PROTECTING SENSE OF PLACE: HISTORIC PRESERVATION IN ‘EWA VILLAGES

Area of Concentration Plan B Paper Submitted to: Department of Urban and Regional Planning, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa in Partial Fulfillment of Master’s Degree Requirements Committee Members: Dr. Luciano Minerbi – Chair Dr. Dolores Foley Dr. Ross Stephenson Submitted by: Horng-Wei Chen December 2011

PROTECTING SENSE OF PLACE: HISTORIC PRESERVATION IN ‘EWA VILLAGES

AREA OF CONCENTRATION PAPER IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF ART

IN

URBAN AND REGIONAL PLANNING

DECEMBER 2011

By Horng-Wei Chen

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Abstract

Historic preservation is more than the mere saving of bricks and mortar of buildings

and artifacts based on architectural standards and historic significance. It can and should

be about protecting places cherished by local communities. „Ewa Villages is an example

of cherished places, and this study aims to identify strategies that will again motivate

preservation for the once-prominent plantation town in the Honouliuli plain. Challenges

faced within the historic preservation field are identified, including lack of community

involvement and disinterest in preservation. To overcome these challenges, a place-

based vision is proposed. With the central principle of protecting sense of place, the

vision proposed to broaden the preservation focus to include not just the perceived space

of architecture and conceived space of history, but also the lived space of community

activities. Drawn from lessons learned from past preservation efforts and projects in

„Ewa Villages, recommended strategies are formulated to achieve all dimensions of the

proposed vision.

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Acknowledgements

I want to express my sincere gratitude to the following people, who have provided

me with much needed supports during the writing of this Area of Concentration paper

and throughout my academic career. First, I would like to thank my committee members,

Dr. Luciano Minerbi, Dr. Dolores Foley, and Dr. Ross Stephenson. They patiently

guided me through the writing process, giving me valuable advice in the direction of this

paper and reading through and commenting on my proposals and drafts. Much of the

literatures about „Ewa Villages, its history and past preservation endeavors, are archived

documents found in the State Historic Preservation Division office in Kapolei, where Dr.

Stephenson kindly allowed me to conduct my research for some time.

I would like to also thank the faculty in the Department of Urban and Regional

Planning, especially Dr. Michael Douglass and Dr. Karen Umemoto, as well as Dr.

William Chapman of the Department of American Study. I learned the basics of place-

making concepts in Dr. Douglass‟s Planning in Asia class, and Preservation classes with

Dr. Chapman gave me a solid understanding of the preservation works in the US. Dr.

Umemoto‟s practicum class in Waimanalo impressed the community planning values and

practices deeply in me. They contributed much in my academic pursuit, and helped me

lay the ground works for this study.

To my parents who have supported my education financially over the years and

have encouraged me to never give up even during great difficulties, I owe many thanks.

Their prayers and hopes for me have finally come to fruition. Auntie Mei Li Teller, who

also prayed for me in a near daily basis, has provided much emotional and spiritual

supports for me when I am away from my family. For the many family and friends who I

cannot name individually here, thank you for all your love and encouragement. And

finally, to the One who makes all things beautiful in His time, Jesus Christ my Lord and

Savior, I thank You for giving me strength to complete this task.

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Table of Contents

Abstract ............................................................................................................................... ii

Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iii

Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... iv

List of Tables ...................................................................................................................... v

List of Figures ..................................................................................................................... v

List of Abbreviations .......................................................................................................... v

Chapter 1 Introduction: Then and Now of Historic Preservation ....................................... 1

1.1 Early Preservation Projects in the US and Hawai„i .................................................. 3

1.2 Postwar and Current Situations of Historic Preservation ......................................... 8

1.2.1 National Trust for Historic Preservation ............................................................ 8

1.2.2 NHPA and National Register of Historic Places ............................................... 9

1.2.3 State and Local Preservation Regulations ........................................................ 12

1.3 Challenges of Historic Preservation ........................................................................ 13

1.3.1 Lack of Community Involvement .................................................................... 14

1.3.2 Indifference and Lack of Political Will ........................................................... 15

1.3.3 Rigid/Irrelevant Preservation Regulations ....................................................... 16

Chapter 2 Building a Place-Based Preservation Vision .................................................... 18

2.1 Experiencing Place: Phenomenological Approach ................................................. 18

2.2 Critiquing Place Singularity: Constructionist Approach ........................................ 22

2.3 Place as Lived Space ............................................................................................... 26

2.4 Place: A New Direction for Preservation Movement ............................................. 28

Chapter 3 The Place That Was „Ewa Villages .................................................................. 31

