The Chinese in Honolulu [pp. 467-475]

THE CHINESE IN HONOLULU
By F. S. RHODES
-O THOSE whose ideas of the Chi nese have been obtained by a hur - ried visit through the Chinatown
of San Francisco or New York, with a
guide intent only on showing the worst
or the most bizarre that can be seen, or
through lurid descriptions of what may
be seen in such a tour, the Chinese of
Hawaii, seen and studied as they really
The Chinese in Hawaii are an integral
part of the population, and suddenly to
banish them or to deprive them of the
position they occupy, would be a serious
loss to the material interests of the Islands, and a severe blow to the community life of the population.
Studied in close comparison with the
history of immigration of any other na
CHINESE CHURCH, HONOLULU
are, will appear an entirely different
people
As a matter of fact they are an entirely
different people. They have lived in a
different environment. Their best race
traits have had freer scope. They have
had better opportunity to enter into the
life of the people among which they
came, and into the civilization which surrounded them, and they have done so.
467
tionality in the United States, the immigration of the Chinese into the Hawaiian
Islands will show almost parallel processes, and an almost parallel assimilation. The Chinese are not so much a
people apart, incapable of grasping the
best in Occidental civilization, whether
of ethics or material and social customs,
as many people seem to think. They are,
in fact, very like other people, influenced