Tammy Conard-Salvo

Obsession with Hawaii

I don’t know why I’ve been so obsessed with living in Hawaii. I’ve never been there, but ever since I started reading Ronald Takaki’s Strangers From a Different Shore, I’ve been imagining Hawaii as this multicultural mecca where Hapas like me can culturally and physically blend in. Each time I read about Hawaii, come across some little story or television clip about Hawaii’s Asian influence, I look to my husband and tell him, “I want to go. We have to go someday.”

I’ve told my husband that I want to raise children in Hawaii, and I have visions of naked little babies, running around on the beach, splashing in the waves, being chased by my husband and I. These imaginary children of mine will grow up to be smart, ocean-loving, carefree children who will play with other children who look just like them, who are culturally just like them. I guess Hawaii is the closest thing to the kind of environment I grew up in-perhaps better. Certainly it will be prettier, without the hassles of the military life I experienced.

I guess I worry secretly that my children won’t have any exposure to being one-quarter Korean unless they live in a place like Hawaii. I fear that my children will be just like other mainstream American kids, playing Nintendo and eating McDonalds. I really want my kids to enjoy kimchi and sushi and red bean buns. I feel, too, that I alone won’t be able to influence my children enough to make them as Asian-American as I want them to be.

Who am I to privilege my culture over my husband’s, though? Am I being fair to him with my desires to raise children who will be culturally Asian-American, instead of Italian-American or Lithuanian-American?I mean, I don’t even have kids yet, and I’m planning out the whole situation, as if cultural identity were so easily passed down by one’s parents. Cultural identity, especially in America, is not based on parents’ culture alone. My children could identify with some whole other culture, choosing instead to be simply New Yorkers or Texans or… just plain, ol’ Americans. Who am I to decide, before these children are even conceived (let alone born), what their identities should be?

I worry, also, that my children might be singled out as exotic, United Colors of Bennetton-type, multiracial individuals with almond-shaped eyes, olive skin, and a coppery brown mop of hair (of course, this is what I think my unborn children will look like). Regardless of how they ultimately identify themselves, they will be part-Asian, and unless they live among others who are part-Asian, they will be asked what they are, forced to identify some single ethnicity. I have the notion that in Hawaii, my children won’t be asked that question because the question is irrelevant in Hawaii. In Hawaii, 41.6 percent of the total population identify as Asian, over 24.3 percent who identify as white. 9.4 percent identify as Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and 21.4 percent claim two or more races. I compare that to Massachusetts, where I currently live: 84.5 percent identify as white, and only 3.8 percent identify as Asian. Only 2.3 percent claim two or more races (2000 Census, http://www.census.gov). Of course, Boston is extremely diverse, much more so than Lubbock, Texas, where I lived previously.

However, the mere presence of various cultures does not guarantee that one’s identity is secure. Hawaii’s cultural diversity, valued by people like me, was born of colonial strife and harsh labor on sugar cane plantations. Scholars and writers have noted that Hawaii continues to struggle with identity and ethnic influence, and Hapas are sometimes rejected because they are neither Asian nor native Hawaiian.

So, really, there is no one sanctuary or haven for me and my future children. And even if there were, where would that leave my husband, who does not share my cultural and ethnic identity? The decision of where and how to raise our children rests with the two of us. While I may have a longing desire for our children to appreciate Asian-American culture and identify with that part of their heritage, I cannot control my children’s identity, nor can I eliminate my husband’s valid contribution to our children’s background.

I suspect that this is a common dilemma among multi-racial and multicultural families. Personally, I have come to realize that I fear that the things I have appreciated, the questions I have faced, and the values that I have learned from my mother will be lost as a generation of Hapaha children are born. I don’t fear that my Asian-Americanness will somehow be diluted because these future children will be less Asian by blood. I certainly do not think that cultural identity is limited to race or ethnicity.

Nevertheless, I fear that my children will not see themselves as remarkable because of their rich cultural heritage. I fear that by simply calling themselves American, my children will, like so many of my previous literature students, think they have no ethnicity because they are not a person of color or because their families did not recently immigrate to America.

Ultimately, these thoughts and arguments are moot because I have no children, and my husband and I have not decided whether or not we are really up to the challenge. This fear, separate from the questions of cultural identity, may prevent us from finding out what those hypothetical children will be like or what label(s) they will give themselves. I can only hope that if my husband and I make the decision to have children that we will be the best parents possible and give our children the richest connections to family and culture possible. In the end, while our influences can shape their identity, these children will have the power to accept or reject or recreate who and what they want to be.