Star-Bulletin file photo
The Americanization of immigrants was already prevalent
at the turn of the century, as shown in this 1902 photo
when Western-attired Japanese attended English night school.

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Critical federal
report opens high
school education to all

A congressional panel demanded
that more be spent on schools

By Richard Borreca
Star-Bulletin

Alarmed at reports of discrimination, the United States Congress sent an investigating committee to the Territory of Hawaii in 1920.

The panel's critical report would change Hawaii's parochial, sugar-plantation-dominated public education system.

Before the report, most children in Hawaii saw their education stop at the eighth grade, since there were only four public high schools in the Territory before 1920. Only about 1,200, or 3 percent, of the total school population went to high school.

The congressional committee demanded that the Territory spend more for schools, especially high schools on the neighbor islands. Within a decade, five new high schools and 15 junior high schools would be built.

Star-Bulletin file photo
McKinley High School, opened in 1865 as Fort Street
English Day School, saw enrollment rise due to immigration.
Through the 1920s, it educated half of Hawaii's high school
students. Famed alumni include these from the class of '24,
pictured at a 1970 function: U.S. Sen. Hiram Fong, alma
mater author Edward Himrod, entrepreneur Chinn Ho and
Associate Justice Masaji Marumoto.

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The federal committee also recommended that students be grouped according to their ability to read and write English.

Theoretically, all Hawaii high schools were open to all students.

But by requiring students to take oral and written tests, those who spoke English at home gravitated toward the English Standard School, while those with difficulty with phonetics wound up at nonstandard schools, such as McKinley High School.

"The result was a dual public school system, created along racial and social lines," wrote historian Theon Wright in "The Disenfranchised Islands."

At the same time, teachers coming from the mainland, feeling as if they were in a foreign country, stressed the American experience.

Political sociologist Lawrence Fuchs explained that teachers in public schools concentrated on American history and government, free enterprise and the meaning of democracy.

"America was individualistic, full of opportunity and reward," he said.

"It was, in short, everything that their homes and Hawaii were not."

Historian Bob Dye called it a "program of Americanization."

The result: High school students of the 1930s who attended nonstandard English public schools were taught to believe in the promises of America.

Those lessons learned would form the platform of social advancement and belief in equality, pushing Hawaii into modern society.