“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’
But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you,
that you may be sons and daughters of your Father in heaven."
~ Jesus (Matthew 5:43-45a)
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.
Repay no one evil for evil.
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
(Romans 12:14, 17, 21)
Remember the neighbors I mentioned in the last chapter? The Hawaiian guys living in the other half of our duplex? The ones who seemed anxious to avoid us gals at all costs? At first, I thought they were girl-shy. Maybe that’s how Hawaiian guys were raised? It was almost endearing to think of them that way. But when they continued to be so gruff and harsh—rebuffing all my attempts to be friendly, I was confused. For the longest time, I couldn’t figure out what was up with them.
It turned out, theirs was a common attitude held by native Hawaiians towards Haoles, which is what they call non-native Caucasians. Haole means “stranger”—the connotation being that a Haole is an unwanted threat to the native islander’s way of life.
Because many Hawaiians felt threatened or were taught to view things a certain way, they held onto a deep prejudice based on the ethnicity and skin color of other people. Does this sound familiar? No people group, past or present has ever been completely immune to this kind of prejudice. At one time or another, many of us have been guilty of holding onto some sort of preconceived, negative opinion of another person or group with no justifiable reason for doing so.[1] When this prejudice, which begins in the heart, is put into practice, it causes great hurt.
Up to this point in my life, I had no experience with this kind of prejudice, neither in holding it towards others nor bearing the brunt of it. In the predominately white schools I attended growing up in Boulder, Colorado, most of the students of “color” were some of the most popular students and had no problem fitting in (as far as I could see). The prejudice at the schools I attended was based instead on whether a person associated with the “right” social group or not. Knife, gun, and fist fights happened between “cowboys” and “freaks” (or “hippies”) or between the “jocks” of one team against those of another team, and so on.
This prejudice I was experiencing in Hawaii, often directed toward myself, was completely new to me. Another reason it took me a while to catch on was because I spent most of my time on or near the BYU campus engaged in classes, schoolwork, and my job at the Polynesian Cultural Center with other LDS people. I didn’t expect—at all—to find such discrimination among fellow LDS Church members, native or not. This was a kind of bigotry I’d only read about in books or heard about on the news happening elsewhere to other people.
Also, as with all people groups, not all Hawaiians held this bias, including native LDS church members. In fact, some of the local Hawaiians I got to know were the most loving, Christ-like people I had ever encountered. They were very present, honest, kind, and generous—not caught up in the materialism and the general modern rush to acquire things and be places they were not. I saw this as the epitome of the laid-back “Aloha spirit” of the Hawaiian Islands that was so refreshing to my soul.
However, besides our LDS neighbors, there was my LDS Tongan boss, and plenty of other LDS Polynesian students at BYU, along with the Hawaiian islanders in general, to teach me all about this kind of prejudice. Thankfully, at the same time, the Lord was teaching me His way of dealing with it, even when I didn’t know that “it” existed.
Very soon after I began working at the Polynesian Cultural Center gift shop, I found myself wishing I was working for the woman who had hired me, instead of for the Tongan boss to whom I’d been assigned. It seemed Islanders in general were very direct, having a child-like honesty that I later came to greatly admire. However, in this case, it meant my boss didn’t hide her dislike of me—at all. According to her, I couldn’t do anything right.
The shelves I straightened “should have been arranged differently.” The clothes I hung up or rehung looked “too regular” or “not neat enough”; they were “too close together” or “too far apart.” I was supposed to be working, not talking with customers. It didn’t matter if I was answering a customer’s question. I should have referred the customer to someone else. The clothes I folded or stacked should have been folded or placed differently. Why was I talking with another employee instead of working? If I had a question, I could ask her (my boss)—even though she was usually in the back or unavailable. When it was time to close, I straightened the shop “too slowly” or insufficiently; I always took “too long” to count my cash drawer; “most of the time” my count was off (even if that wasn’t true); and so it went.
This regular barrage, coming from my boss, was discomforting and unsettling to say the least. She seemed to take delight in making my work life as miserable as possible.