3.1 Physical Environment: The Perceived „Ewa Villages ............................................ 31

3.2 Historic Narratives: The Conceived „Ewa Villages ................................................ 36

3.2.1 Development of „Ewa Villages: Planter‟s Perspective .................................... 36

3.2.2 Ethnic and Labor Relation: Worker‟s Perspective ........................................... 39

3.2.3 Life Stories around the Villages: Resident‟s Perspective ................................ 42

3.3 Preservation Efforts: The Practiced „Ewa Villages ................................................ 44

3.3.1 Community-based Preservation Projects ......................................................... 44

3.3.2 Government-led Revitalization Project ............................................................ 48

Chapter 4 Preserving „Ewa Villages ................................................................................. 52

4.1 Current Situation and the Proposed Vision ............................................................. 52

4.2 Recommended Preservation Strategies ................................................................... 55

4.3 Community Preservation Work Process ................................................................. 58

4.4 Concluding Remarks ............................................................................................... 61

Works Cited ...................................................................................................................... 63

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List of Tables

Table 1. Different types of insideness and outsideness .................................................... 21 Table 2. Phenomenologist and constructionist approaches summarized .......................... 29

List of Figures

Figure 1. „Ewa Villages today ............................................................................................ 2 Figure 2. Queen Emma Summer Palace ............................................................................. 6 Figure 3. Conclusions to the Findings of With Heritage So Rich ..................................... 10 Figure 4. The Trialectics of spatiality ............................................................................... 27

Figure 5. Location and extent of EPC land ....................................................................... 31

Figure 6. Locations of eight plantation villages................................................................ 32 Figure 7. Exterior drawing of the standard 1920 HSPA single-family house .................. 33

Figure 8. Houses in „Ewa Plantation today ....................................................................... 33 Figure 9. Plantation Management Office in 1944 ............................................................. 34 Figure 10. Plantation Manager‟s House in 1926 (left) and today (right).......................... 35

Figure 11. „Ewa Plantation Mill........................................................................................ 35 Figure 12. The First „Ewa Mill, 1893 ............................................................................... 38

Figure 13. „Ewa School children going to DPD in 1925 .................................................. 43 Figure 14. “Do you remember…?” column in FFE newsletter ........................................ 46 Figure 15. „Ewa Villages Revitalization Project Plan ...................................................... 49

Figure 16. Schematic of place-based preservation vision ................................................. 55

Figure 17. Recommended preservation strategies ............................................................ 56

Figure 18. Process chart of community preservation works ............................................. 60

List of Abbreviations

ACHP: Advisory Council on Historic Preservation

CC&Rs: Conditions, Covenants and Restrictions

EPC: „Ewa Plantation Company

FFE: Friends For „Ewa

HABS: Historic American Buildings Survey

HSPA: Hawaiian Sugar Planters‟ Association

NEPA: National Environmental Protection Act

NHPA: National Historic Preservation Act

NPS: National Park Service

NRHP: National Register for Historic Places

NTHP: National Trust of Historic Preservation

SHPO: State Historic Preservation Officer

SPNEA: Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities

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Chapter 1

Introduction: Then and Now of Historic Preservation

„Ewa Villages (Figure 1) is a historic district on the Hawai„i State Register of

Historic Places, which were once worker camps for one of the largest sugar plantations

on O„ahu, „Ewa Plantation Company. While it was preserved by a group of

preservationists with the help of community people in the early 1990s after the plantation

was closed down, „Ewa Villages is now facing many of the same challenges faced by

preservationists everywhere, as discussed in section 1.3. Many of the current residents

are no longer retired plantation workers or their relatives and thus have little ties to the

history of the place. The only ongoing preservation effort in the Villages is the design

review process administered by the home owner association. Some of the landmark

buildings are not occupied and have been in disrepair for years. If „Ewa Villages does

not find a way to overcome these pressing preservation issues, the historic qualities that

make this place special may be lost eventually. Indeed, with the remaining one company,

Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co., operating the last sugar cane plantations (Gomes,

2009), preservation of the plantation heritage in Hawaii is becoming more urgent than

ever. Currently, there are only eleven plantation-related entries on the Hawaii State

Register of Historic Places, and only nine on the National Register1. Being one of the

relatively intact sugar cane plantation camp sites, „Ewa Villages affords an opportunity to

preserve this important segment in Hawaii‟s history. Therefore, it is the aim of this study

to identify strategies that will again motivate preservation in „Ewa Villages.

A brief history, current situations, and some pressing issues of historic

preservation are discussed in this chapter. The next chapter will cover several different

concepts of place in order to develop a renewed vision of preservation. Then the third

chapter will focus in on „Ewa Villages to explore the historic context and past

1 Using “plantation”, “mill”, and “sugar” as key word to search in online listings in the State Historic

Preservation Division website at http://hawaii.gov/dlnr/hpd/hpregistr.htm and National Register of Historic

Places website at http://www.nps.gov/nr/research/index.htm

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preservation efforts by both the community and the government. Finally, strategies for

both community actions and policy reformations will be given in the forth chapter.

