The First Strange Place: Race and Sex in World War II Hawaii

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 b

A good discussion of how people really got along. Butresses current ideas about the problems between the races.

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!

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.

This book is the best ever done on the WWII scene in the Islands. The research is exhaustive, and the stories extremely well-told. I am a historian and author in Hawai'i--concentrating on the 19th century but well aware of the 20th--and the authors have done a great job of not only telling the stories but coming to the correct conclusions. The two chapters on Black soldiers and the sex trade are especially good.The title refers to the idea that Hawai'i, with very different foods, traditions and most of its population Oriental and Polynesian, was the first strange place that most young servicemen ever encountered. On their way to fight Japanese, they are stationed on an island with more than a third of the population of Japanese ancestory.If you want an insight as to the impact of suddenly tripling the population of an island, primarily with young fighting men, this is the book. It's a GREAT read, and it all happened!