He Lāhui Ano Maikaʻi Keia: Japanese Immigration and the Intersections of Ethnicity and Sovereignty in Kalakaua's Hawaiʻi
The late 19th century was a tumultuous period in Hawaiian history. Characterized by the interrelated questions of royal succession, political sovereignty, and labor immigration, the period of King Kalakaua's reign was the culmination of a building social crisis that had begun the moment American settler-colonials arrived on the shores of the archipelago. Throughout this time, King Kalakaua leveraged his acute political mind to build a coalition of nationalist Hawaiians in order to restore native traditions and seek out allies abroad in the hopes of resisting America's military and economic might. Using the labor supply as a wedge, Kalakaua was able to achieve substantial gains in the political sphere by leveraging the Japanese Empire's diplomatic weight against the local plantation oligarchs who opposed him. In doing so, the king gave room for a new type of Hawaiian nationalism to coalesce.
Hawaii, Immigration, Japan, Kalakaua, Plantations, History
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