Indians in Hawai’i

By Dipankar Sengupta

“Does it ever occur to you why the names of all Hawaiian queens end in lani, for example Kapiolani, Liliokalani?”
“No.”
“Because the Hawaiians pronounced the letter ‘r’ as ‘l’; there are many such examples.
Hawaiians must have had some Indian connections.”

I got the hint. Rani in Hindi means “queen” but I was not convinced by his arguments about the Hawaii-India connection. We were walking alongside a stream of multi-ethnic students rushing to their classes. The speaker was Dr. Raj, a visiting professor from India in 1972, whose pastime was to find out when and how Indians had arrived in Hawaii. I was a graduate student at the University of Hawaii, who had recently arrived with an East West Center scholarship. We were discussing the possibility of ancient Indians arriving in Hawaii by sea. Dr. Raj was mostly speaking and I was a curious listener. Indians were well known as sea farers for a long time. It was possible that they had hopped to Fiji or some other Pacific islands on their way to Hawaii.

In his well-researched book “Hawaii” James Michener writes that Captain Hoxworth brought mangoes from India to Hawaii during one of his voyages. Certain variety of birds (chukar), insect (uku) and fruit (ata moa) found in Hawaii have distinct closeness to their counter parts in India. However, such similarities cannot be a basis for a hypothesis like the one offered by Dr. Raj. The Hawaiian language, for example, has no resemblance to Sanskrit, the basis of most Indian languages.

Excluding the Polynesians who first arrived in the islands almost 2000 years ago, the majority of immigrants in Hawaii were drawn from plantation laborers to work in the sugar and pineapple fields. These plantation workers came from China, Japan, and Korea and later from the Philippines. Ships flying American flags ploughed between Hawaii and the Orient in the late nineteenth century bringing laborers from the coastal areas of China and Japan. While British plantation owners were known to bring ship loads of laborers from India to many British colonies in the Caribbean Sea and Indian Ocean, this never happened in Hawaii because the British colonial aspiration could not be a reality in Hawaii: The enormous physical distance of over 7000 miles from Hawaii to India made it impossible to bring plantation workers from India.

The immigration from India to Hawaii is a relatively recent phenomenon beginning in the early and mid twentieth century. The immigrants can be broadly placed in four categories:
• Pioneers/Entrepreneurs
• Academics
• Professionals
• Software Engineers.

It may be noted that the early Indian immigrants in Hawaii did not come for political or economic asylum, nor did they come as blue-collar workers. Many among them were high achievers in their respective fields. Most of them came as college educated adults. Their purpose was to better their living standards and challenge their abilities. In post-colonial India, having a population second largest in the world, it was not easy for individuals to compete and come out successful. With ambition in mind and adventure in spirit, many young men and women decided to give up their living in their homeland to seek a better life abroad. Some of them ended up in Hawaii where the tempered climate and relaxed lifestyle helped them to settle for good.

The first Indian to arrive in Hawaii was Watumull Jhamandas Mirchandani, a businessman selling imported goods from the orient in 1914. His business center was in Manila. The Philippines had recently obtained independence from Spanish rule and the political scene in Manila was in turmoil. With the advent of the First World War, when the US military moved its operation from Philippines to Hawaii, Jhamandas – with his keen foresight for business – decided to move his operation to Honolulu as well. His brother, Govindaram joined him in establishing the “Watumull Brothers” company. Their children adopted “Watumull” as their family name. Jhamandas was not only an entrepreneur; he was also a philanthropist. His legacy is carried forward today by his son Gulab and daughter-in-law Indru. Gulab arrived in Hawaii in 1949 from Hyderabad, Sind which became part of Pakistan after the partition of India in 1947. Today there is nearly half a page of “Watumulls” in the telephone directory – a modern record of the Watumull brothers’ descendents.

The entrepreneurial Indian spirit was also seen in some other business men. In the late fifties or early sixties Andy Mohan, who specialized in tailored suits and dresses, moved his business from Okinawa, Japan to Honolulu. Long-time Hawaii US senator Danielle Inouye is known to wear suits tailored by Andy Mohan. At the same time, another Indian business man, Zavery moved from San Francisco and opened ‘India Imports’ in the Ala Moana Shopping Center, the largest shopping mall in the US at that time.

