“How do Filipinos clear deyer nose?”: Humor, Race, and Cultural Adaptation in Plantation-era Hawai‘i

Through sociopolitical history and ethnography, this research examines the influence of Hawai‘i’s historical plantation-based racial-hierarchy on the current social mobility of Filipino migrants and their subsequent cultural adaptations. The sociopolitical history centers on the Filipino experience with systematic oppression under the supremacy of plantation owners between the early- to mid-1900s, the contemporary socioeconomic position of Filipinos, and the formation of the Local identity. Results of the ethnography identified adaptations in areas of cultural assimilation, closed ethnic communities, and Local-Ethnic-Humor (LEH). Modern perpetuations of the racial hierarchy are found to be interconnected, and many simultaneously function as cultural adaptions, which include access to education, seclusion of ethnic communities, cultural assimilation and heritage loss, the reconstruction of ethnic stereotypes in Local ethnic humor, and diasporic immigration. Faculty Advisors: Patricia Fifita, Eirik Saethre Faculty Sponsor: Patricia Fifita, Eirik Saethre