The First Strange Place: Race and Sex in World War II Hawaii |  | Authors: Beth L. Bailey, David Farber
Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
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Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 281998
Media: Paperback
Pages: 296
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.4
ISBN: 0801848679
Dewey Decimal Number: 940.53969
EAN: 9780801848674
ASIN: 0801848679
Publication Date: March 1, 1994
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Product Description
As the forward base and staging area for all US military operations in the Pacific during World War II, Hawaii was the "first strange place" for close to a million soldiers, sailors and marines on their way to the horrors of war. But Hawaii was also the first strange place on another kind of journey, toward the new American society that would begin to emerge in the post-war era. Unlike the rigid and static social order of pre-war America, this was to be a highly mobile and volatile society of mixed racial and cultural influences, one above all in which women and minorities would increasingly demand and receive equal status. Drawing on documents, diaries, memoirs and interviews, Beth Bailey and David Farber show how these unprecedented changes were tested and explored in the highly charged environment of wartime Hawaii.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 6
 Two systems briefly collide. October 13, 2009
Jeffery Mingo (Homewood, IL USA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The mainland during the 1940s was mostly just white and Black, with rigid segregation and anti-miscegenation laws. Hawaii of that time had many races and they married and mingled if not freely than without as much stigma. In Hawaii, Portuguese and (European-phenotyped?) Puerto Ricans were not deemed "haole," the Hawaiian term most often used for whites. Add into the mix that far more men, as soldiers, came to the islands during the war. Add these two opposites together and there was a radical alteration of race, gender, and possibly class in Hawaii.
This book is accessible to non-academic readers without being insulting to one's intelligence. The authors use letters, military reports, local newspapers, etc. to paint a picture, from multiple perspectives about this wartime juxtaposition.
The first chapter initially talked about Hawaii, hours before Pearl Harbor's attack, generally and it made me suspicious that the work would be boring. However, the authors were really trying to ground that while sex and dancing and racism and intermarriage where going on, folk were still worried about housing and TV and what's for dinner. The chapters become more interesting as you progress through the book, so you may want to read the last chapters first.
My one critique about this book is that oftentimes interracial dynamics were scant. In the prostitution chapter, it seemed that clients and workers were only of the majority group. The chapter on sex spoke much more about same-race interactions and then only slowly moved to interracial counterparts. I am especially interested in the dynamics between people of color and the chapter on African Americans in the highly diverse Hawaii said little about how Black got along with brown, yellow, and calico.
If you are fascinated by Hawaii, diversity, intersectional analyses, how wars uproot trends, etc., then you will enjoy this book. It's quite impressive.
 HAWAII: Hell Ain't Where Anybody Imagines It! February 16, 2009
James R. Holland (Boston, MA)
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
One of the great illusions of my life has been dashed during the past few days. Like most Americans of my generation, I'd always thought of Hawaii as an island paradise. That's the way it has been portrayed in the news media, the travel industry and by Hollywood in both motion pictures and television. I'd swallowed the hype and hoopla hook, line and sinker.
Hawaii during the World War Two years was much more like Purgatory than Heaven. In fact it was anything but a paradise. During the war years it was the midway point between most service men's homes (Heaven) and the horrors of jungle warfare in the Pacific (Hell).
For some reason I feel really cheated. That's silly I know, but I can't believe I never even thought to question the advertised paradise myth. "Hawaii Five-O" was a fraud and even Elvis betrayed me.
The stresses of being on the front lines of a major world war made the local population of Hawaii and the waves of American Military passing through the island on their way to and from battle and the influx of Mainland American war workers very dangerous. Most Americans arriving in Hawaii had never been out of the USA and things like 14 straight days of rain turning the dirt streets into red mud were not what they were expecting. Honolulu was little more than a jungle village where most of the locals were very unfriendly to the masses of military invaders.
"The First Strange Place" was what one soldier called Hawaii. For most mainlanders the island and its native population were both very strange from where they had lived before going to war and very different from their fellow Americans. There were tens of thousands of bored men waiting to be shipped off to fight and die and almost nothing to do or women to pass the time with. Hotel Street, the red light district in the heart of China Town provided the first and only sexual experience that many of the soon-to-dead American servicemen would experience. The military wanted the brothels closed but the Hawaiians demanded they stay open in order to protect the women residents of the island chain. The local military police and governor simply stalled or ignored the orders coming from Washington to shut local the red light district because they feared what would happen to the civilian population if they did.
For most soldiers, who referred to the so-called island paradise as "the rock," the native population that was dominated by Japanese, Chinese, and various other Asian looking groups seemed alien. Naturally there was stress between the largely Caucasian soldiers and black troops with the locals. But for black troops Hawaii also offered hope of what might someday be universal racial harmony because of the seemingly successful mixture of all races living together in relative harmony. Black soldiers and sailers would return home having changed because of their exposure to Hawaiian racial mixtures. For shell-shocked troops returning from the battlefield to be patched up and rested before being sent back, the locals, especially those serving in the National Guard and guarding the ports and other military installations while dressed in their military uniforms, looked exactly like the soldiers they been fighting to the death all over the coral islands of the South Pacific. Many of these battle-scarred veterans were considered barbaric in their actions once they returned to Hawaii. The locals avoided them for fear of being confused for the enemy and setting off the now almost automatic killing instincts of any of these savage, half-crazed soldiers. Naturally there weren't all that many, but the locals had no way of knowing who was who especially if the troops were drunk and brawling with each other. The Afro-American soldiers and the Caucasian soldier were having their own problems within the military and that probably frightened the largely minority population as much as anything else. They felt that they were being swamped by unlimited numbers of trained killing machines that liked to get roaring drunk first and answer questions later.
This book is a fascinating study of a clash of cultures that turned out okay in the end, but was a powder keg waiting to explode at the time. Like in most melting pots, Hawaiian culture was constantly bubbling, mixing and threatening to erupt as if it were some kind of racial volcano. It was a very strange place at the time and readers beware! "Hawaii Ain't What Individuals Imagine" it to be. Not then, and probably not now either?
Just prior to reading this book I'd also very much enjoyed "Honolulu" by Alan Brennert that is excellent historical fiction about a Korean "Picture Bride" (mail order bride) who immigrated to Hawaii at the beginning of the 20th century. It also paints a very non-paradise picture of Hawaii. I highly recommend that page turner as well as this book. They are both wonderful reads.
Good discussion of long-standing issues September 22, 2008
John L. Leach (Carrollton, TX United States)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
A good discussion of how people really got along. Butresses current ideas about the problems between the races.
The First Strane Place: Race and Sex in World War II Hawaii January 26, 2008
Andrew F. Bushnell (Hawaii)
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Very interesting and well written work; carefully researched with appropriate citations. It reminds us of how different a nation we were in the 1940's--and how different Hawaii was from the rest of the nation. Certainly Hawaii was far from perfect, but it was a much more tolerant place than most of the rest of the country. The book provides fascinating examples of these differences. A very worthwhile read!
 WW2 in Hawaii: heroes and hell-raisers February 11, 2000
Antoinette Purdon (USA)
6 out of 10 found this review helpful
SUMMARY: facts and interpretation of the effects of WW2 in HawaiiREVIEW: The authors interviewed many people, including my father, Anthony Capanna, as they wrote this account of WW2 in Hawaii. Although I think their account is quite accurate (and was grateful they depicted my father as the good/honest/moral person he is), there are parts of the book that are quite graphic as pertaining to the sleazier side of what went on after Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. Factual, yes; worth reading, if you need it as a research tool; a bit jolting and base...yes. I don't recommend it for young people.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 6
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