Statehood and the Schools: Citizenship, Public Education, and Hawai‘i’s Campaign to Become the 49th State

• In Event: Discourses of Education and Citizenship in Historical Policy Contexts

Abstract

The admission of Hawai‘i as the 50th state in 1959 represented the culmination of a century and a half of American colonialism in the islands. As was the case throughout the American empire, schools played a central role in the efforts to Americanize immigrants and suppress indigenous culture (Adams, 1995; Angulo, 2012; del Moral, 2013). The Hawaiian ali‘i (ruling class) had embraced the model of the American common schools in the 1840s as part of the effort to forestall colonial takeover by adopting some aspects of European and American government and culture (Merry, 2000). American missionaries and their business-minded descendents structured the schools to instill the English language and Protestant work ethic into island students. Existing scholarship has illustrated the responses of local communities to the schools’ Americanization programs during the territorial period (Benham and Heck, 1998; Tamura, 1993). But historians have not yet focused on the role of schools, educators, and students in the political campaign for statehood. Pursuing statehood meant more than simply implementing Americanization curriculum in the schools; it required statehood advocates convince mainland politicians that Americanization had succeeded, and that the multi-racial residents of the islands were ready for full citizenship.
In order to explore these connections, this project examines the discourse among educational leaders, school employees, students, and politicians surrounding the participation of schools and students in the extended campaign for statehood in Hawai‘i. The research draws on a number of archival collections held at the Hawai‘i State Archives, the Hawai‘i State Library, and the University of Hawai‘i-Mānoa. These collections include the papers of the Department of Education, the papers of the Equal Rights Commission and its successor the Statehood Commission, the papers of politicians and school administrators, the Hawaii Educational Review, and local newspapers. Curricular materials and communications between educators, politicians, students, and community members reveal the ways in which residents conceptualized statehood and citizenship and the role public education played in their understandings of the issues.
My research thus far suggests that by the 1940s, statehood advocates believed that Hawai‘i’s public schools had succeeded sufficiently in Americanizing the population and shifted their educational strategies to fully engage schools and students as active participants in the campaign to have Hawai‘i admitted as the 49th state. (Ultimately, Alaska achieved statehood shortly before Hawai‘i). Educational leaders and the school curriculum emphasized that students and their parents could only access full citizenship if the territory became a state. Citizenship education remained a central theme in the schools’ curriculum throughout the period, but school leaders and politicians also challenged students and teachers to put ideas of democracy and citizenship into practice and participate in the political process of advocating for statehood. The case of Hawai‘i thus offers an opportunity to examine how some educators and politicians envisioned the ideas of Americanization actually influencing the political process and helping students and their parents achieve access to the full benefits of citizenship.

Author

• Michelle M. Morgan, Missouri State University