Haole
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Haole, in the Hawaiian language, means "foreign" or "foreigner"; it can be used in reference to people, plants, and animals. It is also used in Hawaiian Pidgin as a term meaning "white" or "Caucasian." Haole is a highly charged word and can be used descriptively or derisively.
In Hawaiian pidgin, local is usually considered the opposite of haole. Local is an omnibus term for any non-white raised in Hawaiʻi, encompassing Hawaiians, part-Hawaiians, Japanese, Japanese-Hawaiians, Chinese, Chinese-Hawaiians, etc. The antonymy reflects a long history of race and class conflict in the Hawaiian islands, in which the upper class (plantation and business owners, professionals) tended to be haole and the working class was local. Hence the descendants of Portuguese imported for plantation work are usually considered local, even though in other parts of the United States they would be considered "white".
Some people say that it makes sense to speak of local haoles -- haoles who have grown up in Hawaiʻi and speak pidgin. Others would say that the term 'local haole' is nonsense. Another term used is kamaʻāina haole, or 'child-of-the-land' haole. Anyone born and brought up in Hawaiʻi can be a kamaʻāina.
These various shades of meaning could be debated at length. Malihinis (newcomers) should be careful using such nuanced words.
[edit] Origins and etymology
A common popular etymology claims that the word is derived from "hāʻole", literally meaning "no breath". Foreigners did not know or use the honi (the Hawaiian word for "kiss"), a Polynesian/Hawaiian greeting by touching nose-to-nose and inhaling or essentially sharing each other's breaths, and so the foreigners were described as "breathless". The implication is that haoles are aloof and ignorant of local ways - a common stereotype in Hawaiʻi. Linguists believe that this etymology is erroneous, however, for these reasons:
- There are innumerable citations from Hawaiian showing that haole simply means 'foreign'. For example, haole ʻeleʻele means a dark-skinned foreigner.
- The word 'breath' is hā (with a macron or kahakō over the a), not plain ha. The word 'not' is ʻole, with a glottal stop or ʻokina, not ole, which means 'fang'. In spoken Hawaiian, vowel length is contrastive, and these are major differences in pronunciation. However, they would not appear in Hawaiian dictionaries using the older form of Hawaiian spelling, which did not use kahakō or ʻokina (considered a consonant) to indicate vowel length and glottal stops. Only modern dictionaries show the kahakō and ʻokina. It seems likely that the folk etymology was created by someone with only a dictionary knowledge of Hawaiian, using an older dictionary.
There are no alternate theories of the origin of the word haole. Other Polynesian languages, such as Tongan and Samoan, use the word pālangi or papālangi (ultimately linked to a word meaning Western European, or a Frank, see farangi).
[edit] Sources and further reading
- The Mainland Haole: The White Experience in Hawaiʻi. By Elvi Whittaker. 1986. New York: Columbia University Press.
- Ohnuma, Keiko (2002). "Local Haole - A Contradiction in Terms? The dilemma of being white, born and raised in Hawai'i". Cultural Values 6: 273-285.
- Judy Rohrer. "Haole Girl: Identity and White Privilege in Hawaiʻi".
- Judy Rohrer (2006). ""Got Race?" The Production of Haole and the Distortion of Indigeneity in the Rice Decision". The Contemporary Pacific 18: 1-31.
