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  • Essay / Why Hawaii Isn't Quite Paradise

    One of the 50 states of the United States, Hawaii is known for its beautiful landscapes and many natural environments. Due to its geographical location, located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, Hawaii is fascinating enough to attract tourists and discover a long history and culture of Hawaii. However, Hawaii's history is quite ambivalent. Looking at the history of Hawaii, as a result of globalization and the expansion of capitalism, the United States overthrew the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1893 to make Hawaii a zone of economic extraction for the American capitalist and seek greater opportunities to colonize East Asia and the Pacific Islands. Since then, Hawaii's indigenous people were forced to make a living from tourism due to limited job opportunities, and they are still fighting for Hawaii's independence. Likewise, the undesirable consequences of capitalism are countless across the world. The expansion of the United States, under the patriotic commitment and justification brought about by the ideal of "Manifest Destiny", made the country one of the powerful and dominant nations using the Pacific geographical location. However, the expansion of American capitalism rooted in colonialism and imperialism during the 19th century was stigmatized as a key player in the devastation of Native American communities in North America and perpetuated the relationship of domination and economic subordination and social impact on Pacific Islanders and East Asian countries. , the deterioration of cultural conflicts and the polarization of wealth across the world. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay To begin, Native Americans have owned productive land in North America throughout their history. Rather than commodifying and destroying the natural environment and considering the land as a "divine right", an "exclusive possession of man", they tried to conserve nature as a gift from God and approached the harmonization between man and nature far from the colonist's point of view. Meanwhile, the madness of Western European powers across the world prevailed and expanded their influence. For this reason, the Americans decided to focus on expanding their powers westward in order to gain economic and political independence from their mother country, Great Britain. In the article “Transatlantic and Transpacific Connections in Early American History,” Yokota highlights the importance of westward expansion. She states: “Long before the principles of Manifest Destiny were formally formulated, ambitious individuals looked westward from their colonies along the Eastern Seaboard and imagined a sovereign territory that would eventually extend across the entire northern continent. American and would thus connect Asia and Europe. Relying on the legitimate belief that it is inevitable to rationalize the annihilation of Native Indians from their native lands, their desire to play a role as a link between Atlantic and Pacific commerce not only completely deprived the freedom of life of indigenous peoples, but also exploited them as means of subsistence. cheap labor. Thus, this clearly shows how amplified capitalism brainwashed the colonialists and imperialists into viewing the indigenous people as an uneducated, lascivious and unassimilable group, and the European powers as admiring the achievements of capitalism, so that Native Americans suffered colonial violence that was not their choice but their constraint. expenses linked to settler colonialism andextractive colonialism. Then, as noted above, the importance of trans-Pacific trade was significantly emphasized in American expansion aimed at strengthening its economic and political position among world powers. Before American colonists gained independence from Britain, they surely recognized that decreasing dependence on British imports was the solution to relieving the country's ailing economy. British tax and regulatory practices towards tea caused economic conflicts between the British and American colonists to reach a fever pitch. Consequently, American settlers entered the island of Hawaii and extended their influence to East Asia – China, Japan, Korea and the Philippines. At the same time, East Asian countries were experiencing political unrest due to government corruption, abuses, and taxes during the 19th century. American colonists were excited about trading with East Asian countries because of their lucrative product, “tea.” According to the book "Beyond Hawai'i: Native Labor in the Pacific World" written by Gregory Rosenthal, Hawaii's importance was growing in maximizing its profits: All these world powers – China, Russia, Great Britain, the United States – was simultaneously dependent on Hawaii. There were no sea otters in Hawaiian waters, but Hawaii had supplies. To transport sea otter furs across the great ocean, foreign traders needed a halfway stop: they needed a place where they could acquire fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh water and labor. The transpacific fur and tea trade of the late 18th century was intimately dependent on Hawaiian labor and resources. . . . According to one scholar's estimate, as many as forty-five ships visited Hawaii between 1786 and 1800. Geographically, with Hawaii located in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean, most world powers were completely bewitched by Hawaii's economic situation. Hawaii. potential to dominate a direct route to China. This chaotic movement disrupted native Hawaiian societies and caused them to rush toward capitalism. Gradually, salt and sandalwood became favored commodities for capitalists, and countless indigenous peoples had to work to meet the demand of the global market. Eventually, due to insufficient labor to cover global demand, in the 19th century, huge Asian workers rushed to Hawaii to join the capitalists' tropical plantations. In the case of China, after the defeat of the Opium War against the British, it was the first victim of large-scale capitalist violence. The author of “American History Unbound Asians and Pacific Islanders,” Gary Y. Okihiro, explains: “Plantation owners preferred young, strong workers to extract the most work possible for their money. Most migrants' employment contracts provided for ten hours of work per day, for twenty-six working days per month. Of the 6,894 Chinese indentured laborers working in Hawaii between 1895 and 1897, nearly half were under the age of twenty-five and almost all under the age of thirty-five. Opium, pushed by British colonizers in China, was then legal in Hawaii and widely used by men working on plantations. The settlers abused Chinese workers to maximize their wealth, forcing them to work manually for contract lengths and live in barracks with six to forty men in a house..