGoogle Scholar
Banner, Stuart (2005). Preparing to Be Colonized: Land and Legal Strategy in Nineteenth-Century Hawaii. Law & Society Review, 35: 273–314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beckert, Sven (2014). Empire of Cotton: A Global History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.Google Scholar
Bell, Daniel (1973). The Coming of Post-Industrial Society. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Blauner, Robert (1972). Racial Oppression in America. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Bonilla-Silva, Eduardo (2004). From Bi-Racial to Tri-Racial: Towards a New System of Racial Stratification in the USA. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 27: 931–950.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chakravorty, Sanjoy, Kapur, Devesh, and Singh, Nirvikar (2016). The Other One Percent: Indians in America. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Chetty, Raj, Grusky, David, Hell, Maximillian, Hendren, Nathaniel, Robert, Manduca, and Narang, Jimmy (2017). The Fading American Dream: Trends in Absolute Income Mobility since 1940. Science, 356(6336): 398–406.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Daniels, Roger (2004). Guarding the Golden Door: American Immigration Policy and Immigrants Since 1882. New York: Hill & Wang.Google Scholar
Drouhot, Lucas (2024). Assimilation Theories in the 21st Century: Appraising Accomplishments and Future Challenges. International Migration Review, 58(4): 1974–2011. https://doi.org/10.1177/01979183241274747CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Du Bois, W. E. B. (1903). The Souls of Black Folk. Chicago: A. C. McClurg & Co.Google Scholar
Feagin, Joe (2000). Racist America: Roots, Current Realities, and Future Reparations. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Foner, Nancy (2022). One Quarter of the Nation: Immigration and the Transformation of America. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Fu, Xuanning, and Heaton, Tim (1997). Interracial Marriages in Hawaii, 1983-1994. Lewiston, NY: The Edwin Mellen Press.Google Scholar
Fuchs, Lawrence (1961). Hawaii Pono: A Social History. New York: Harcourt, Brace.Google Scholar
Hughes, Judith (1993). The Demise of the English Standard School System in Hawai‘i. The Hawaiian Journal of History, 27: 65–89.Google Scholar
Ignatiev, Noel (1995). How the Irish Became White. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Itzigsohn, José, and Brown, Karida (2020). The Sociology of W. E. B. Du Bois: Racialized Modernity and the Global Color Line. New York: NYU Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jung, Moon-kie (2003). Interracialism: The Ideological Transformation of Hawaii’s Working Class. American Sociological Review, 68: 373–400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jung, Moon-kie (2009). The Racial Unconscious of Assimilation Theory. Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 6(2): 375–395.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kamins, Robert, Potter, Robert, and members of the University community (1998). Malamalama: A History of the University of Hawai’i. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press.Google Scholar
Kasinitz, Philip, and Waters, Mary (2024). Becoming White or Becoming Mainstream?: Defining the Endpoint of Assimilation. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 50: 95–113.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kelley, Robin D. G. (2000). Foreword. In Cedric Robinson, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition, pp. iv–xvi. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Kendi, Ibram X. (2019). How to Be an Antiracist. New York: One World.Google Scholar
Lam, Margaret (1936). Racial Myth and Family Tradition-Worship among Part-Hawaiians. Social Forces, 14: 405–409.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lind, Andrew (1955). Hawaii’s People. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar
Lind, Andrew (1980). Hawaii’s People, 4th edition. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar
Linnekin, Jocelyn (1987). Statistical Analysis of the Great Mahele: Some Preliminary Findings. The Journal of Pacific History, 22: 15–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Marks, Rachel, and Rios-Vargas, Merarys (2021). Improvements to the 2020 Census Race and Hispanic Origin Question Designs, Data Processing, and Coding Procedures. U.S. Census Bureau, August 3. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/random-samplings/2021/08/improvements-to-2020-census-race-hispanic-origin-question-designs.html (accessed March 11, 2025).Google Scholar
Nakano Glenn, Evelyn (2015). Settler Colonialism as Structure: A Framework for Comparative Studies of U.S. Race and Gender Formation. Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, 1: 52–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Niezen, Ronald (2003). The Origins of Indigenism: Human Rights and the Politics of Identity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ocampo, Anthony Christian (2016). The Latinos of Asia: How Filipino Americans Break the Rules of Race. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Office of Hawaiian Affairs (2017). Native Hawaiian Population Enumerations in Hawai’i. Honolulu, HI. chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.oha.org/wp-content/uploads/RPT_Native-Hawaiian-Population-Enumerations.pdf (accessed November 1, 2024.).Google Scholar
Okamura, Jonathan (2008). Ethnicity and Inequality in Hawai’i. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.Google Scholar
Okamura, Jonathan (2014). From Race to Ethnicity: Interpreting Japanese American Experiences in Hawai’i. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Okamura, Jonathan (2018). Race and/or Ethnicity in Hawaii: What’s the Difference and What Difference Does It Make? In Fojas, Camilla, Guevarra, Rudy P. Jr., and Sharma, Nitasha Tamar, (Eds.), Beyond Ethnicity: New Politics of Race in Hawaii, pp. 94–113. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Okihiro, Gary Y. (1991). Cane Fires: The Anti-Japanese Movement in Hawaii, 1865-1945. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Rana, Aziz (2010). The Two Faces of American Freedom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Robinson, Cedric (2000 [1983]). Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Roediger, David (2005). Working Toward Whiteness: How America’s Immigrants Became White; The Strange Journey from Ellis Island to the Suburbs. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Ruggles, Steven, Sarah, Flood, Matthew, Sobek, Daniel, Backman, Grace, Cooper, Julia A, Rivera Drew, Richards, Stephanie, Renae, Rodgers, Jonathan, Schroeder, and Kari, C. W. Williams (2025). IPUMS USA: Version 16.0 [dataset]. Minneapolis, MN: IPUMS, https://doi.org/10.18128/D010.V16.0.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Serwer, Adam (2025). The Great Resegregation. The Atlantic, February 22. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/02/trump-attacks-dei/681772/ (accessed March 11, 2025).Google Scholar
Swanson, David (2019). A New Estimate for the Hawaiian Population for 1778, the Year of First European Contact. Department of Sociology, University of California, Riverside: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3917957 (accessed October 10, 2024).Google Scholar
Takaki, Ronald (1983). Pau Hana: Plantation Life and Labor in Hawaii, 1835-1920. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toth Fox, Catherine (2017). Hawaii’s Rainbow of Cultures and How They Got to the Islands. Hawai’i Magazine, Sept. 26. https://www.hawaiimagazine.com/hawaiis-rainbow-of-cultures-and-how-they-got-to-the-islands/ (accessed March 11, 2025).Google Scholar
Tran, Van (2024). Asian American Diversity and Growth. Annual Review of Sociology, 50: 581–601.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Velasquez-Manoff, Moises (2019). Want to Be Less Racist?: Move to Hawaii. The New York Times, June 28. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/28/opinion/sunday/racism-hawaii.html (accessed March 11, 2025).Google Scholar
Williams, Ronald Jr (2015). Race, Power, and the Dilemma of Democracy: Hawai’i’s First Territorial Legislature, 1901. The Hawaiian Journal of History, 49: 1–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wikipedia (2025). Hawaiian Organic Act. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaiian_Organic_Act (accessed March 5, 2025).Google Scholar
Wilkerson, Isabel (2020). Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents. New York: Random House.Google Scholar