Growing Up American

This chapter traces Kurihara's childhood in Hawaiʻi. Kurihara was born on January 1, 1895, two years after the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy and three years before the U.S. Congress passed a joint resolution that resulted in the occupation of the islands as an American territory. Kurihara first attended Kaiulani School in September 1903. Like his classmates, many of whom were also children of immigrants, Kurihara was a U.S. citizen because he was born in Hawaiʻi. According to the Organic Act, which created the Territory of Hawaii, all who had been citizens of the Republic of Hawaii—which meant those born or naturalized in the Hawaiian islands—were “declared to be citizens of the United States.” In race-conscious America in the early twentieth century, however, the meaning of citizenship for racial and ethnic minorities was amorphous. Thus, Kurihara and other Asian Americans were often treated as noncitizens or as “new” Americans.