Focusing on the sponsored migration of nearly 20,000 Portuguese individuals to the Hawaiian Islands between 1878 and 1911, this track inquires into the imbrications of indentured labour with local politics, geopolitical intrigue, settler colonialism, individual lived experiences and racialization processes in the Pacific during the age of high imperialism. Occupying a liminal space as Christian Europeans brought to labour alongside Asian and Polynesian workers, the Portugueses in Hawai‘i offer an exemplary case of the intersections of labour and race in the making of distinct identities in plantation regimes. Building upon collaborative research across the disciplines of anthropology and history, we critically historicise the construction of Hawai‘i as “America’s racial paradise”. We interrogate the political instrumentalisation of labour migrants and their progeny. Additionally, by focusing on the identities that Portuguese migrants negotiated in Hawai‘i during a moment of great cultural, political and demographic transition, we reflect upon the continued local vocabulary of racial identities in Hawai‘i that eschews homogenization into mainland US categories.
Researchers
Bastos’ work addresses the challenges and lived experiences of Portuguese islanders as they embarked into the plantation world and produced their new inter-generational existences in shifting socio-economic environments.
Miller’s work inquiries into strategies of labour migration and colonial politics of interethnic integration in the nineteenth-century world of indenture in both Hawai‘i and Guyana.
Associate researchers
Carlos Raleigh
Advisory board
Publications
Miller, Nicholas B. (forthcoming). “Crossing Seas and Labels: British Vessels, Hawaiian Contracts and Portuguese Labour Migrants, 1878-1911.” Portuguese Literary and Cultural Studies.
Miller, Nicholas B. (forthcoming). “Indentured Labour and Colonial Education: A Comparative Reappraisal” in Nationalism, Transnationalism and Identity in the Age of Post-Slavery Indenture and Migration, ed. Maurits Hassankhan, Kalpana Hiralal, Cristiana Bastos and Lomarsh Roopnarine.
Miller, Nicholas B. 2020. “Bittersweet Connections: The Mauritian Model in Hawai‘i.” Aapravasi Ghat Trust Fund Magazine 5: 54-56
Bastos, Cristiana. 2020. “Plantation Memories, Labor Identities, and the Celebration of Heritage: the case of Hawaii Plantation Village.” Museum Worlds. Advances in Research 8: 25-45
Bastos, Cristiana. 2019. “Luso-Tropicalism Debunked Again: Race, Racism and Racialism in three Portuguese-Speaking Societies.” Pp. 243-264 in Luso-Tropicalism and its discontents: The Making and Unmaking of Racial Exceptionalism. ed. Anderson, W., Roque, R., and Santos, R.V., London: Berghahn Books
Miller, Nicholas B. 2019. “Review of Jo-Anne S. Ferreira, The Portuguese of Trinidad and Tobago: Portrait of an Ethnic Minority, Revised Edition (Kingston, Jamaica, 2018.” e-Journal of Portuguese History 17(2): 637-40.
Bastos, Cristiana. 2019. “Açúcar, ananases e ilhéus portugueses no Hawaii: dinâmicas de migração, etnicidade e racialização no terreno e no arquivo.” Etnográfica 23(3): 777-798
Miller, Nicholas B. 2019. “Trading Sovereignty and Labour: The Consular Network of Nineteenth-Century Hawai‘i.” The International History Review 42(2): 260-277.
Bastos, Cristiana. 2018. “Portuguese in the cane: the racialization of labour in Hawaiian plantations.” Pp.65-96 in Changing Societies: Legacies and Challenges. Vol. 1. Ambiguous Inclusions: Inside Out, Inside In, ed. S. Aboim, P. Granjo, A. Ramos. Lisboa: Imprensa de Ciências Sociais
Miller, Nicholas B. 2018. “The Power of the Steel-tipped Pen: Reconstructing Native Hawaiian Intellectual History.” Global Intellectual History 3:1-3
Conferences and seminars
Bastos, Cristiana. “Tráficos Pacíficos, ou, para além da escravização: rapto, subjugação, contratos e dinâmicas de racialização nas plantações do Hawaii e Fiji”, Keynote, ANPOCS, 8 de Dezembro 2020
Miller, Nicholas, “Colonialism in Nineteenth-Century Hawai‘i and the Problem of National Empires”, Séminario de Investigação em História do Colonialismo (sécs. XIX-XX), Instituto de História Contemporânea da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 7 Janeiro 2020
Bastos, Cristiana. “Plantation labor and the making of race: the case of Hawaii”, Seminário de Investigação em História do Colonialismo (sécs. XIX-XX), Instituto de História Contemporânea da Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 7 Janeiro 2020
Bastos, Cristiana. “Dinâmicas de racialização e o avesso da etnicidade: os casos da Guiana e Hawaii“, invited lecture, Seminário de Estudos Pós-Graduados em Antropologia, ICS-ULisboa, 23 de Outubro 2020
Bastos, Cristiana. “Cronologias inversas, racializações diversas: o singular caso do Hawaii.” paper presentation, MR004 “A persistência da plantação: revisitando a racialização do trabalho e o saber insubmisso da antropologia”, 32ª RBA – Reunião Brasileira de Antropologia, 30 Outubro-6 Novembro 2020
International Conference “Labour, Sugar and Long-distance Migration: Madeirans and Azoreans in Guyana, the Caribbean and Hawai’i”, organized by COLOUR, Funchal, 14-15 November 2019.
Susana Caldeira, “A Mulher nas Mobilidades – o caso do Hawai’i“, paper presentation, International Conference “Labour, Sugar and Long-distance Migration: Madeirans and Azoreans in Guyana, the Caribbean and Hawai’i”, organized by COLOUR project, Funchal, 14-15 November 2019.
