Pacifically Possessed: Scientific Production and Native Hawaiian Critique of the "Almost White" Polynesian Race

321 Pages·2013·1.841 MB·English

by  Maile Renee Arvin

UC San Diego
UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Title
Pacifically Possessed : : Scientific Production and Native Hawaiian Critique of the "Almost
White" Polynesian Race
Permalink
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4d99b172
Author
Arvin, Maile Renee
Publication Date
2013-09-11

Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation
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University of California
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO

Pacifically Possessed:
Scientific Production and Native Hawaiian Critique of the "Almost White" Polynesian
Race

A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements
for the degree Doctor of Philosophy

in

Ethnic Studies

by

Maile Renee Arvin

Committee in charge:

Professor Ross Frank, Chair
Professor Denise Ferreira da Silva, Co-chair
Professor Catherina Gere
Professor Adria Imada
Professor Andrea Smith
Professor K. Wayne Yang

2013
Copyright

Maile Renee Arvin, 2013

All Rights Reserved.
The Dissertation of Maile Renee Arvin is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and
form for publication on microfilm and electronically:

________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________

________________________________________________________________
Co-Chair

________________________________________________________________
Chair

University of California, San Diego

2013
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DEDICATION

For Kalani Awo:

He ʻōpū hālau.

A heart as big as a house.

And for the entire Awo ʻohana:

Me ke aloha pauʻole.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Signature Page ................................................................................................................... iii

Dedication .......................................................................................................................... iv

Table of Contents .................................................................................................................v

List of Figures .................................................................................................................. viii

Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ ix

Vita ................................................................................................................................... xiv

Abstract of the Dissertation ...............................................................................................xv

Introduction ..........................................................................................................................1

Chapter 1: The Polynesian Problem and its Genomic Solutions .......................................45

Part 1: Defining the Polynesian Problem ...............................................................49

1.1.1: From Who to Whose: Origins, Identity, and Possession of the
Indigenous Pacific ......................................................................................53

1.1.2: Polynesia Through the Christian Lens of Degeneration ..................58

1.1.3: Heirlooms of the Aryan Race ..........................................................65

Part 2: (Un)Mapping Humanity: Genetic Sameness and Mixture in the Pacific ...75

1.2.1: Genetically "Solving" the Polynesian Problem ...............................76

1.2.2: The Hawaiian Genome Project ........................................................85

Chapter 2: "Still in the Blood": Past and Present Configurations of the "Part-Hawaiian"
..........................................................................................................................................103

Part 1: Eugenic Thinking About Native Hawaiian Betterment ...........................109

2.1.1: Eugenics Pedagogy in Hawaiʻi: Uldrick Thompson's Hopes for the
Hawaiian "Remnant" ...............................................................................109

2.1.2: Sullivan's "Two Types" of Polynesians .........................................121
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Part 2: Leveraging Blood and Whiteness .............................................................133

2.2.1: Polynesian Blood and the Pre-requisite of Whiteness ...................135

2.2.2: Calling the Law on "Native Hawaiians with a Capital N" ............140

Chapter 3: Re-envisioning "Hybrid" and "Hapa": Race, Gender and Indigeneity in
Hawaiʻi as Racial Laboratory ..........................................................................................157

Part 1: Hybrid Hawaiian Types: Native Hawaiian Women in Hawaiʻiʻs Racial
Laboratory ............................................................................................................162

3.1.1: The Racial Laboratory of Romanzo Adams and the Chicago School
of Sociology .............................................................................................165

3.1.2: Hybrid Hawaiian Girls ...................................................................175

Part 2: Hapa and Whole .......................................................................................185

3.2.1: Kip Fulbeck's Vision of Hapa as a "Whole" New Race ................190

3.2.2: Re-constellations of Asian Settlers, Haoles Settlers, and Native
Hawaiians .................................................................................................199

Chapter 4: Beyond Recognition: Native Hawaiians, Human Rights, and Global
Indigenous Identities ........................................................................................................211

Part 1: Polynesia and Hawaiʻi in the Science of Race After World World II .....215

4.1.1: The Polynesian Problem as Anti-Racist Example .........................215

4.1.2: "Tropical Democracy" and the Science of Stabilizing Mixed Race
..................................................................................................................227

Part 2: Reframing Recognition: Indigenous Rights and Relationships in Oceania
and Beyond ..........................................................................................................241

4.2.1: Polynesian / Pacific / Pacific Islander ............................................245

4.2.2: Indigenous / Non-Self-Governing Territory ..................................251

4.2.3: Native American / Alaska Native / Idle No More .........................263

Conclusion .......................................................................................................................272

vi
Bibliography ....................................................................................................................280

vii
LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 2.1: "Indonesian Type," "A Hawaiian Fisherman" and "Polynesian Type." Louis
Sullivan, "New Light on the Races of Polynesia," Detach from Asia, 1923. ..................129

viii
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I began this project on the land of the Kumeyaay people in La Jolla, California,
and as I finish it, I write on the land of the Abenaki people in Hanover, New Hampshire.
In living and working on their lands, without holding any substantial relationship with,
much less the permission of the Kumeyaay and Abenaki, I have incurred a debt I may
never be able to repay to these peoples. I want to say here not exactly thank you (as
gratitude is inappropriate and inadequate in regards to something taken, not given) but I
will not forget.
I am immensely grateful for the support and fellowship I have received over the
last several years, which sustained and brought this project to life. I would like to express
my gratitude to the Ford Foundation, whose Pre-doctoral Fellowship supported three
years of my graduate study. I must also thank the Newberry Library in Chicago, whose
Frances C. Allen Fellowship, a research fellowship for Indigenous women, provided a
rich foundation to this work. I am especially grateful to the Newberry's Scott Stevens and
Diane Dillon for their strong support of my scholarship. I also thank the staff of the
Bishop Museum Library and Archives in Honolulu for their help with my research there,
as well as Betty Kam in the Cultural Resources department. Further, I am grateful to
Meiji University in Tokyo, Japan, whose affiliation in the summer of 2012 gave me an
air-conditioned place to write in the sweltering humidity of a Tokyo summer. I appreciate
the kindness of Mari Armstrong-Hough and Yoshi Hananoi, in Meiji's School of Political
Science and Economics, for allowing me that privilege.
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