I struggled more and more to continue treating my boss with the love and respect I knew the Lord wanted me to show toward others. It went against my natural temperament and how I had behaved in the past. The Lord, by His Spirit and loving influence, was teaching me, in real time, to practice His proactive, unconditional love, rather than a love dependent on another’s behavior. My own natural feelings of “love” tended to be conditional and reactionary, based on what was pleasing to me. Previously, I wouldn’t have had the other person in mind at all—just myself. I would have only been concerned with whether I thought the other person was treating me “right” or not. It was only by the influence of the Lord’s Spirit of love all this was changing. All the same, even with the Lord’s help, it was bewildering to be treated so badly—even when I wasn’t responding in kind. And my boss was supposedly LDS too!
One day, the light went on. I began to notice she treated all the Haoles under her management this way. My boss was friendly with all the Tongans, Samoans, and other Polynesians but it seemed like she went out of her way to be rude and unkind to us Haoles. This was after I’d been in Hawaii for a few months and had learned and observed some other things that finally led me to this conclusion.
I was also encountering this kind of rudeness when I took the bus to get groceries or travel elsewhere on the island. The bus driver would be friendly to the Hawaiian natives and Polynesian passengers, but abrupt and unkind to me. Most of the regular Polynesian passengers on the bus were just as bad or worse. When I got on the bus, they would stare at me with hostility and stop their friendly chatting with each other, then converse more quietly between themselves, giving me the cold shoulder. Occasionally they would direct a nasty remark about Haoles my way. I experienced this with the Hawaiians at the market where I shopped, at the bank, and elsewhere on the island as well.
As in the situation with my boss, the Lord by His Spirit was helping me in these situations to continue to be kind and gracious, independent of how people were treating me. When I was tempted to retaliate, the question would come to mind: Do you want to act just like these people who don’t know the love of Jesus?
It was a given. I began to feel sadness and pity toward them instead of animosity because they didn’t know Jesus or have Him in their lives to help them. Jesus was giving me a heart of mercy toward them and a desire to be a light to them, to help Him draw them to Himself and His love. I began to see that each time I traveled on the bus or ran errands, it was an opportunity to practice what the Lord was teaching me about how He values each person and to show His unconditional love and respect for every individual no matter the person’s behavior.
With this kind of compassion that the Lord was teaching me toward hostile Hawaiians and Polynesians, I began to wonder what kind of internal fears or insecurities were causing them to act this way. Something that helped me understand this common island prejudice was my Basic Hawaiian, history and culture, class at BYU as well as other people’s observations on Hawaiian culture.
As I’ve mentioned, I learned that the Hawaiian word Haole (ha-oh-lee, or how-lee) means “foreigner” or “stranger” and that it is only applied to Caucasians. Dictionary.com states, “Haole is usually considered to be a neutral descriptive term. However, it is sometimes used with disparaging intent, arising from a distrust of foreigners or outsiders.”[2]
As I learned more about Hawaiian history, I came to understand where the narrative of mistrust, which has been passed on through the generations had come from. How it had eventually translated into the racial discrimination against white people—Haoles—which I was personally experiencing. Below is a synopsis of what I learned.
Peaceful Polynesians from the Marquesas Islands were probably the first to reach the Hawaiian Islands around 450 AD. Then, around 1100 AD, another group of people from Tahiti arrived. They were brutal and bloodthirsty, terrible in their superstitions and tyranny. They began to torture and enslave the natives. They set up their own kings and rulers on every island and continued their torment of the natives through a system of taboos with severe, cruel punishments. Land disputes between aggressive chieftains were an ongoing occurrence.
In 1778, the British Captain, James Cook, was the first white person to discover the Hawaiian Islands. At first, the Hawaiians took him for the Great White God out of one of their legends and treated him with great reverence (a whole ‘nother story). They were quickly disabused of this belief; and less than a year later when Cook returned to the islands to resupply, they killed him.
