Transnational identity and mortuary material culture: The Chinese plantation cemetery in Pahala, Hawai'i

From the late-19th to the early-20th centuries, immigrant laborers from a wide range of countries were brought to Hawai'i by white plantation owners who were in need of a large and inexpensive labor force. Initially hired as indentured servants and segregated by ethnic group in plantation contexts, these workers continued to maintain strong ethnic/national identities, even after settling in Hawai'i. In contemporary Hawai'i, identities that developed in the plantation context have combined with the Hawaiian Culture of aloha and diversity to Form a distinctive "local" Culture, in which ethnic identity and local birth are simultaneously prized. A survey of grave markers of the Chinese worker cemetery associated with Pahala Plantation has revealed the ways in which these markers were used to negotiate the eventual formation of the "local" culture in present day Hawai'i.