Figure 1. „Ewa Villages today

The field of historic preservation has been described by scholars as a “cult of the

past” (Tuan, 1977, p. 194) and a “cult of monuments” (Koshar, 2004, p. 45). These

remarks speak of the field‟s once prominent focus on antiquity and architecture. While

Kaufman (2009) considers the notion of preservation as “an elite curatorial practice

related to the care of ornate mansions and national shrine” to be an outdated prejudice (p.

2), he contends that preservationists still have too often focused exclusively on saving

sites—primarily buildings—that are deemed significant because of their form, style, or

the pedigree of their architects. Such narrow focus has prevented many “ordinary” places

from being designated as sites of historic significance, whether nationally or locally.

Old-time biases aside, it may now be appropriate, even necessary, to recast the

visions and ideologies behind the preservation movement, so preservation will no longer

be deemed as merely about the creation of museums or the rehabilitation of old buildings.

As societal milieu transforms over time, so the field of historic preservation also needs to

evolve to accommodate with, for one, changed expectations. Kaufman (2009) asserts

that preservation needs to be reestablished upon people‟s attachments to places so

ordinary places that people do care about will not be overlooked, or else preservation

may eventually lose its relevance to the general public. In order to articulate a fresh

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vision and strategies for preservation‟s future, the past as well as present of the

movement should be understood first, as is stated aptly by Page and Mason (2004):

The potential of historic preservation as a social movement is immense; it has the

capacity to help forestall the destructive and unregulated development that

threatens to destroy the places Americans love. But before it can achieve its

vision, the preservation movement must lose its blinders and open itself to the

new possibilities that only an understanding of history can provide. (p. 3)

Therefore, to accurately capture the spirit and intents of the preservation

movement, this first chapter starts out with brief reviews of early traditions and current

practices of the historic preservation field in the U.S. The chapter accounts for both

broad strokes of nationwide trends as well as nuances of local preservation efforts. In

addition, challenges confronting preservationists, pertaining to communities seeking to

preserve their beloved places, and relating to the system of preservation laws are

discussed, identifying some of the pressing issues in the field today.

1.1 Early Preservation Projects in the US and Hawai‘i

Historic preservation projects, as defined by Barthel (1996), are attempts “to

revalue and re-present the past through saving, maintaining, and/or reconstructing historic

structures and artifacts, and through heightening public awareness of their significance

with local, regional, and/or national history” (p.2). The primary emphasis of preservation

projects in the US prior to and in the early part of the 20th

century was associative history,

especially histories that shaped the national identity. It was not merely the built

structures that early preservationists sought to conserve, but a national heritage

symbolized by those structures.

Therefore, historic preservation in the United States stemmed from a need to

commemorate the fledgling nation. Driven by a strong sense of patriotism, early

preservationists sought to monumentalize structures relating to significant events or

notable figures of the national history, especially the revolution era. In the early 19th

century, for instance, one of the earliest preservation projects was the restoration of

Philadelphia‟s Old State House, later known as the Independence Hall (Murtagh, 2006;

Tyler, Ligibel, & Tyler, 2009). In 1813, the city of Philadelphia planned to subdivide the

land around the Old State House and to sell the parcels for development. The proposal

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was withdrawn subsequently as it faced opposition from community groups that

advocated saving the site because it was the place where Jefferson‟s Declaration of

Independence was signed in 1776 and where the Constitutional Convention was held in

1787 (Lea, 2003).

Another well-known preservation project in the 19th

century was the saving of

Mount Vernon, President George Washington‟s homestead. Unable to solicit

congressional action, a group of upper class women led by Ann Pamela Cunningham

took the matter in their own hands to raise the funds necessary to purchase and manage

the homestead. The Mount Vernon Ladies‟ Association of the Union was the first private

preservation organization in the US (Tyler, Ligibel, & Tyler, 2009). The Mount Vernon

effort inspired a host of early preservationists to form similar organizations to adapt

historic homes of many other national heroes as house museums.

The early preservation projects have another commonality beside the patriotic

motivation; that is, they are endeavors of private citizens, such as the Mount Vernon case.

This is unlike other countries where preservation is typically spearheaded by the central

or local government (US/ICOMOS, n.d.). Private initiatives remain the principle trait of

the preservation movement even unto this day. The restoration of Colonial Williamsburg

in the 1920s also embodies these two characteristics of nationalism and private

sponsorship in early preservation projects. Envisioning Williamsburg as “the Cradle of

the Republic”, William Goodwin proposed to restore the entire town, necessitating the

reconstruction of demolished structures, in order to preserve “the spirit of the past”

(Murtagh, 2006, p. 21). With financial support of John D. Rockefeller, the vision of

Goodwin was made possible. Today, Williamsburg is still one of the most visited

outdoor museums in the US with its enactment of eighteen century lifestyle.

In Hawaii, organized preservation efforts can be traced back to those of the

Daughters of Hawaiʻi in the beginning of twentieth century during the territorial era.