In 1791, the Europeans were able to reestablish relations with the native islanders through the Hawaiian King, Kamehameha I. With the gunpowder and canons that the Europeans supplied King Kamehameha I, he was able to begin the conquest of all other island contenders. By 1810, he had “united” all of the Hawaiian Islands into one kingdom.
It was Kamehameha’s son, Liholiho, his family, and supporters, under European influence, who finally put an end to the ruthless system of governance that had been imposed on the natives of the Hawaiian Islands. Paradoxically, they did this by putting to death any who espoused or desired to perpetuate the harsh old belief system and ways.
Then, also, as happens when people are far removed from their past, the same descendants of the natives who were once enslaved and tortured under the cruelty of the old system, yearned for the “good old days.” They idealized the past cultural traditions and beliefs that their ancestors practiced and wanted them to be fully restored. And in the bitterness of what they believed to be their national loss of the old ways, they began to blame and hate any European or white influence—Haoles—for this deprivation.
For me, this was the beginning of the realization that there are always at least two sides to human nature and historical accounts—the truth is usually somewhere in the middle. Neither side can be ignored without causing harm to continue. True stories need to be told and passed down that include both sides of the conversation without judgment. But this requires more honesty, goodwill, and effort than most of us are willing to exert—because we are all so human. I think we can only do this with the Lord’s all-seeing (past, present, and future) perspective and help.
After Cook discovered Hawaii an influx of white people began. According to the Hawaii Tourism Authority, “Hawaii became a port for seamen, traders, and whalers. The whaling industry boom flourished in Lahaina Harbor in Maui. Throughout these years of growth, western disease took a heavy toll on the Native Hawaiian population.”[3] When Cook arrived in the Islands it is estimated between 500 thousand and one million Hawaiians were living on the islands. By the year 1890, because of the “European influenced” massacres instigated by King Kamehameha I and his family after him, and because of trader diseases (venereal disease is always mentioned, among others), the population of native Hawaiians had decreased to around 45 thousand!
White people were blamed in full for this devastation. When history is retold among the natives, Haoles alone get the blame. Even though many of the natives were slaughtered by their own Hawaiian rulers, and they were killed because they supported past tyrannies. Even though many of the traders to the islands who brought diseases or violence were not white. Even though it was white missionaries who helped to save countless natives from the diseases and death ravaging the islands. And so on.
As is so common when we think only of ourselves and believe ourselves to be victims or oppressed, the culpability must be assigned to some outside tyrant or oppressor. In this case, the white Haoles were assigned this role, and in this way, many native Hawaiians then seemed to feel relieved of any need to look further into their history or their own hearts. They especially did not seem eager if they did look into their history to assign any responsibility to their ancestors or human nature, fallen and separated from God, in general. This reflects a heart condition before and towards God. Blaming others is very natural, usually the first, and the most common human response we all have when there’s trouble.
In 1820, after the first Protestant Missionaries arrived, Christianity took firm root in Hawaii. According to one source, Hawaiian History, it “filled the void left after the kapu system” was ended.[4] The kapu system being the once harshly imposed and restrictive rules regulating interactions between different classes of people, “between people and the gods, and between people and nature.”[5] Among the first to embrace Christianity, were members of the ruling families. Later, however, the persecution and expulsion of Catholic Christians by the Protestants caused a lot of confusion and disenchantment. This error was later acknowledged, and reparations were attempted, but this behavior was not forgotten.
Adding to this messy mix, some of the missionaries had fixed ideas about clothing, education, food, and other elements of daily life which they sought to impose in the name of Christianity on the native Hawaiians. This also did not go over well in most instances.
Finally, and possibly the most irksome to Hawaiians was the double dealings in which the white “Christian” leaders and government officials wrongly indulged. Many such incidents of European perversity are preserved in the Hawaiian memory through the book Hawaii’s Story by Hawaii’s Queen, written by Liliuokalani, Queen of Hawaii (1838-1917).
