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August 19, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Glen Rock NJ and Hawaii as 49th State

Glen Rock, N.J., July 6, 1948 (By Wireless) – Hawaii as the coming 49th state was the theme Monday of Glen Rock’s lively and colorful Independence Day pageant and celebration.

This pleasant New Jersey town turned out thousands of residents to see the ceremony and enjoy a big family carnival.

Thousands more motored from nearby towns and villages. Two featured speakers talked about the mid-Pacific territory and statehood.

They were Robert L. Ripley, famed Believe It or Not cartoonist and a recent Honolulu visitor; and Riley H. Allen, editor of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

They were present as guests of Glen Rock’s active and energetic Independence Day association. This was the 10th annual pageant staged by the association, and its largest to date.

Hawaiian Music

Charles E. King, noted Hawaii song writer, now a resident of New York, brought down a troupe of Hawaiians from the big city, decorated a truck and he and his troupe stole the show so far as attention in the parade was concerned.

Queen of the visiting troupe was comely Lokelani Putnam. Another Hawaiian was Johnny Kaonohi Pineapple, star of the Johnny Pineapple radio show and a World War II veteran who came back from Germany with medals and honors. He, too, lives in New York.

It was through the efforts of Charles King with the local committee that authentic Hawaiian pageantry was added to the moving tableaus that included Revolutionary War scenes and pantomimes.

All this Hawaiian atmosphere for Glen Rock’s annual patriotic pageant started when John Brogan, foreign manager for King Features Sydnicate, was in Hawaii a few months ago. He liked the islands, and became an enthusiastic supporter of statehood.

He boosted Hawaii

Returning to New York, he talked Hawaii and statehood emphatically. He lives near Glen Rock and talked about Hawaii to Charles F. (Chuck) Buhlman, president of the Independence Day association.

He wrote to Editor Allen about the celebration and the editor wrote to his longtime friend, Charlie King, in New York. And then Mr. King began his preparations to put Hawaii on the pageant map of New Jersey.

While the Honolulu editor was attending a party given for him in New York by Mr. Ripley, the invitation came from Glen Rock for both to take part in the Glen Rock celebration.

So Mr. Ripley drove Mr. Allen over from New York early Monday, both wearing leis, and they were in the speakers’ stand with Chairman Buhlman, Mayor Frederick A. Demarest and the other officials and guests.

The parade, in several well organized sections, passed on three sides of the spacious grounds of Glen Rock’s Central school, and the carnival was staged on the grounds.

8,000 attend

An estimated 8,000 persons attended. There was a “Hawaiian Hut” and many other attractions.

The annual pageant and carnival is self-supporting. It’s a big family affair. The women and girls of the borough contribute much of the materials and most of the labor is volunteer.
Borough Mayor Demarest is vice president of the Biddle Purchasing Co., 280 Broadway, New York. He told Mr. Allen that his firm does a lot of business with Lewers & Cooke and Davies & Co.

Several young men of Glen Rock who served in Hawaii during World War II introduced themselves. They said they’d like to go back to the islands.

Bob Ripley was a big attraction during their brief stay at Glen Rock. Hundreds recognized him. Youngsters swarmed around him or autographs, which he gave with unvarying patience and courtesy.

Incidentally ‘Rip’ likes Hawaii so much he hopes to go out for a longer stay than his one-day stops when, aboard the President Cleveland, he went to the Orient and returned, earlier this year. (All here from Honolulu Star-Bulletin July 6, 1948.)

Glen Rock was settled around a large glacial boulder in a small valley (glen), from which it gets its name. (A plaque was added in 1921 honoring Glen Rock’s WWI veterans and casualties.)

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Glen Rock boulder-GRH&PS-1930s
Glen Rock boulder-GRH&PS-1930s
Glen Rock boulder-GRH&PS-1890
Glen Rock boulder-GRH&PS-1890
Glen Rock boulder-GRH&PS-1912
Glen Rock boulder-GRH&PS-1912
Glen_Rock,_NJ_-Boulder
Glen_Rock,_NJ_-Boulder

Filed Under: Ali'i / Chiefs / Governance Tagged With: Hawaii, Statehood, State, United States, 49th State, Glen Rock

August 18, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Maui Jinsha Shrine

A century after Captain James Cook’s arrival in Hawaiʻi, sugar plantations started to dominate the landscape. Sugar was the dominant economic force in Hawaiʻi for over a century.