Founded in 1903 by seven women of American missionary descent, the mission

statement of the Daughters of Hawai„i was “to perpetuate the memory and spirit of Old

Hawaii and to preserve the nomenclature and correct pronunciation of the Hawaiian

language” (Del Piano, 2005, p. xv). The pioneering preservation works in Hawaii thus

shared the common traits of associative history focus and private establishment with the

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nationwide preservation movement even though the historic focus was Hawaiian and not

of the US.

One of the earliest projects embarked upon by the Daughters of Hawai„i was the

saving of the Queen Emma Summer Palace (Figure 2), also known as Hānaiakamālama.

As part of a proposed plan to improve Nu„uanu Park, the Honolulu Board of Supervisors

decided in 1913 to demolished the Summer Palace, which was assessed to be in a

condition of severe disrepair. Concerned about the historic value of this getaway house

of the Hawaiian royal family, the Daughters demonstrated their determination to care for

the property and gained its title in 1915 from the territorial government (Del Piano, 2005).

Through the ensuing years, the Daughters of Hawai„i managed to collect belongings of

former Queen Emma to furnish the house and to maintain the property and its grounds.

The Summer Palace is now enlisted on both the National Register of Historic Places and

the State Register of Historic Places, and is opened to public as a historic house museum.

At the turn of the century, the preservation field in the US began to broaden its

scope from a singular concern of nationalistic piety to include an appreciation of

architectural aesthetics intrinsic to the preserved structures. The Philadelphia Centennial

Exposition of 1876 was generally credited to sparking this shift in preservation focus

(Murtagh, 2006), as interests in American decorative arts and architectural legacy were

kindled because of the Exposition. These interests later on influenced the emergence of a

colonial revival architectural style and the establishment of architectural aesthetics as a

preservation criterion (Lea, 2003; Murtagh, 2006). A notable project that exemplified

preservation based on architectural merit and not just patriotic sentiment was the 1905

restoration of the Paul Revere House in Boston (Murtagh, 2006). Besides the house‟s

significance in the Revolution history, it was also considered to be valuable as the oldest

frame building in Boston.

William Sumner Appleton was one of the leading figures advocating preservation

based on aesthetic value, and he founded the Society for the Preservation of New

England Antiquities (SPNEA) in 1910 (Barthel, 1996; Murtagh, 2006). Appleton was

influenced by the philosophy of John Ruskin, who argued against the restoration of old

buildings and thought the age and thus patinas gave historic buildings their beauty.

Appleton also promoted the use of house museums, such as Mount Vernon and Paul

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Revere House, as pedagogic tools to educate the public about cultural as well as socio-

political histories and not merely as sites for casual visitors. Through various campaigns

of SPNEA, architecture had become the primary preservation focus in the US since the

early twentieth century (Barthel, 1996).

Figure 2. Queen Emma Summer Palace1

As mentioned above, preservation in the United State has been mainly an

endeavor of the private sector, with government involvement as minimal before the

twentieth century. When the federal government started to involve itself in preservation,

its primary targets were not single historic houses but were larger areas such as

prehistoric remains, natural landscapes, and historic battlefields. For instance, the

Antiquities Act of 1906 authorized the President to decree significant historic landmarks,

prehistoric ruins, or other objects on federal land as national monuments for the

protection of these antiquities (34 Stat. 225, 16 U.S.C. 431-433). The act signified the

federal government‟s concern for land conservation (Murtagh, 2006), which culminated

in the creation of the National Park Service a decade later.

1 Picture credit: Karl Gercens, retrieved June 2011 from

http://www.gardenvisit.com/garden/queen_emma_summer_palace_garden

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The National Park Service was formed in 1916 for the conservation and

management of federal lands designated as national parks, monuments, and reservations;

the management of historic battlefields was transferred from the War Department (King,

2008). Through the NPS, the Historic American Buildings Survey was administered

during the Great Depression years, and the program provided work for unemployed

architects during the time and created a national archive of historic buildings (Barthel,

1996). Another important achievement related to the NPS was the passage of the 1935

Historic Sites Act, which codified the emergency-funded HABS program so it could

continue after the New Deal money dried up.

The Historic Sites Act was significant in its declaration that “it is a national policy

to preserve for public use historic sites, buildings, and objects of national significance for

the inspiration and benefit of the people of the United States” (49 Stat. 666; 16 U.S.C.

461-467), for it clearly asserted government‟s duty in preservation. Through this

milestone legislation, the government was allowed to engage in actual preservation work,

i.e. to acquire, restore, maintain, and operate historic properties. The federal government

was also given provision to enter into cooperative agreement with state or local

governments or even private entities for preservation purposes. While this law was well-

conceived and could possibly revolutionize the preservation field, it never reached its full

potential due to the overshadowing efforts required by the war (Murtagh, 2006).