Before passage of the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 by Congress, a number of Indians professors filled the faculty positions in the University of Hawaii. Many of them relocated from the mainland. After becoming the 50th State of the United States in 1959, Hawaii’s economic condition prospered enormously. The war in Vietnam brought more and more military activities in Pearl Harbor and elsewhere in the islands. Hawaii became a popular place among GIs for rest and recreation. Spending by the military and tourists helped increase the State budget. As a consequence, the University of Hawaii received considerable grants to expand its departments and start new programs. The nationwide search for professors culminated in having many young Indian academicians join the University. The number of Indian faculty members gradually increased and peaked to seventeen in the early seventies. Together, they started an Indian faculty association which lasted for a number of years. Before their arrival, the only Indian known to have taught regularly at the University was a visiting professor at the UH Philosophy Department. In the early 1950’s Dr. Shri Krishna Saksena, an authority on Jainism, became the first Indian faculty member and eventually became head of the department. His grandson, Sumit is currently a senior fellow at the East West Center.

Larger numbers of Indians from middle class families who were educated and professionally skilled arrived in the US after 1965. They came not only for financial reasons but also to advance their professional careers. Emigration was considered prestigious in India. The new immigrants from India in Hawaii filled the positions of teachers, doctors, engineers and architects. Balraj Mehta was the first known Indian physician working for the Kaiser Medical Hospital. Darshan Khurana was the first known architect working in a downtown architectural firm. Some of the Indian students graduating from the University with engineering and architectural degrees also continued to pursue their professions in Hawaii. There was, however, no lawyer from India practicing in Hawaii because the US legal system did not recognize Indian Law degrees. The first lawyer in Hawaii born to an immigrant Indian family is Monmit Rana who graduated from the University of Hawaii in 2007.

In 1960, the East West Center (EWC), an educational and research organization, set up to facilitate understanding and cooperation in the Asia Pacific region including the United States was created in Hawaii by the US Congress. It was affiliated with the University of Hawaii and was situated at the Manoa campus. The center’s multi-national environment created greater awareness of Hawaii among the participating countries, including India. From 1961 onwards, each year, students from India arrived with EWC scholarships for post graduate studies. Parimal Chowdhury was the first Indian EWC grantee, who obtained his PhD degree at the University of Hawaii.

Hawaii was known to Indians for a long time through movies and news media as a tourist destination where visitors walked around in Hawaiian shirts and sandals, watched hula dancing and listened to music played on Hawaiian guitars. Indians were familiar with the colorful open breasted shirts, double strap rubber sandals and slack-key guitars – all Hawaiian for a long time. That Hawaii could also be a place for advanced studies was relatively unknown to them until the 1970s. It was evident at this time that an education at the University of Hawaii for foreign students was among the cheapest in America. Jhamandas offered Indian applicants seed money (not grants) to begin their academic pursuit because IRS laws did not allow discriminatory grants. Since Hawaii was closer to India via Pacific than the mainland US via Atlantic, many Indians came to Hawaii to study at the University of Hawaii, Bingham University and the Hawaii Pacific University. However, most of the students used Hawaii as a launching pad for their careers and moved to the mainland US after graduation. Perhaps this was because, as an island, Hawaii did not offer as many job opportunities as the mainland. The Indian population in Hawaii remained less than two hundred families throughout the two decades of seventies and eighties

In big cities of mainland America, the large number of Indian immigrants coming from various parts of India could form their mini cultural groups detached from each other. However, the few Indians in Hawaii depended on each other for their collective identity. Where as in big cities on the mainland Bengalis, Punjabis, Tamils and others formed their individual social groups along language lines, Indians in Hawaii interacted with each other to form a more cohesive Indian community. The inhibitions and prejudices of not knowing one another’s customs, language and food habits, which could keep the Indian communities separate from one another, were absent among Indians in Hawaii due in part to their small numbers. The immigrants in Hawaii discovered the values in culture and tradition among themselves from a common heritage in India through centuries. Since its inception, Hawaii has been inhabited by a multitude of ethnicities and races tolerant of each other. Thus the Aloha spirit that developed in Hawaii also helped Indians bond with each other amicably.