A shortage of laborers to work in the growing (in size and number) sugar plantations became a challenge; the answer was imported labor. Starting in the 1850s, when the Hawaiian Legislature passed “An Act for the Governance of Masters and Servants” (providing the legal basis for contract-labor system,) labor shortages were eased by bringing in contract workers from Asia, Europe and North America.

The first to arrive were the Chinese (1852.) Then, in 1868, approximately 150-Japanese came to Hawaiʻi to work on sugar plantations and another 40 to Guam. This unauthorized recruitment and shipment of laborers, known as the gannenmono (“first year men”,) marked the beginning of Japanese labor migration overseas. (JANM)

In March 1881, King Kalākaua visited Japan during which he discussed with Emperor Meiji Hawaiʻi’s desire to encourage Japanese nationals to settle in Hawaiʻi; this improved the relationship of the Hawaiian Kingdom with the Japanese government. (Nordyke/Matsumoto)

The first 943-government-sponsored, Kanyaku Imin, Japanese immigrants to Hawaiʻi arrived in Honolulu on February 8, 1885. Subsequent government approval was given for a second set of 930-immigrants who arrived in Hawaii on June 17, 1885. More followed, and they brought their religion with them – some were Shinto.

Shintoism is not Buddhism; but, the two religions are compatible. While Shintoism involves the prehistoric deities of Japan, Buddhism worships the Buddhist gods imported from India, as well as the departed spirits of the family. (Johnson)

The name Shinto is translated to mean ‘The Way of the Gods;’ it embraces natural and ancestor worship. Shintoism has no system of theology or ethics, nor sacred scriptures or books such as the Bible or Koran. It teaches the innate goodness of the human heart. (Johnson)

There were once six Shinto shrines on Maui, located at Wailuku, Pa‘ia, Ma‘alaea and Kahului. The Maui Jinsha Shinto Shrine is the only remaining original Shinto shrine on Maui, and one of very few left in the entire state.

The Maui Jinsha was established in 1914 by Masaho Matsumura who was born in Hiroshima and came to Maui from Kona. More than 460 names were gathered, representing those who supported the establishment of the Maui Jinsha shrine. From this group, a nine member Board of Trustees led by Mr. Kaneko was formed.

A building committee, made up of seventy-six local officials from various Maui communities, served under the Board of Trustees. The building committee selected the shrine’s original site in Kahului, next to the Japanese Elementary School. (Mason)

Construction of the Haiden began in 1916 (the fifth year of Taisho) with the help of the 1,014 individuals who each pledged a dollar. The painting of the “1000 Horses” by the artist Seppo Sawada commemorates the dollar contribution effort

The Maui Jinsha was built in commemoration of the Emperor Yoshihito (the Taisho Emperor). Up until this point, there were no shrines dedicated to the emperor of Japan in Hawaii.

The Emperor Meiji passed away in 1911 and Emperor Taisho took his place the same year. This event sparked interest in establishing a shrine dedicated to the emperor of Japan, who was thought of as a god.

The shrine houses three gods directly connected to the emperor of Japan: the Amaterasu Omigami, the Okuni Nushi-no-mikoto, and the Meiji emperor.

The Amaterasu Omigami is the central god of the Ise Jingu and is said to have come down from earth and landed on Izumo Kuni and gave birth to Japan.

The distinctive entrance structure of Shinto shrines is called a torii, usually described as a gateway or mystical gateway. Nearby is a washbasin where the physical act of washing one’s hands and rinsing one’s mouth symbolizes spiritual cleansing in preparation of entering the church.

As originally constructed, the Maui Jinsha exhibited the traditional form of a Shinto shrine, with the Haiden (worship space) and the Honden (space for the gods) built as two separate structures. The Honden and Haiden were built as open structures connected by a small bridge or stairway (tsuro).