Another preservation milestone at the public sector was the first historic district

zoning enacted by the city council of Charleston, South Carolina in 1931. This

precedence opened up possibilities for local governments across the country to protect

historic communities that might not possess national significance and cities such as New

Orleans, Louisiana, and Annapolis, Maryland soon followed suit (Lea, 2003). Besides

using architectural review board and zoning ordinances in regulating the historic district,

the financial tool of a revolving fund was invented in the Charleston project to aid non-

government organizations in the acquiring, restoring, and then reselling of historic

properties (Murtagh, 2006). Historic district zoning also enlarged the scale of

preservation work, which had to consider entire neighborhoods and not just single houses.

This was where the path of preservationists met with that of the planners.

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1.2 Postwar and Current Situations of Historic Preservation

The postwar building of the interstate highway system and inner city slum

clearing for urban redevelopment caused massive alterations of both natural and built

environments in and around US cities. Concerned with potential damages resulted from

unchecked government actions, two milestone laws were conceived in the 1960s, namely,

the National Historic Preservation Act and the National Environmental Protection Act. A

common mechanism shared by these two acts is the review process required when actions

by the federal government may threaten significant natural or historical resources.

Besides the passage of the 1966 NHPA, the founding of the National Trust for Historic

Preservation was the most important event in the field of historic preservation in the post-

WWII era.

1.2.1 National Trust for Historic Preservation

Realizing the limitations of the NPS and the need of a unified constituency behind

the growing preservation movement, preservationists started organizing nationwide non-

government organizations after World War II. Thus the concept of a National Trust that

could receive contributions and manage historic properties was born, modeled after the

British National Trust (Murtagh, 2006). The National Trust for Historic Preservation was

founded and received congressional charter in 1949, garnering quasi-public status. The

stated mission of the Trust is to “provides leadership, education, advocacy, and resources

to save America‟s diverse historic places and revitalize our communities” (NTHP, n.d.).

In terms of leadership, the National Trust promoted adaptive reuse of rehabilitated

structures as well as the enlarging of acceptable time periods so that Victorian and even

twentieth-century properties could be considered for preservation (Lea, 2003). Since

1991, the Trust has explicitly pursued an agenda of cultural diversity so that sites

representing cultures of different minority groups would have an equal chance of being

preserved (Barthel, 1996). The NTHP is undoubtedly the standard bearer in the

American preservation movement.

The National Trust played a very important role in the passage of the National

Historic Preservation Act of 1966. The Trust assisted the congressional special

committee in the publication of With Heritage So Rich, which was instrumental in the

passage of NHPA. The National Trust was also the only private organization mentioned

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in the Act and had therefore received funds through a federal matching fund program

until 1998 (Murtagh, 2006). The 1965 report not only provided guidelines and

philosophical underpinnings to the NHPA legislation, but also impacted preservation

planning and practices to this day; the “Conclusions to the Findings” section of With

Heritage So Rich reflects well the direction of modern preservation movement in the US,

and is excerpted in Figure 3. More specifically, the report called for a comprehensive

federal preservation program that would encompass, 1) an extensive inventory of historic

properties representing a wider range of heritage in the US, 2) a review mechanism

protecting the listed properties from being needlessly damaged by federal actions, 3) a

financial incentive program assisting preservation efforts outside of federal government,

and 4) an independent federal body coordinating preservation projects among different

agencies (Fowler, 2003).

1.2.2 NHPA and National Register of Historic Places

Responding to the concerns addressed in the 1965 congressional report, President

Lyndon B. Johnson signed the NHPA into law on October 15, 1966 (Fowler, 2003). The

National Historic Preservation Act is undoubtedly the most far-reaching preservation

legislation that has ever enacted in the US, as it helped create the State Historic

Preservation Offices, which are now responsible in carrying out most of the preservation

works mandated in the act. The act also established the Advisory Council on Historic

Preservation, a twenty member body charged for policy recommendation, interagency

coordination in the federal level, and providing needed comments in the Section 106

review process.

One of the most valuable preservation planning tools devised in the 1966 NHPA

is the National Register of Historic Places, and its stated purpose is to identify, evaluate,

and protect historic properties worthy of preservation in the US (Public Law 89-665).

Building upon the then existing Registry of National Historic Landmarks, the National

Register is a more comprehensive inventory of the nation‟s heritage (Tyler, Ligibel, &

Tyler, 2009). It is maintained by the National Park Service, and currently contains more

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than 85,000 property listings1. One of the uses of the NRHP is to help better allocate

financial incentives; for example, the National Register listing is necessary to apply for a

20% federal rehabilitation tax credit (Callies, 2010). In addition, the Section 106 review

process is triggered when federal government undertakings may affect a listed property.

It needs to be noted here that listing on the NRHP only provides limited protection of the

property listed, as the NRHP listing cannot stop private owners from demolishing or

modifying their own properties (King, 2008).

Conclusions to the Findings

The pace of urbanization is accelerating

and the threat to our environmental heritage

is mounting; it will take more than the

sounding of periodic alarms to stem the tide.