Despite all this, to this day, there are still many Hawaiians who continue to be grateful for the Christianity that freed them from the superstitions, fears, and cruel practices of their ancestors. Of course, other Hawaiians are very bitter instead with their focus on the wrongs done to their culture. There is a deep divide, which continues to be a sore spot for many Hawaiians and other Islanders.
My observations? As always, divisive raw spots can be, at least in part, justifiably blamed on particular people. However, no human has that much power unless we give it to them through a focus on them and the evil they have done—all so we can hold onto our “rightful” bitterness, and unforgiveness. While no one person is ever the only one at fault in the furtherance of a bad situation, it’s also not right for all white (or any other “color” of) people, or for all Christians (or otherwise affiliated people) to be blamed for what a few evil people have done with their power or influence.
According to the same Hawaiian History source, “Western influence continued to grow and in 1893, American Colonists who controlled much of Hawaii's economy overthrew the Hawaiian Kingdom in a peaceful, yet still controversial coup.”[6] Five years later, in 1898, Hawaii became a U.S. territory. Many Hawaiians remain very bitter about what they consider to be “shady dealings” by white people, which made Hawaii a U.S. territory. There is undoubtedly some truth to this narrative, which helps explain lingering resentment.
In the 1900s, huge sugar and pineapple plantations became central to Hawaii's economy. Because not enough Hawaiians were interested in working for long hours, low pay, or in the ways that were required, workers from Japan, China, the Philippines, and Portugal were brought in. The whole island of Lanai, “under the leadership of James Dole,” a white industrialist, became one big pineapple plantation and “the world’s leading exporter of pineapple.”[7]
However, through protests and other activism, laws were made to eliminate the unfair labor practices of the sugar and pineapple plantations. These new laws caused many of these plantations to shut down for good. Ironically, some Hawaiians to this day, continue to be indignant about the work that was lost when these plantations shut down. In their minds, again, white people in general are to blame for all unemployment in the Hawaiian Islands.
My thoughts? Though there are valid reasons for criticizing the actions of some white people in Hawaii, this does not mean that all Caucasians or Haoles are to blame for past injustices.
Maybe due to World War II and Hawaiian unification with the U.S. against a common enemy along with their long-time identification as a U.S. territory, in 1959, by a popular vote of 93 percent, Hawaii became the 50th state of the United States of America. Though an overriding majority voted to become U.S. citizens at that time, there are now some natives who view this negatively and blame the Haoles for influencing this decision.
Variations of this brief history were still part of Hawaiian education and conversation when I lived on Oahu while attending BYU Hawaii. No doubt, some mix of both truth and misunderstanding was at the root of the bad feelings and attitudes toward Haoles. Attitudes manifested in the bitter anger and distrust I was encountering.
From talking with people living in Hawaii, it became apparent that one of the biggest issues to them was that there were so few pure—100 percent—native Hawaiians left. Most native Hawaiians are of mixed Hawaiian-Asian, -Polynesian, or -Caucasian descent. I could understand this fear but not empathize as I am a “mutt” or mix myself. I believe most U.S. citizens, and, in truth, people of all ethnicities, are of mixed ancestry—if you look back far enough in their lineage.
Compounding my lack of empathy was noticing that many native Hawaiians had reserved an especial bitterness and hatred for Hapa Haoles (half whites) or people who are of mixed Caucasian and Hawaiian descent. Hapa Haoles were considered the lowest of the low and greatly despised. Again, this was despite the fact that most native Hawaiians were themselves most often a person of mixed Hawaiian-Asian or -Polynesian blood. The term Hapa Haole was used with even more venom and contempt than the word Haole when it was used derogatorily.
This particular concern—of preserving Hawaiian purity—especially helped me understand our Hawaiian neighbor guys. One of them at least was considered to be pure Hawaiian. This knowledge also informed some decisions I made about whether to date two of these guys, who happened to be brothers, when I returned to Hawaii a few years later.
Some years later, after serving a mission for the LDS Church, I returned to Hawaii to finish my schooling. I was super surprised when one of my former neighbors, George,* asked me out. When we first ran into each other again on the BYU campus, he was over-the-top friendly and expressed a desire to spend more time together getting reacquainted. After casually meeting with him a few times, I also ran into his brother Jeffery,† who also expressed an avid interest in becoming reacquainted and getting to know me better. They both quickly attached themselves to me in a way I neither promoted nor understood.