The Honden was completed in 1915 and the Haiden was finished a year later due to budgetary constraints (Fig. 6). Another structure for the presentation of shibai (Japanese folk plays) was completed at that time.

The structure was built by local craftsmen under the supervision of a master carpenter trained in Japan. The structure is made of wood using the traditional Kiwari system as the design and construction guidelines for this structure.

The Kiwari system can be compared to the orders of ancient Greece, because it uses the column span and diameter to establish the proportions of the entire structure.

The Kiwari uses the post span (a) and the post diameter (1/10a) to establish rafter spacing, bracketing size, beam size and roof size and height of several types of structures in Japan including temples, shrines, and halls.

The Kiwari developed as a system during the Edo Period (1603-1868). It is also likely that the Japanese measuring unit of the shaku was used to build this structure. The builders of the Maui Jinsha were somewhat limited to the extent with which they could adhere to these principles, due to the limitations of materials, time, and funds.

In 1924, the Maui Jinsha Kyodan formally applied for the “incorporation of the Maui Jinsha Kyodan of Kahului, Maui”, and on September 22 of that year they received the charter and were recognized as an official religious organization by the Territory of Hawaii.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the shrine was closed, and in 1942 the Shinto priest and his family were evicted from their adjacent home.

In 1951 they moved the shrine to Wailuku, The Honden was moved intact and the Haiden was disassembled and reconstructed on the new site, which was completed in 1954.

The shrine shares the site with three other structures: a Hall for shibui performances which also served as a Japanese language school (no longer active), a kitchen building and a private residence for Reverend and family.

The Hall was moved from the original site along with the shrine, and the kitchen building appears to have been constructed in 1954, at the time of the shrine relocation. The two-story residence was built in the mid- 1980s. (Lots of information here is from Mason, NPS and Historic Hawai‘i.)

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Maui-Jinsha-Mission-building-1916
Maui-Jinsha-Mission-building-1916
Maui-Jinsha-Mission-building
Maui-Jinsha-Mission-building
Maui_Jinsha-1000 horses
Maui_Jinsha-1000 horses
Maui-Jinsha-Mission-building-front elevation-Mason
Maui-Jinsha-Mission-building-front elevation-Mason
Maui-Jinsha-Mission-building-layout-Mason
Maui-Jinsha-Mission-building-layout-Mason
Maui-Jinsha-Mission-building-longitudinal section-Mason
Maui-Jinsha-Mission-building-longitudinal section-Mason
Maui-Jinsha-Mission-building-West side elevation-Mason
Maui-Jinsha-Mission-building-West side elevation-Mason

Filed Under: Missionaries / Churches / Religious Buildings Tagged With: Maui Jinsha Shrine, Hawaii, Maui, Buddhism, Shinto, Wailkuku

August 17, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Largest Milk Dairy in the Hawaiian Kingdom

The east side of upper Manoa (and a roadway through it) is known today as “Woodlawn.” It’s named for the Woodlawn Dairy and Stock Company. It became the largest milk dairy in the Hawaiian Kingdom.

“This Dairy commenced business in June, 1879, under the name of “Woodlawn Dairy,” with stock consisting of ten native cows.” (Hawaiian Planters Monthly Advertisement)

“Mr (BF) Dillingham’s beautiful residence, ‘Woodlawn,’ at Punahou, about a mile and a half from town, (is) where the dairy was originally started. Here there is about 350 acres controlled by the company, including land in Mānoa Valley …”

“… and on this pasturage there is a herd of about 450 head of cattle, including Short horns, Durhams, Devon, Ayreshires, Holsteins and Jerseys.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, April 15, 1885)

“With the steady growth of the business, special regard has been paid to the importation of the best Dairy Stock. In the early part of 1883, a “Short Horn” Bull was imported from California, known on the Record as the ‘19th Duke of Manchester.’” (Hawaiian Planters Monthly Advertisement)

Later, a newspaper announcement noted: “Lost, Strayed or Stolen. “The 19th Duke of Manchester,” a larger red shorthorn Bull, property of the Woodlawn Dairy & Stock Co., anyone finding this Bull and returning same to said Company will be suitably rewarded. Woodlawn Dairy & Stock Co.” (Daily Bulletin, June 1, 1885)

“In 1884, the Thorough Bred Short Horn “Duke of the Valley” was purchased at $400; the animal was then 15 months old. In the spring of 1886 two thorough bred Holsteins were imported by the Company, from Syracuse, New York.”