The United States is a nation and a

people on the move. It is in an era of

mobility and change. Every year 20 per cent

of the population moves from its place of

residence. The result is a feeling of

rootlessness combined with a longing for

those landmarks of the past which give us a

sense of stability and belonging.

If the preservation movement is to be

successful, it must go beyond saving bricks

and mortar. It must go beyond saving

occasional historic houses and opening

museums. It must be more than a cult of

antiquarians. It must do more than revere a

few precious national shrines. It must

attempt to give a sense of orientation to our

society, using structures and objects of the

past to establish values of time and place.

This means a reorientation of outlook and

effort in several ways.

First, the preservation movement must

recognize the importance of architecture,

design and esthetics as well as historic and

cultural values. Those who treasure a

building for its pleasing appearance of local

sentiment do not find it less important

because it lacks “proper” historic credentials.

Second, the new preservation must look

beyond the individual building and

individual landmark and concern itself with

the historic and architecturally valued areas

and districts which contain a special

meaning for the community. A historic

neighborhood, a fine old street of houses, a

village green, a colorful marketplace, a

courthouse square, an esthetic quality of the

townscape—all must fall within the concern

of the preservation movement. It makes

little sense to fight for the preservation of a

historic house set between two service

stations, and at the same time to ignore an

entire area of special charm or importance in

the community which is being nibbled away

by incompatible uses or slow decay.

Third, if the effort to preserve historic

and architecturally significant areas as well

as individual buildings is to succeed,

intensive thought and study must be given to

economic conditions and tax policies which

will affect our efforts to preserve such areas

as living parts of the community.

In sum, if we wish to have a future with

greater meaning, we must concern ourselves

not only with historic highlights, but we

must be concerned with the total heritage of

the nation and all that is worth preserving

from our past as a living part of the present.

Figure 3. Conclusions to the Findings of With Heritage So Rich (NTHP, 1983, pp. 193-194)

1 Data based on the National Park Service website: http://www.nps.gov/nr/, retrieved January 20, 2011.

11

In terms of nomination procedure, there are five types of property that may be

nominated for the National Register, namely, 1) building, 2) structure, 3) object, 4) site,

and 5) district. Three factors are considered when determining the NRHP eligibility and

these are significance, integrity, and context (National Park Service, 1997b). Historic

significance is defined as “the importance of a property to the history, architecture,

archeology, engineering, or culture of a community, State, or the nation” (National Park

Service, 1997b, p. 3). The significance of a historic property may be established based

on any one or a combination of the following four criteria, as stipulated in the NHPA: a)

event, b) person, c) design/construction, and d) information potential (National Park

Service, 1997b).

“Integrity is the ability of a property to convey its significance” (National Park

Service, 1997a, p. 44). There are seven aspects of integrity that need to be assessed when

being considered for listing on the National Register, and these are 1) location, 2) design,

3) setting, 4) materials, 5) workmanship, 6) feeling, and 7) association (National Park

Service, 1997a). Historic contexts, on the other hand, are “patterns or trends in history by

which a specific occurrence, property, or site is understood and its meaning (and

ultimately its significance) which history or prehistory is made clear” (National Park

Service, 1997a). Therefore, the historic significance of a property can only be evaluated

properly if it‟s placed in its associated historic context.

The owner of the property would be notified at the beginning of the nomination

process, and if he/she objects the nomination, the property will not be listed. Nonetheless,

the NPS can still grant the property a Determination of Eligibility (DOE), which can also

trigger the Section 106 process as well. The nomination is first reviewed by the state

historic preservation office and the state‟s National Register Review Board. Once a

nomination is approved, the State Historic Preservation Officer (SHPO) will submit it to

the NPS for a final review and listing.

Since the creation of the NHPA in 1966, the National Register has been designed

to encompass not only the historic properties with national significance, but also those

with state and local significance. This expanded focus has allowed the register program

to interface more readily with state and local preservation endeavors, and has also

enabled local governments to be a more active participant in historic preservation

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(Cofresi & Radtke, 2003). Indeed, many locally significant historic properties listed on

the National Register have been routinely made eligible for the reception of federal grants,

and have been subjects of the Section 106 review process.

1.2.3 State and Local Preservation Regulations

As the NHPA can only delay an intended alteration or demolition of a property

listed on the National Register, it is ultimately the state and local government that can

provide substantial protection over historic properties. In fact, the Constitution of

Hawai„i asserts that, “the State shall have the power to conserve and develop objects and

places of historic or cultural interest and provide for public sightliness and physical good

order. For these purposes private property shall be subject to reasonable regulation”

(Article IX, §7). According to the Hawai„i Revised Statutes, the Department of Land and

Natural Resources (DLNR) is charged to administer a “comprehensive historic

preservation program” to protect and preserve the historic, architectural, archaeological,

and cultural resources of Hawai„i (§6E-3). The resulted State Historic Preservation

Division under DLNR is headed by the governor-appointed SHPO (HRS §6E-5).

