Local Story: The Massie-Kahahawai Case and the Culture of History

Epilogue: Ha'ina 'ia mai

Ha‘ina ‘ia mai ana ka puana . . . Let the story be told . . . At the closing of many Hawaiian songs, one will often hear the familiar phrase above, signaling to the audience that the song—the story—is coming to an end. Even though they might not be fluent in ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i, or the Hawaiian language, most locals today have heard the phrase near the closing of songs often enough to understand that the story is coming to a conclusion . Now that the effects of Hawaiian-language immersion schools and the Hawaiian Renaissance are increasingly felt today, growing numbers of­ Hawaiian-language speakers, young and old, recognize that “Ha‘ina ‘ia mai ana ka puana” is more accurately an imperative or a command informing listeners that they have a duty to tell the summary refrain of the story. The phrase does not signify a conclusion, but instead calls for listeners to return to the beginning, to tell the story again, to perpetuate not only its contents, but also its cadences and manner of telling. It is the repetition of phrases, after all, that reinforces the story, enhances its meaning, and engenders memory, thereby linking the storyteller to other members of the community. Not all people in Hawai‘i today recall the Massie-Kahahawai case. Since e p i l o g u e Ha‘ina ‘ia mai 102 Epilogue 103 most current Hawai‘i residents were born after World War II, it might also be difficult for some to imagine a past in which people of Native Hawaiian and Asian ancestry were considered second-class citizens by those on the continent . The Massie case helps to explain the origins of local identity in Hawai‘i, but other factors also contributed to its development in the late twentieth century. Though not all locals can claim to be Native Hawaiian, what usually links locals together is their collective belief that they are legitimately connected to Hawai‘i and its history in a special way.1 Since the late 1960s and early 1970s a revival of Native Hawaiian cultural traditions has encouraged locals of varying ethnic backgrounds to position themselves within the narrative of Hawai‘i’s past through cultural practices unique to the islands. Ethnic studies and community celebrations have also prompted successive generations of locals to look back on Hawai‘i’s plantation past with a sense of reverence and even nostalgia. This study has shown why the story of the Massie case has been one of the most powerful ways to express local identity—one that is often shared by indigenous Native Hawaiians and the descendants of Asian, Portuguese, and Puerto Rican immigrants who came to Hawai‘i to work the fields. Popular narratives of the case appeal to locals because they reach out to ethnic groups and individuals who recognize a common history of racism and oppression. Structures of Feeling:­Emotive Elements of “Local Identity” Examining the relationship between local experiences and a national history is necessary for any comprehension of local identity in Hawai‘i. A large part of the construction of local identity relies on the passing on of unofficial knowledge—knowledge about the past that has often been left out of history books for quite some time. Including the voices of working-class men and women and using oral histories is now commonplace in social histories. This book has gone a step further by suggesting that local identity in Hawai ‘i has a constitutive emotive element about it that often escapes written accounts. This is not to say that other social phenomena do not have such emotive elements. I am not arguing that Hawai‘i is a “special” place, unlike any other—such an approach is too much like the sort of myth making used in selling Hawai‘i to tourists seeking the “Paradise of the Pacific” where the 104 Epilogue “Aloha Spirit” prevails. In a setting where people seldom move away from the island chain or their particular island, one finds that locals also often reside in the very same neighborhoods in which their parents, grandparents, and even great-grandparents lived. Such a sense of community tends to foster bonds to place and history that are increasingly uncommon in other parts of the United States, particularly the American West, that see high rates of mobility. Local identity emerged because of the multiple ways that life in Hawai‘i was seen—and continues to...