“These animals were sent out to California by rail, thence by sail to Honolulu. These are probably the finest bred animals for beef and milk combined, ever landed on these Islands.”

“One of these bulls now in use at this Dairy weighed 1400 pounds when two years old, and about 1800 at 30 months.”

“A few Holstein Cows and Heifers have been added to this stock, one Heifer from Syracuse cost $450 there. One Holstein Heifer raised here, came in with her first calf last spring, her age being about 30 months, and gave, for nearly three months, 16 quarts of milk per day. Several other heifers raised at this Dairy have given from 12 to 15 quarts per day.”

“The Manager Mr. John Grace recently returned from a trip to California where he purchased with great care from the best dairy farms in that State, including the well-known Jersey farm of Mr. Maillard, 63 head of graded and thorough bred Jersey Cows and Heifers and one thorough bred Jersey Bull.”

“Any one desiring to improve their stock Cannot Do Better than to apply to the Woodlawn Dairy and Stock Company for some of their superior young Bulls, raised in this country from as fine dairy stock as can be found anywhere.” (Hawaiian Planters Monthly Advertisement)

“Visitors to the Pali, at the head of Nuʻuanu Valley, always notice the range of stables on the right of the road going up, at an elevation of about 700 feet above the sea, and upon inquiry are told that they are the property of the Woodlawn Dairy and Stock Company, who here own nearly 250 acres of fine valley and side-hill land.”

“This locality is what was long known as the ‘Wood’s plantation,’ where Mr. John Wood carried on for a number of years the cultivation of sugar cane and the manufacture of sugar.” (The Nuʻuanu section was later called Highland Park.)

“Mr Dillingham purchased the property from Mr. Wood, and shortly after the Woodlawn Company was incorporated, and now the establishment is run on an extensive scale, with Mr. Graham as manager.”

“This will be understood from the fact that the dairy has grown in the past five years from a beginning of ten cows, with an output of 600 quarts a month, to 150 cows in milk, with an output of 30,000 quarts per month.”

“Adjoining the old Wood residence there has been erected a substantial and convenient dwelling, which is under the care of Mrs. Grace, the wife of the sub-manager, John Grace, who constructed the new buildings, stables, etc., and now superintends that branch of the ranch.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, April 15, 1885)

“There are six men employed as milkers, each one taking a ‘string,’ as it is called, of twenty-five cows. When a milker is ready be opens the half door leading to his particular division of the milking platform, and calls the cows by name to come in to their breakfast or supper, as the case may be.”

“They walk forward in an orderly, methodical manner, and each one, going to her own place, is locked in by the pair of bars previously described, which confine her loosely by the neck. Until 7 o’clock the whole of the herd, averaging 150 in number, quietly enjoy their generous feed and then are milked.”

“Commencing at one end of his ‘string,’ the milker finishes with each cow in succession, releasing the one milked as soon as the operation is completed. She quietly walks out to the pasture again, where she generally enjoys a short nap ere resuming grazing.”

“Thus the milker never has a cow behind him while at work, and when his ‘string’ is finished the stable is empty and ready to be washed out.”

“From the milking stable the milk is carried into an adjoining room, where it is poured through strainers made of fine wire gauze and thick white flannel into the clean cans in which it is carried to the company’s customers.” (Pacific Commercial Advertiser, April 15, 1885)

Later, noted developer Charles Desky was identified as the ‘sole agent’ for lots in this ‘Fashionable Section of Honolulu.’ “This estate, Woodlawn, covering five hundred acres of the (Mānoa) valley and sloping up to the mountain top …”

“… is being improved by the construction of miles of automobile roads that on a gentle grade ascend the mountain side, giving great plateaus here and there with unmolested views of city, sea and mountains; ideal homesites, the views from which can never be obstructed.” “These ideal homesites may be had from $750.00 an acre up.” (Mid-Pacific Magazine, 1911)

Then, in 1920, Central Union Church’s then-pastor, Dr. Albert Palmer, chose a desirable 8.3-acre site at Punahou and Beretania streets for the site for the relocated church. The site was “Woodlawn,” for years the residence and dairy farm of prominent businessman BF Dillingham and his family.

