I write because of the suggestion that Hawaiians were “the bad guys” in Catherine Lo’s article on the 1924 Massacre. She states: “some…sharpshooters mostly Hawaiian who were deputized by the County of Kaua‘i as special police…who fired the first shot, the preponderance of accounts points to the special police.”
I write because of the suggestion that Hawaiians were “the bad guys” in Catherine Lo’s article on the 1924 Massacre. She states: “some…sharpshooters mostly Hawaiian who were deputized by the County of Kaua‘i as special police…who fired the first shot, the preponderance of accounts points to the special police.”
Who caused the massacre? The sugar plantation industry that controlled the government and economy and treated their laborers slightly above slavery. The demands of Visayan plantation workers for fair wages and working conditions were just and reasonable. But the plantations refused to pay. They brought in Ilocano strike breakers to work the fields. The plantations knew of the animosity between Filipinos of different tribes. The two captives seized by the Visayans were Ilocano strike breakers and held in captivity by them as hostages.
The fault for the incident of September 8, 1924 lies not with a race, but with a governmental system that allowed the plantations to rule. The fault lies with a plantation system that used the technique of “divide and rule” to control the masses of labor brought to the islands by pitting one race of workers against another.
Unfortunately, the laborers of the 1920’s did not understand the universal law: “United we stand divided we fall.” The Filipinos abandoned the Japanese in the 1920 strike which caused hundreds to die both from the Spanish flu and privation. Division among Filipinos was a factor in causing the massacre of 1924.
It would take outsiders who came to the islands and preached unity to slowly affect change. There were other bloody incidents that occurred along the way to this change. Did the massacre cause the Democratic Revolution in Hawaii in 1954 which ended plantation dominance of politics and made unions respectable? I think there is that possibility. Massacres have historically resulted in governmental change, Boston and St. Petersburg are examples.
We are witnessing the results of racism in America because of a failed government. The lynching death of Emmett Till combined with other racial incidents culminating recently in the strangulation of George Floyd have led to an uproar of protest.
What does this have to do with the massacre? The massacre was not caused by any race. It was caused by an economic and governmental system which needed to be changed.
Our State law recites: “Aloha is the essence of relationships in which each person is important to every other for collective existence.” (Aloha Spirit, HRS 5-7.5) I grew up in Hawaii knowing the importance of caring, sharing, kupuna and ohana. Let us always be motivated in our actions and words by this spirit of aloha. Let us never ever again pit one race or tribe against another.
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William Fernandez, Judge retired, Kapaa