The State of Hawai„i maintains a separate list of historic properties, the Hawai„i

Register of Historic Places, which is administered by the Historic Places Review Board, a

ten-member body also appointed by the governor (Callies, 2010). Eligibility

requirements to enter the Hawai„i Register are akin to that of the National Register, for it

provides an honorific designation yet only marginal protection for the listed properties.

Consequently, alteration or demolition of most listed sites would merely be delayed

procedurally, and regulatory protection only applies to properties that are located within

the county special zoning districts or the state conservation districts (Ma„a, 1988). While

the State Register listing by itself may not guarantee regulatory protection, it can generate

monetary incentives for owners to preserve the listed historic properties. In fact, Hawai„i

is the only state in the country that allows real property tax exemption for listed historic

properties given that historic property owners maintain reasonable visual access for the

public (Perez, 2010).

Based on the precedence in Charleston, local government seems to be the only

branch of government that can enforce substantial protective regulation over historic

properties that are privately owned. This power was further confirmed in 1978 by the US

13

Supreme Court in the Penn Central Transportation Co. v. City of N.Y. case, where a New

York City ordinance that restricted much of the development potential of Grand Central

Station on the ground of historic preservation was upheld (Callies, 2010). Therefore,

local zoning ordinances are instrumental in preserving valuable historic properties. In the

case of Hawai„i, and more specifically on O„ahu, it is the special design district (SDD)

that provides the greatest level of regulatory control over designated historic districts

such as Chinatown.

Significant advances in the historic preservation movement have been made

during the postwar years, such as groundbreaking legislation and institutional

establishments. With the national leadership of NTHP, the National Historic

Preservation Act was passed. While federal laws such as NHPA have a widespread

impact on the field of historic preservation, it is local ordinances that can affect public

policies and thus determine which properties should be preserved and how the

preservation process is designed. The last half a century has been a formative period to

the current system of historic preservation in the US.

1.3 Challenges of Historic Preservation

There are three challenges identified in the literature that impact the field of

preservation. The first is one that caused by preservationists‟ hesitance to include

community members in preservation processes. Local communities are an integral part

of the places that preservationists seek to preserve. Yet because of the need to preserve

their expert status, preservationists sometimes resist meaningful community involvement

(Kaufman, 2009). The second challenge in preservation is one pervasive among the

general public, that is, an epidemic of indifference regarding the histories of the places

that they inhabit. Such indifference usually manifests as a disinterest in the preservation

of historically significant places, and can result in a lack of political will to preserve. The

third challenge is one inherent in the preservation system of laws where protocols and

standards deny some of the more fluid aspects of historic and cultural resources being

considered for preservation.

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1.3.1 Lack of Community Involvement

The lack of community involvement in the preservation process is one of the three

challenges facing the preservation movement. As stated by Lowenthal (2004), “Heritage

is viable only in a living community” (p. 39). Also, to properly establish a sense of place

for a given site, inputs from community people are essential to construct the significance

of their place (Morgan, Morgan, & Barrett, 2006). Nevertheless, being the very

immediate stakeholders, local communities tend to be left out in the decision-making

processes that determine the very fate of their beloved places; the same community

people, especially those in the lower socio-economic strata, are prone to displacement

and are most severely impacted by gentrification when preservation is successful.

Although Morgan et al. (2006) observes that preservation approach has begun to

change from a top-town fashion to a more inclusive style that would take into

consideration those concerns of the community, a great number of historic properties and

places are still being preserved for “the public”, i.e. potential cultural/heritage tourists

with differing reasons of visit, and not for the community living in these places. It is thus

necessary for preservationists to recognize that the very values they seek to preserve were

in many cases created by communities that are tightly related to their places, through

their cultural practices, histories, and even physical presence (Umemoto, 2006), and to

take measures safeguarding the community wellbeing and interests.

Yet there is a disconnect between the preservation professionals and the

community members. While the preservation professionals are looking for architectural

integrity and historic context, the community members care more deeply about

neighborhood ambiance and olden day‟s anecdotes. The emotions and feelings

community residents hold strongly regarding their beloved places are not the facts and

evidences that preservationists need to measure against their standards. Such mismatch

creates unease for both groups, and it contributes to an unwillingness held by many

preservation professionals in working with community groups. The fact that

preservationists in the US are largely white dealing with fairly diverse communities of

different races and ethnicities only exacerbates the problem (Kaufman, 2009).

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1.3.2 Indifference and Lack of Political Will

While misunderstanding and distrust between community groups and

preservationists can sometimes be an issue resulting in the lack of community

participation, the second challenge is more widespread and thus more damaging to the

preservation movement; it is an epidemic of indifference among the general public

regarding the histories of the places that they inhabit (Koshar, 2004). Such indifference

usually manifests as a disinterest in the preservation of these places of significant

histories and cultures, and tends to translate into a lack of political will to preserve.