Mrs. Emma Louise Dillingham, by then a widow, agreed to sell – she had been a member since Bethel Union days. In 1922, the cornerstone was laid, and the present sanctuary, designed in traditional New England style, was completed in 1924. Central Union Church, also known as the “Church in a Garden”, moved to its present location on Beretania Street.

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Woodlawn-Manoa-Mid-Pacific Mag
Woodlawn-Manoa-Mid-Pacific Mag
Woodlawn, B. F. Dillingham home at the corner ofBeretania and Punahou streets-(centralunionchurch-org)
Woodlawn, B. F. Dillingham home at the corner ofBeretania and Punahou streets-(centralunionchurch-org)
Woodlawn_Dairy-Award-Coin-1884
Woodlawn_Dairy-Award-Coin-1884

Filed Under: General Tagged With: Hawaii, Manoa, Benjamin Franklin Dillingham, Woodlawn, Woodlawn Dairy

August 16, 2017 by Peter T Young 5 Comments

Carl Frederick Reppun

Born in Nice, France, March 29, 1883, Carl (in early years ‘Karl’) Frederick Reppun was the son of Frederick William and Fredericka (Koene) Reppun.

Carl’s father was of Swedish descent and his mother Dutch, but both subjects of Russia in the Baltic province of Riga, Latvia, where the two families had lived for 200 years.

He was well traveled in Europe and appeared to enjoy an outdoor life with many activities such as riding, skiing, hiking and sailing.

Reppun was educated in the schools of Nice, France, and Cassel, Germany, before entering and graduating with a medical degree from the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat, Medizinische Facultat, Munich, Bavaria, in 1910.

In 1911, he married Emily Jane Lewis of Llein, Wales, in London, England. Carl and Emily honeymooned in Norway by taking a hike through the wilderness.

He took a further degree in 1912 from the University of Moscow Faculty of Medicine, and did post-graduate work in Vienna. He became a medical doctor.

In 1913, he had several career options: he could have become an apprentice to a Moscow surgeon or he could have chosen offers to set up a practice of medicine in Archangel (within the Arctic Circle), or in Irkutsk on Lake Baikal in far-eastern Siberia.

He chose to be the only physician in the mining or steel mill town of Tirljian which is on the Siberian side of the Southern Urals between European and Asiatic Russia.

The town of Tirljian was located approximately 50 +/- miles from Byeloretsk, to the southwest on the Byelaya (about 30-35 miles as the crow flies). With a population at that time of around 20-30,000, it was large enough to warrant its own hospital. There was no railway through Tirljian and all the roads were dirt.

The hospital complex was located at the edge of a forest whereas the town itself was about a mile away (twenty minutes by horse) to the east “down a gentle hill”.

The town was visible from the hospital/house. The hospital was a one-story log building with a capacity of around 50 beds. The house had an enclosed courtyard.

There were additionally servants quarters, a storehouse, stables with a covered portion for the carriages, and housing for farm animals. “Our house faced away to a fenced-in garden, beyond which was the forest on one side, fields and a grassy slope downhill to the village.” (Fred Reppun; Cupertino)

At the outbreak of World War I, Dr. Reppun was practicing medicine as a mining company doctor in the village of Tirljian, in the Ural Mountains between European and Asiatic Russia. He was the only doctor in a radius of 50 miles.

Being a Russian subject, he was mobilized into the Czar’s army, but remained in Tirljian as the head of the hospital, converted into a military one for the care of the wounded shipped back from the front.

When the Russian Revolution came in 1917, Dr. Reppun was chief of the hospital; he then had occasion to treat both the royalist Cossack wounded and the Bolshevik wounded, depending upon which side happened to be in local control.

The Reppuns escaped eastward in one carriage with one horse, the baggage being in another cart driven by a peasant and his family, they traveled a thousand miles over the Siberian steppes, going along the least frequented byways to Omsk.

