Hawaii’s has a far smaller percentage of Caucasian legislators than any other state, according to data compiled by the National Conference of State Legislatures.
That’s just one of the little factoids to be gained while browsing through legislative info collected by NCSL.
That link above will take you to a map of the U.S., then click on any state to get legislative info, including ethnicity, gender, age, religion, occupation, education, and political party.
It lists Hawaii as having a 20% minority of Caucasians in the Legislature. If that number is correct, then Caucasians are an underrepresented minority since the U.S. Census Bureau lists Hawaii’s population as 29.7% Caucasian.
The next states aren’t even close in the percent of Caucasians–New Mexico (65%) and California (67%). On the other end of the spectrum, I noticed a couple of states (Maine and West Virginia) with 100% Caucasian legislatures, and several nearing that level, including Idaho and North Dakota (98%), South Dakota and Kentucky(97%), and Utah (95%). What a different world view this must create (or reflect?).
In total, 86% of the country’s state legislators are Caucasian, 9% African American, 3% Latino, and just 1% either Asian or Native American/Alaskan, according to the NCSL data.
Another data table shows that of the country’s 85 Asian-American state legislators, 50 (59%) are in Hawaii.
Compared to other Western states in 2007, Hawaii’s legislature had more attorneys, more legislaors in real estate, fewer business executives or managers, fewer retirees than all western states but California, and more full-time legislators (36%) than other western states except California, where 80% are full-time.
Discover more from i L i n d
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
How do they pigeon hole the hapa haole-hapa Asian legislators? In the end, we all belong to one race – the human race.
As an Asian married to a haole, I feel just as American as my husband. We both belong to a single culture… more so for my hapa haole kids.
Indeed. I have to wonder how these things are determined. Self-reporting? In this country, people are still expected to identify as being of one ethnicity. We really need to push for multiple choice on these surveys.
I wonder how this affects local political issues? As we know, haoles are in general much more outspoken on political issues than Asians. Whenever we see what the loudest voices are on political issues in local media, there’s no shortage of haole voices while you rarely see, for example, a local Japanese person speaking out. It’s not hard to imagine Asian politicians getting browbeat by haole constituents, especially recent imports, who are more likely to be conservative.
The tax day protestors were nearly all haole, and Charles Djou has a large haole base of support.
The ‘we are all one’ argument aside, lets be brutally honest.
Doesn’t the lack of haoles in our Legislature go hand-in-hand with the lack of elected Republicans in Hawaii? Its totally not P.C. to say out loud, but the R’s are the whitest party in the country. Ever watched the Republican convention? I swear its like watching the country -music awards. The poor camera man has to keep flashing back to the same one or two african-americans in the crowd just to try to show diversity.
On the other hand, in Hawaii, there is simply not much embracing of haoles in the dominating Dem party. I might even site Ed Case as a great example of this sentiment.
While I can appreciate the premise that we are of one race; i.e., the human race, the reality is that like gender, sexual orientation, religion, appearance, etc., society judges people as individuals and as groups, rather than the universality of “we are all people” premise.
Take Tiger Woods. He actually is more Asian than anything else but he is seen as an African-American.
In the ideal world, we would be judged by our integrity, character, intelligence, work ethic, etc., but in the real world, we are judged by more superficial factors.
As far as Hawaii’s legislature goes, we probably have the highest percentage of female Republicans in the country. Five of the eight are women.
I also think the reason why the hardcore Dems don’t embrace Case goes beyond the fact that he’s haole. For example, he didn’t show up to the convention once because he said he had a prior commitment to show up at Punchbowl. Never mind that Inouye, Akaka and Abercrombie were at the convention.
And any Dem in Hawaii who cites Sen. Lieberman as a mentor probably deserves a raised eyebrow or two.
give it a couple more generations and even having unmixed parents will be very rare
“What a different world view this must create (or reflect?).”
I have a strong impression haoles are over-represented on Neighborhood Boards. Also, the State Central Committee of the Democratic Party of Hawaii is probably majority haole, which is related to the disconnect between party activists, the base of Democratic voters and elected officials.
This is not just a question of race, but of culture, of manners and sensitivities. Case’s problem is not that he is haole, it’s that he’s so friggin’ haole in everything he does, every clumsy misstep he makes.
You hit the proverbial nail on the head, Kolea.
Those statistics must be self-reported or at least 5 years out of date. The site lists 0% of our legislators below the age of 35. In the last five years there have always been a few that fall under that all the way down to the 20s, and some still there today.