Kawailoa as an Americanizing Project
Maunawili Training School for Girls opened in 1929 (renamed Kawailoa in 1931), though institutions for girls’ incarceration in Hawaiʻi already existed for decades. From 1929-1950, the institution frequently housed over 100 girls deemed “delinquent,” often for pre-marital sexual activity or living in homes that did not conform to white American standards. Kawailoa, administrators and territorial officials hoped, could turn “delinquent” girls into “good” girls fit for the Hawaiian society the white elite envisioned. This settler-colonial process of “whitening” the predominantly non-white girls committed to Kawailoa interests me as a student interested in how race and education intersect(ed).
As the Director of the Department of Institutions (the governing board over Kawailoa), Thomas Vance wrote the introduction to the 1945 Kawailoa staff manual. He says the institution’s goals are twofold: “the withdrawal of destructive juveniles from free circulation” and “the rehabilitation of those delinquents.” Removal and rehabilitation, Vance argues, complement each other and can be seen in all aspects of the institution. Contrary to public perception, Vance argues that rehabilitation, rather than removal, is Kawailoa’s central goal; the reformatoryʻs success “means one more good citizen.”
The territorial government's definition of a “bad citizen” was shockingly non-white. In 1940, of the 133 girls at Kawailoa, the staff only labeled one girl as Caucasian. In contrast, 61 girls were listed as Hawaiian or Part Hawaiian. These girls would legally have citizenship status from the Organic Act, though the limits of that citizenship are on full display in the discriminatory incarceration practices. The legal system designated Hawaiians, in this case, Hawaiian girls, as “bad citizens” needing reform at substantially higher rates than white girls.
Aside from their supposed “crimes,” Vance viewed Hawaiians as “bad citizens” based on their labor practices. In his mind, Kawailoa took “wards who have never been taught that work is an important part of every satisfactory life” and taught them to enjoy labor. This argument implies that predominantly non-white girls at Kawailoa did not like or know how to work, which goes against everything we know about settler colonialism and the labor foundations of the US. White hands did very little work on land colonized by the US. Rather, non-white laborers performed manual work while wealthy white people oversaw them. Not only does this erroneous claim ignore the historical setting of non-white labor in Hawaiʻi that planted and harvested all the sugar and pineapple, it also paints non-white Hawaiians as others. It is also worth noting, that while Kawailoa girls performed agricultural work, domestic labor constituted the majority of their duties.
Besides manual labor, Vance is convinced reading is the next best way to rehabilitate girls. He claims that “reading is the number one hobby of the American people,” and therefore one who reads is American. This habit, he continues would “help our wards to acquire a larger vocabulary and fair reading skill,” which reeks all too much of ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian language) bans in schools. By 1945, ʻŌleleo had already been pushed out of most schools and many Kanaka children, such as those at Kawailoa, would likely have had English as their first language. Rather than a reflection on the girls’ English literacy, Vance’s argument paints Kawailoa girls as un-American for “committing crimes” rather than reading.
Beyond English literacy skills, enjoying reading was central to rehabilitation. Vance argues that “when a girl has become interested enough in books and magaizines to enjoy staying home to read them, she has made a good start on her rehabilitation.” Here I’m reminded of Vanceʻs claim that successful rehabilitation is indicated by creating a “good citizen.” In this case, a good citizen for a Kanaka girl with minimal political power was one who stayed home. There, women and girls could run white middle-class American-style households and pass down the corresponding cultural values to their children. Good Kawailoa girls produced more “good citizens” Though I often find myself thinking that release from these institutions was the end of their “withdrawal..from free circulation,” Vance indicates that successful “rehabilitation” continued keeping girls out of the public sphere.
Kawailoa’s goals of removal and rehabilitation, then, did not end when the girls completed their sentence. The curriculum was designed to stay with them throughout their lives, making them “good citizens, wives and mothers” as they passed American messages along to friends, family, and especially their children. “Successful rehabilitation” was intergenerational.