Riley, Carlos Guilherme. “Bittersweet tales of migration: the Azoreans in Hawaii (1880-1920)“, paper presentation, International Conference “Labour, Sugar and Long-distance Migration: Madeirans and Azoreans in Guyana, the Caribbean and Hawai’i”, organized by COLOUR project, Funchal, 14-15 November 2019.
Miller, Nicholas. “Auguste J.B. Marques (1841-1929) and the Politics of Portuguese Settlement in Hawai‘i“, paper presentation, International Conference “Labour, Sugar and Long-distance Migration: Madeirans and Azoreans in Guyana, the Caribbean and Hawai’i”, organized by COLOUR project, Funchal, 14-15 November 2019.
Miller, Nicholas. “Colonial Science and Indentured Labour: Trans-Oceanic Connections“, paper presentation, International Conference Landscapes of Indenture: Indian Ocean Routes and Beyond, organized by COLOUR, ICS-ULisboa, 6 November 2019
“Os Portugueses e o Hawaii“, one-day event organized by the COLOUR project in collaboration with Casa dos Açores, Lisboa, 25 September 2019
Bastos, Cristiana. “Remember the bango: The unequal labour force in hawaii’s sugar plantations”, paper presentation, Conference “Forced Labour & Migration: Past, Present & Future“, Global Girmit Institute, Laukota, Fiji, 15-17 July 2019.
Miller, Nicholas. “Contracts and Blackboards: Comparing Portuguese and Islander Indentured Labour Migration to the Kingdom of Hawai‘i, 1878-1893”, paper presentation, Conference “Forced Labour & Migration: Past, Present & Future“, Global Girmit Institute, Laukota, Fiji, 15-17 July 2019.
Bastos, Cristiana. “Competing Plantations, Connected Routes: Madeiran Labourers in British Guyana, Hawai‘i and Angola” paper presentation, Panel “Contract Labour and Identity Formation in Colonial Societies: A Connected Approach”, International Conference “Global Labor Migration: Past and Present”, International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam, 20-22 June 2019.
Miller, Nicholas. “Networking Indenture to Hawai‘i, 1864-1878: Wilhelm Hillebrand’s Migrant Missions and the Institutionalisation of Contract Labour beyond the British Empire” paper presentation, Panel “Contract Labour and Identity Formation in Colonial Societies: A Connected Approach”, International Conference “Global Labor Migration: Past and Present”, International Institute for Social History, Amsterdam, 20-22 June 2019.
Miller, Nicholas. “Educational Careering across Imperial Transitions: American Pedagogists in Hawai‘i, Japan and the Philippines, 1870-1910”, paper presentation, International History Conference “East Asia in Global Perspective: Transnational Movement and Exchange in the Age of Empire, c. 1850-1950”, University of Hong Kong, 24-25 May 2019.
Bastos, Cristiana. “Comparing and connecting: labour and racialization in plantation and industrial economies – notes from colonial Guiana, Hawaii and New England”, keynote, Two-day International Workshop “Towards establishing a comparative framework for the study of indentures labour”, The Centre for Research on Slavery and Indenture, University of Mauritius in collaboration with Aapravasi Ghat Trust Fund / Secretariat, Indentured Labour Route Project, COLOUR project and ICS-ULisboa, 5-6 March 2019.
Miller, Nicholas. “Placing Hawai‘i on the Map of Indenture: The Challenges of Exceptionalism”, paper presentation. Two-day International Workshop “Towards establishing a comparative framework for the study of indentures labour”, The Centre for Research on Slavery and Indenture, University of Mauritius in collaboration with Aapravasi Ghat Trust Fund / Secretariat, Indentured Labour Route Project, COLOUR project and ICS-ULisboa, 5-6 March 2019.
Miller, Nicholas. “Hawai‘i and the Pacific Politics of Japanese Labour Immigration, 1870-1900“, paper presentation, 23rd Pacific History Association Biennial Conference “The Gift of the Pacific: Place and Perspective in Pacific history”, Royal Academy of Arts, London and the University of Cambridge, 3-5 December 2018.
Bastos, Cristiana. “Plantation Memories, Labor Identities, and the Celebration of Heritage: the Portuguese in Hawaii”, paper presentation, 117th AAA “Resistance, Resilience, Adaptation”, San Jose, California, 18 November 2018.
Bastos, Cristiana. “Portuguese in the cane: the racialization of labour in Hawaiian plantations”, paper presentation, Seminar “Anthropology from Portugal, on Portugal and beyond Portugal: racialized relations and representations“, The Center for Portuguese Studies (CPS), Berkeley’s Institute of European Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 13 November 2018
Miller, Nicholas. “An Empire of Schools: US-American Imperialism and Institutional Practices”, invited speaker, Marie Sklodowska-Curie Workshop, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid – Centro Cultural La Corrala, Museo de Artes y Tradiciones Populares, 7 November 2018
Bastos, Cristiana. “Açúcar, ananases e ilhéus portugueses no Hawaii: dinâmicas de migração, etnicidade e racialização”, keynote, Aula Ernesto Veiga de Oliveira, ISCTE-IUL, Lisboa, 24 October 2018.
Miller, Nicholas. “Island hopping: labour policy and labourer decisions in the late kingdom of Hawai’i“, paper presentation, Panel “Moving and moving again: embodied identifications along multiple trajectories”, Joint CASCA and IUAES Conference/InterCongress, University of Ottawa, Canada. 2-7 May 2017