Not only did I sense bad blood between brothers, which I didn’t want to encourage in any way, but I also foresaw that a relationship with either one couldn’t become serious. I liked both of them enough to firmly establish with them that I didn’t want to be more than friends and I wasn’t going to go out with either one of them. Truly, with all my heart, even more than I liked both brothers, I didn’t want to add to the disharmony of the islands—let alone of their family.
While I was in Hawaii for the first time, another thing I noticed was that there was an ever-present undercurrent of competition brought on by rich Haoles. It was true, many rich white people had moved to Hawaii to live there or had bought up vacation spaces and rentals. This had caused every inch of the already limited land to be valued at a premium cost. Tourism had also pushed the cost of most goods and services up to an unsustainable level for many Hawaiians. I was told that a large number of Hawaiians had become very poor, and some had lost their homes and land due to their inability to pay the ever-rising property taxes. This was yet another coal on the fire.
I noticed businesses run by Haoles or Hapa Haoles were highly resented. But at the same time, native business owners and employees were more than happy to take in the money of the Haole tourists who came to visit the islands. Tourism was then and still is one of the main sources of income for Hawaiian natives. The islanders would be nice to these Haole tourists to their faces but heartily deride them behind their backs—anxious that they should not stay or return to the Islands to live. Again, though based on legitimate reasons, I noticed that this two-facedness turned the usual Hawaiian forthrightness into a deep ugliness of soul in those who practiced it.
The longer I lived in Hawaii, the more I could understand and even sympathize with many of the different reasons that the native Hawaiians had for disliking Haoles. However, I had not done any of these things to them myself. Being a relatively innocent person on the receiving end of this kind of prejudice, which was based solely on my skin color and ethnicity, I could not agree with the idea of holding onto any of these reasons for hating or distrusting all Caucasians.
Though it was maybe justified in their own minds, I didn’t like how many islanders seemed to be passing on their bitterness to their children. I could see this was not helpful at all. It wasn’t changing anything for good. I felt this especially when on occasion I would hear news of Hawaiians harassing, beating up, or even killing a Hapa Haole. The Hapa Haole could have been male or female, young or old, and causing provocation or not. It didn’t seem to matter, except that the person was Hapa Haole.
This kind of news was always disconcerting to me. At times it felt scary to be living there as a Haole. This wasn’t just meanness directed toward Haoles for a “good reason,” it was persecution based on something we couldn’t change even if we wanted to—our skin color and ethnicity. I felt first-hand how wrong-headed and hurtful this kind of prejudice and attitude is for everyone involved—including the perpetrators.
I was so grateful for God’s protecting Spirit. He would comfort and remind me that He was with me. He would wash away my fear with His peace. I knew I was safe because He was with me, guiding me and keeping me from harm. He helped me to continue to love people and show it, even to those who thought of myself and themselves as enemies. This also became a treasured part of my experience in Hawaii.
Hawaii became a microcosm for me of God’s love and how His love can overcome this kind of obstacle to relationships. While I was learning how prejudice begins, grows, and remains among people, the Lord was also showing me how to deal with it and defeat it in the best way—through His love.
Discovering prejudice in paradise was disappointing, but it didn’t in any way ruin or define my time in Hawaii. Just the opposite. By the Lord’s grace and Spirit of love, He helped me to see beyond the rude words and actions to the insecure or fearful but beloved person behind them. He taught me to love people despite how they were treating me. He reminded me by His Spirit how much each of these persons needed to experience His unconditional love and that they were acting out of ignorance, fear, insecurity, or other misguided beliefs and feelings.
Often, it was hard not to react harshly or return in kind what was being dished out. It was even harder not to take up the cause of other Haoles. One day I grew so frustrated with how my Tongan boss was treating another co-worker that I verbally blew up. Afterwards, I felt horrible and convicted. Not for standing up to my boss for my co-worker, but for acting just like her when I did it. I had not been loving or respectful.