At Omsk, the Reppuns met the advance point of the American Red Cross, which had come there to set up a large hospital under the direction of Dr. Arthur F. Jackson of Honolulu.

Reppun was immediately commandeered to assist the Red Cross doctors in their tremendous task. As the Red Cross and the American Expeditionary Forces withdrew toward Vladivostok 3,000 miles away, the Reppun family went along. Mrs. Reppun became a matron in charge of one of the Red Cross nursing homes in Vladivostok.

While in Vladivostok, the family reviewed options as to where to re-locate. They considered Japan, China and the Philippines, along with Hawaii

Due to, but due to the influence of Dr Jackson and Riley Allen of Honolulu, they opted to try Hawai‘i. In mid-1920, the Reppun family finally evacuated Russia aboard the last ship taking American personnel to Tsurugu, Japan.

They traveled across Japan, stopping for a short stay in Kyoto, then on to Nagasaki and thence to Honolulu aboard the Army transport S.S. Sheridan. Two weeks later on July 4, 1920, they sailed on the Army Transport “Sheridan” for Honolulu, and stayed there.

Dr. Reppun first started practice in Honolulu with the late Dr. Bert Mobbs on Beretania Street. In 1923, he went to Kaneohe as Government Physician of the Ko‘olaupoko-Waimanalo District, and as physician for Libby, McNeill & Libby at Kahalu‘u.

In 1927, he gave up the Kaneohe practice completely. Following his one and only visit to the mainland, in 1937, Dr. Reppun suffered serious injuries in a car accident from which he never fully recovered. He died on June 7, 1940, at The Queen’s Hospital, at the age of 57. (Reppun; Hawaii Medical Journal, 1966)

The Reppuns had three sons: ‘Frederick’ and Eric, born in Russia, and Arthur, born in Hawaii in 1921.) Eric was manager of the Kona operation of Robert Hind, Ltd. on the Big Island and Arthur was with Pan-American World Airways in Tokyo.

John Iorwerth Frederick (‘Frederick’) Reppun also became a doctor. In 1968 the Honolulu County Medical Society named him Medical Father of the year. In 1974, he was honored by the Hawaii Medical Association at the Association as Physician of the Year. Dr Frederick Reppun was my doctor when I was a kid growing up on Kāne‘ohe Bay Drive.

Carl Frederick Reppun-HawaiiMedJournal
Carl Frederick Reppun-HawaiiMedJournal

Filed Under: Prominent People Tagged With: Hawaii, Carl Frederick Reppun

August 15, 2017 by Peter T Young Leave a Comment

Asked to Come … Then Excluded

Except for the few Chinese adventurers who remained in Hawai’i from the ships of whalers, fur traders and merchants, their numbers did not have a significant impact upon the society of the Hawaiian kingdom.

Starting in the 1850s, when the Hawaiian Legislature passed “An Act for the Governance of Masters and Servants,” a section of which provided the legal basis for contract-labor system, labor shortages in the sugar industry were eased by bringing in contract workers from Asia, Europe and North America.

This planned immigration had a strong influence on the growth, size, and composition of the population as well as on sociological change in the young Territory of Hawai’i at the turn of the century. (Nordyke)

The first contract from China came in 1852: 195 workers from the city of Amoy in the Fujian Province. By the 1880s more than 25,000 Chinese immigrants (more than 20% of Hawaii’s population) were working on Hawaii’s sugar plantation. (Jillian)

Because of excellent employment opportunities in Hawaiʻi, as well as the high value placed by Chinese on education (even though most immigrants had little formal schooling,) Chinese parents encouraged their sons to get as much education as possible. (Glick)

This strong emphasis on education resulted in a highly favorable position for Chinese men and women in Hawaiʻi. Nearly three-fourths of them are employed in higher-lever jobs – skilled, clerical and sales, proprietary and managerial, and professional. As a result, the Chinese enjoy the highest median of income of all ethnic groups in Hawaiʻi. (Glick)

On the continent, in the 1850s, Chinese workers migrated to the US, first to work in the gold mines, but also to take agricultural jobs, and factory work, especially in the garment industry. Chinese immigrants were particularly instrumental in building railroads in the American west.

