OH, they're definitely Hawaiian shirts. They're not Estonian, for instance. Nor Japanese. Pure Hawaiian. There are also Hawaiian pants, and skirts etc.
The article's a fun read, and indicates that the originals were a product of Chinese tailors using Japanese kimono fabric in a hybrid Filipino/European style at the request of middle-class Hawaiian school boys.
...and made in Hawaii. By Hawaiians. To local taste. As genuinely Hawaiian as any designer dress is the designer's product, regardless of the tailor or fabric origin.
Hawaiian is primarily used as an ethnonym, so saying the Aloha shirt is a 'Hawaiian Shirt' is implying the shirt as part of native Hawaiian culture. What you say is technically true at a certain level, people who live in Hawaii do have the demonym of 'Hawaiian', but that term is reserved for the indigenous Polynesian people of Hawaii. It would seem odd to say for someone to say they enjoy native American food as a means of expressing their like of hamburgers and french fries.
I can understand this; at the same time, from my perspective, people use it to refer to the geographical state. So, not refering to a people at all, but a source of origin. Kind of like how I don’t assume Americans eat American food; i just assume I can find it in America.
That said, I did learn they are called aloha shirts and will make an effort to use that instead.
Anyone reading this article or talking about Hawaiian shirts is using Hawaiian colloquially. Maybe you live in a milieu where a distinction is necessary but for most people it just comes off as word policing.
The distinction of Hawaiian as a colloquial reference to anything from the state of Hawaii is made only outside of the state itself.
I can't change the way English itself works so there will always be that meaning, but to anyone from Hawaii, that distinction reminds us that native Hawaiians are distinct from the people of Hawaii today.
The Hawaiian culture has had its fair share of erasure and suppression. To make the distinction is an attempt to honor and remember the unique identity of native Hawaiians.
As an aside, those you refer to as "indigenous Polynesian people" are actually a later wave of Tahitian colonists who conquered and oppressed the previous settlers from the Marquesas Islands.
While again being technically true, I would love to see any white or asian immigrants noting the ethnography of the original Hawaiian people in the time where they first made contact with and lived among the Hawaiian people.
By the time of Kamehameha, I was taught there was a unified monolithic Hawaiian culture.
Hawaii post-Cook ended up losing a lot of its population, because of that and other immigration it began to lose its culture. Other culture loss came fron Westernization and Christianity (Missionaries), the Hawaiian language itself was on the decline because of suppression until a renaissance in the 1970s.
The distinction of Hawaiian in reference to native people is a only made off the islands. To anyone from Hawaii or familiar with it calling it a Hawaiian shirt literally is wrong in our understanding of the word.
To try and spread that understanding of Hawaiian as reference to native peoples is to spread the knowledge that Hawaii is a multiethnic place with distinct native culture alongside its American, Asian and other Polynesian influences.
Doesn't that make it a uniquely Hawaiian thing? The sequence of events spurring the shirt's evolution couldn't have happened anywhere else. The article also makes a point that the cultural melting pot that is 20th century Hawaii is what enabled the creation of such a distinct garment.
I think it's very Hawaiian, and should be interpreted as a celebration. Then again, I'm just a Haole with a penchant for comfy fun shirts.
As a point of comparison, food dishes that came about under similar melting pot circumstances are called "local" food while dishes that have ethnic Hawaiian origins are called "Hawaiian" food.
Hawaiian is an ethnicity. Hawaiian is used in specific contexts in Hawaii and using it to describe a specific type of shirt is not one of them. It has nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with accuracy and respect for a group of people.
- an ethnic group; a social group that shares a common and distinctive culture, religion, language, or the like.
- ethnic traits, background, allegiance, or association
> Hawaiian is used in specific contexts in Hawaii and using it to describe a specific type of shirt is not one of them.
Is it not unique (in origin) to Hawaiian culture?
> It has nothing to do with ideology and everything to do with accuracy and respect for a group of people.
That you think this has anything to do with "respect" is precisely the problem I'm talking about. It's a style of shirt. Even if I didn't like the style, how in god's name does one interpret this as "not respecting" Hawaiians as a group?
The Wikipedia article distinguishes between the local 'Aloha shirt' which is a dress shirt with muted floral design or native fabric pattern, and the exported 'Hawaiian shirt' which is informal wear with usually an extravagant floral design.
I was born and raised in Hawaii. Not trying to come off rude but I don't need a Wikipedia article to tell me what something I grew up with actually is.
Hawaiian shirt is a crude marketing term that's only used outside of the original audience of the item.
Exactly what I was talking about. You call them Aloha shirts. Folks NOT born and raised in Hawaii have another name for what they're seeing, exported thru WalMart etc. And its 'Hawaiian'.
I'm an Iowan, and I don't need you to tell me what something I grew up with actually is. Not to come off as rude.
Yes, and your version is a knockoff of a culturally significant item created in an independent country that was conquered militarily and handed over to be annexed for the benefit of a pineapple company. So maybe give those of the originating culture the benefit of the doubt. I'm not Hawaiian but it is a beautiful culture, especially the concept of aloha, and we could learn a thing or two from it.
Are you suggesting Aloha Shirt instead? Or it'd be great if you.could explain further. I do understand not saying Hawaiian Shirt, since Hawaiian carries the connotation of ethnically Hawaiian. No sane white person who's born in Hawaii would say they're Hawaiian [1], so in that way it makes sense.
[1] I've lived in Hawaii most my life and this is my experience.