My boss was also precious to God. I knew that no matter what reason she had for acting the way she did, I was wrong to speak and act like I had toward her. I knew I needed to apologize. I expected I would be fired, but I had to do it.
When I went to apologize, my boss apologized first! The love and respect with which I had been generally treating her—with the Lord’s help—had finally borne fruit. From that time on we became friends, and she was much nicer to the other Haoles as well. I was so grateful to the Lord for how He had softened both of our hearts and worked to redeem this whole situation. It was such a blessing and relief.
At the end of the school year, before I left to return to the mainland, my boss and I both shed tears at the thought or mention of our impending separation. A deep mutual affection had grown between us. On my last day of work, my boss gave me a huge Tongan hug (as only a large Tongan woman can) and sent me on my way with her love and great goodwill. This was a major change indeed—in both of us! A miracle from God.
Riding the bus also got better. With time, the driver would at least give me a cursory nod. I also noticed that when I didn’t respond in kind or react negatively, the people riding the bus generally loosened up too. Even those who were more hardened, generally backed off when I continued to treat them with kindness. If they didn’t, well, the bus ride had an end; and maybe the love and respect I continued to show them by the Lord’s Spirit would eventually help them reconsider their treatment of me and other Haoles at some point.
The same things applied in my interactions with the Hawaiian people at the market and elsewhere. The love and respect the Lord was giving me for all people, even those who treated me badly and didn’t “deserve” it, along with the many opportunities He gave me to practice it, was yet another blessing. His Presence with me and the influence of His love was changing my life in good and powerful ways. The work God was doing in me through Jesus was not only increasing my love and respect for others but also my peace and joy.
The Lord’s love can keep us from prejudice in the first place. Eventually, I recognized that prejudice begins not only with fear but also with wrongful pride in the human heart that is backed by arrogant human choices. People can always find valid reasons or justification for criticism and prejudice—because people are imperfect everywhere (including Christians). Those accusations are compounded as people harden their hearts and push God, the truth, and what is good away, so they can maintain their position and pride. But over and over I also experienced how God’s love can prevail and defeat our human biases by softening our hearts toward each other.
Being able to overcome one’s persecutors or enemies through love is a fruit of God’s Spirit at work in us. In the same way, God also helps us overcome our prejudice and heals our bitter attitudes. I learned through experience that His love can permanently cure human shortsightedness and hatred that previously translated into the practice of intolerance toward others.
To me, one of the worst kinds of prejudice is that which judges others based on aspects about themselves they cannot change, such as ethnicity and skin color. But God’s love is “even” able to vanquish this kind of bigotry. While I had suffered the brunt of some of the soul depravity and social consequences that come when people allow themselves to indulge in prejudice toward others, the Lord had simultaneously helped me learn some important and memorable lessons about the human heart and to keep a watch on my own.
My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favoritism [prejudice or partiality]....If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right.
(James 2:1, 8)
* Not his real name.
† Not his real name.
[1] “Prejudice”; Merriam-Webster: Dictionary; Merriam-Webster, Inc.; accessed 1 October 2024; https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/prejudice
[2] “Haole”; Dictionary.com.; Dictionary.com, LLC; 4 Feb. 2016; http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/haole?s=t.
[3] “Hawaii History,” GoHawaii.com, Hawaii Tourism Authority, 8 Feb. 2016, http://www.gohawaii.com/en/statewide/travel-tips/history/.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Else, Iwalani R. N., “The Breakdown of the Kapu System and Its Effect on Native Hawaiian Health and Diet,” PDF, accessed online 10/7/2024, https://kamehamehapublishing.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/38/2020/09/Hulili_Vol1_14.pdf (The criticisms of diet outlined in this paper could be applied world-wide because of the mis-use of Western/modern “science” and “technology,” which when adopted, without discernment, have ruined health globally.)
[6] “Hawaii History.”
[7] Ibid.
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