Chinese immigrants worked as domestic servants, laundrymen, miners, road graders, railroad workers, cannery workers, fishermen, cooks, farmers and other occupations that were often shunned by others. (Chin; Organization of Chinese Americans)

Objections to Chinese immigration took many forms, and generally stemmed from economic and cultural tensions, as well as ethnic discrimination. Most Chinese laborers who came to the US did so in order to send money back to China to support their families there.

At the same time, they also had to repay loans to the Chinese merchants who paid their passage to America. These financial pressures left them little choice but to work for whatever wages they could.

Non-Chinese laborers often required much higher wages to support their wives and children in the US, and also generally had a stronger political standing to bargain for higher wages. Therefore many of the non-Chinese workers in the US came to resent the Chinese laborers, who might squeeze them out of their jobs. (State Department)

Competition with American workers and a growing nativism brought pressure for restrictive action. (US Archives) On the continent, the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act prohibited (1) the immigration of Chinese laborers, (2) denied Chinese of naturalization; (3) and required Chinese laborers already legally present in the US who later wish to reenter to obtain “certificates of return.”

The latter provision was an unprecedented requirement that applied only to Chinese residents. Other Acts were passed and steps taken by the US to extend the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act.

Scott Act (1888) prohibited all Chinese laborers who would choose or had chosen to leave the US from reentering, cancelled all previously issued “certificates of return,” which prevented approximately 20,000 Chinese laborers abroad.

Geary Act (1892) extended the Chinese Exclusion Act for 10 years, required all Chinese persons in the US – but no other race – to register with the federal government in order to obtain “certificates of residence.” In 1898, the US annexed Hawaiʻi and took control of the Philippines, and excluded thousands of Chinese in Hawaii and the Philippines from entering the US mainland.

In 1902, Congress indefinitely extended all laws relating and restricting Chinese immigration and residence. (Chin; Organization of Chinese Americans)

In the Islands, in 1883, the Hawaiian Cabinet Council, concerned that the Chinese had secured too strong a representation in the labor market, passed a resolution to restrict Chinese immigration to 2,400 men a year and to require Chinese leaving the Islands to obtain a passport to prove previous residence if they expected to return.

In 1885, harsher regulations limited passports to Chinese who had been in trade or who had conducted business for at least one year of residence, and no return passports were to be issued to departing laborers.

Further government regulations introduced from 1886 to 1892 virtually ended Chinese contract labor immigration by restricting passports to business people who had resided in the Islands, Chinese women and children and a few persons in China who were specifically invited by the minister of foreign affairs.

A limited number of Chinese laborers were permitted to enter Hawaiʻi under conditional work permits for agricultural purposes, provided that they left the Islands after five years. (Nordyke)

An effort to stabilize the Chinese population was made by a Hawaiian government policy that curtailed Chinese immigration so that the number of arrivals would not exceed departures.

While 5,727 Chinese were employed on sugar plantations in 1888, only 2,617 were reported in that occupation by 1892. Many of these workers migrated to the cities to obtain higher-paying jobs, but some laborers returned to their homeland. Between 1884 and 1890, the Chinese population declined from 18,254 to 16,752 persons. (Nordyke)

The Chinese Exclusion Acts were not repealed until 1943, and then only in the interests of aiding the morale of a wartime ally during World War II. (State Department)

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Chinese men-PP-14-4-013-00001
Chinese men-PP-14-4-013-00001

Filed Under: General, Economy Tagged With: Hawaii, Chinese

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Images of Old Hawaiʻi

People, places, and events in Hawaiʻi’s past come alive through text and media in “Images of Old Hawaiʻi.” These posts are informal historic summaries presented for personal, non-commercial, and educational purposes.

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Hoʻokuleana LLC

Hoʻokuleana LLC is a Planning and Consulting firm assisting property owners with Land Use Planning efforts, including Environmental Review, Entitlement Process, Permitting, Community Outreach, etc. We are uniquely positioned to assist you in a variety of needs.

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