The bond between fellow Indians in Hawaii was enhanced by another factor. In the summer of 1988 a few Indians along with a few devotees of the Shiva temple in Kauai happened to visit the “Healing Stone”, a native Hawaiian pilgrimage site in Wahiawa on the island of Oahu. There they saw three stones buried in the ground inside a concrete shelter. No one took much care of the place or the area surrounding the shelter, which had been a graveyard. The largest stone among the three resembled a Shiva lingam and was authenticated by the priest from the Kauai temple. Lord Shiva is one of the trinity – Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva in the pantheon of Hindu Gods. The surprise discovery by the Indians led to the formation of a non-profit organization LOTUS. The Shiva puja at the Healing Stone became a catalyst for bringing together Indians and Hindus from other parts of the South Asian Diaspora. In course of time, the organization grew in number and became the focal point of Indian cultural activities in Hawaii. The organization invites Indian singers and musicians from far and wide to perform in Honolulu and it encourages local talents to participate in cultural programs. In fact, the Diwali celebration each year for the last few years has been attended by nearly five hundred Indians living in Hawaii and their American friends, including the Mayor of Honolulu.

In the 1990s, with India taking a leading role in the development of computer software technology, a new wave of immigration from India reached the Hawaiian shore. With the increase in demands from various technology-based organizations and the relaxation of immigration laws, many young Indians with high-tech degrees began to arrive in Hawaii since 1994. These individuals came with their spouses or got married after their arrival. In the course of time, their children grew up and became part of a young Indian community. Many of the next generation now learn Bharatnatyam and other classical dances, participate in Holi and Diwali programs and accompany their parents to puja at the Shiva temple.

The accomplishments by the Indian immigrants in Hawaii were not restricted within men alone. Free from the restrictions of joint family system as exist in India, the immigrant women worked hard to better the family living standards. In Hawaii these women made a mark in the fields of medicine, teaching, real estate and small business ventures. Dr. Aparna Shah, an allergist rose through the ranks in the US Army Medical core and became a cornel, a feat granted only to no more than eight percent of the entire Army Medical core. Banasree Sengupta was the first to receive Child Development Associate (CDA) credential by the State based on her associate degree in early childhood from the University and performance as a licensed day care provider. While the women worked hard in or out of home they never neglected their role as traditional homemakers. The home and family remained always their main focus.

Indians in Hawaii stay close to their families and are happy with their accomplishments. Their friends are mostly Indians. Because of cultural differences the immigrants do not feel as comfortable mixing with other races as their own. Because of their relatively low numbers, Indians do not as yet take part in active politics or larger community activities. The tropical weather which closely resembles India, gives them the familiarity of home they left. The multi-ethnic environment makes it easy for them to raise children free from the stress of being an ethnic minority. As the children grow up and eventually graduate from high school, many are enrolling in mainland schools.

Thirty eight years have gone by since I walked with Dr. Raj at the University campus discussing arrival of Indians in Hawaii. Then I was a graduate student. Now my two daughters are grown up and married and I am a grand father. My daughters received college education from mainland schools and are employed there. Whether they will return or will stay in mainland US, future only can tell. When they were young my wife and I did our best to instill Indian values in them quoting from Indian epics and taking them back to India from time to time. They speak our language and love to eat the same food as we do. But inwardly, I know that their thinking have metamorphosed with values both from Indian and American culture. I am proud of them not because they retained their Indian ness. But I am proud that they have found their rightful place in the American society enriching it with new ethnic culture. The Indian immigration to Hawaii will continue and many more children like my daughters will grow up here and eventually leave. But the fact that the Indians in Hawaii are fulfilling their obligation to bring up a promising posterity should make them feel proud.

Acknowledgement:

The author would like to thank numerous friends whose recollections helped complete this article.

Disclaimer: Samachar is edited and distributed by LOTUS, a non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of Indian culture in Hawai’i. As part of our ongoing effort, this newsletter will highlight information, events and issues of interest in the community. The views expressed in the Feature Article are those of the author only.