How does racism impede access to justice? Why has the representation of Hawaii as an “ethnic paradise” been perpetuated? Jonathan Okamura discusses Hawaii’s history with inequality and injustice and the existence of systemic racism today. Referencing his recent publication, Raced to Death in 1920s Hawaii, Jonathan shares the history and implications of the case Fukunaga v. Territory of Hawaii (1929), in which 19-year-old Myles Yutaka Fukunaga, a second-generation Japanese American, was hastily convicted and sentenced to death after he confessed to the murder of 10-year-old George Gill Jamieson, the son of an executive at the Hawaiian Trust Company.
Presenter
Jonathan Okamura recently retired as a professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and continues to conduct research on race and ethnicity in Hawaii. In addition to Raced to Death in 1920s Hawaii (2019), he is the author of From Race to Ethnicity: Interpreting Japanese American Experiences in Hawaii (2014) and Ethnicity and Inequality in Hawaii (2008). He is also the co-editor with Candace Fujikane of Asian Settler Colonialism: From Local Governance to the Habits of Everyday Life in Hawaii (2008). Jonathan received his BA in Anthropology and Mathematics from the University of Southern California, and PhD in Anthropology from the University of London.
