Introduction

This introductory chapter briefly reexamines the past and present roles that Asians have played in the U.S. colony of Hawai‘i. It identifies settler colonialism as the basis of Hawaiian critiques of U.S. colonialism, moreover arguing that Asians have also played the role of settlers within the colonial framework. Predominant accounts of Hawai‘i indicate it as a democratic, “multicultural,” or “multiracial” state, yet the chapter argues that such accounts obscure the historical and political conditions of a white- and Asian-dominated U.S. settler colony. While “local” is sometimes used as a geographical marker to distinguish “local Asians” in Hawai‘i from “Asian Americans” on the U.S. continent, it is more popularly used to establish a problematic claim to Hawai‘i.

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