Political motivations have long been an important factor behind the successes and

failures of preservation efforts. Early preservationists used patriotism to advocate for the

preservation of national monuments of significant figures and events, as exemplified by

the successful preservation and restoration of Washington‟s homestead by the Mount

Vernon Ladies‟ Association (Tyler, Ligibel, & Tyler, 2009). Even the passage of the

1966 NHPA was readied by the once-prominent, anti-urban renewal sentiment, which

was vividly expressed in Jane Jacob‟s (1961) influential book, The Death and Life of

Great American Cities. Today‟s preservation efforts will also require substantial political

motivation and supports to crystallize. On the flip side, a lack of political will can tie the

hands of preservationists and renders them powerless against powerful development

interests. Funding for preservation programs in different levels of government is likely to

be reduced when preservation is not the politicians‟ favorite cause. For instance,

Hawai„i‟s property tax exemption program for qualified historic residences was brought

under public scrutiny recently when the benefits to the public are questioned (Perez,

2010).

Some of the more pragmatic preservationists have thus learned to cater to political

and economic interests in order to further their preservation end. For instance, activists in

San Diego had argued that preserving the old Chinese Mission would contribute to the

developmental goals in the city (Saito, 2009). This strategy certainly worked in this case,

albeit compromising the Chinese Mission‟s location by moving it a few blocks away

from the original site. Kaufman (2004) warns against pandering to the pro-development

“growth machine”. He considers such pragmatism to be undermining the philosophical

16

foundations of preservation and advises practitioners to expose the problems behind

uncontrolled growth and unchecked market economy whenever they have the chance.

1.3.3 Rigid/Irrelevant Preservation Regulations

The third challenge of historic preservation is what may be described as a rigid

and irrelevant system of preservation laws. While NHPA is arguably the most significant

piece of legislation concerning historic preservation in the US to date, it has its share of

limitations. For example, in order to be included in the National Register of Historic

Places, places need to first fit into one of the categories and then be evaluated against a

set of standards under at least one of the four criteria. More specifically, to nominate a

historic district to the National Register, applicants need to identify enough “contributing”

buildings within a drawn-out boundary. Then, a neatly depicted historic context needs to

be established in order to justify the significance of this district (National Park Service,

1997a). This historic context, or cultural affiliation, needs to be cleanly characterized and

sometimes would require intentionally neglecting the presence of multiple culture groups

(Page & Mason, 2004). Morgan, Morgan, and Barrett (2006) observes that federal

preservation regulations “foster the notion of a static past that is incompatible with the

anthropological notion that change, fluidity, and situational boundaries are the sine qua

non of culture” (p. 711).

In addition, the nomination forms are typically prepared by private professionals,

and reviewed first by a state review board and then by the federal agency, consisting of

preservationists who may not fully appreciate or understand the intricate histories and

cultures of local places. Also, due to factors such as budget constraints and professional

biases, only a limited number of nominated properties will be chosen to be included in

the National Register. Indeed, the selection process can be flawed with favoritism,

because “the standards of significance and integrity by which historic resources are

evaluated are easier to apply to properties of accepted architectural importance; to well-

recognized, hence mainstream, historical events; and to those properties that are unique

and exceptional” (Morgan, Morgan, & Barrett, 2006, p. 711). William J. Murtagh (2006),

first Keeper of the National Register, keenly observes that, “the National Register is

essentially a humanistic program functioning in the nonhumanistic political and

economic arenas of American society” (p. 57).

17

The preservation movement is still evolving. Despite its shortcomings, the

current system successfully preserves many historically and architecturally significant

properties for the American society. However, in order to provide the needed protection

for a place of living community such as „Ewa Villages, one needs to go beyond the

criteria of history and architecture. The place theories explored in the following chapter

suggests an alternative preservation outlook that encompasses deep affection and

concerns for places, multiple historic perspectives, and community activities.

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Chapter 2

Building a Place-Based Preservation Vision

The concept of “place” seems to be a simple one, as it is commonly used in daily

conversations. But in fact, the notion of place is complicated, multifaceted, and even

contested among scholars of different disciplines. Agnew and Duncan (1989) assert that

place should be conceptualized to include three dimensions or components of location,

locale, and sense of place, which were previously seen as competing and even mutually

incompatible definitions by scholars of different disciplines. In this widely referenced

concept of place, location describes mainly the economic factors of places; locale refers

to material settings that affect social interactions, while sense of place reflects people‟s

subjective identification and emotional attachment to places (Agnew & Duncan, 1989;

Arefi, 1999; Cresswell, 2004).

In this study, several place theories are reviewed and applied to the formulations

of place-based visions and strategies for the preservation of „Ewa Villages. While the

different theories approach place in distinct ways, they should not be seen as mutually

exclusive. In fact, the various theories of place, in differing degrees, can contribute to

historic preservation as a field in general or to the preservation efforts in „Ewa Villages

specifically. Two major theoretical approaches to place introduced in this section are

phenomenological and constructionist (Cresswell, 2004), and they will be applied to

construct a place-based preservation vision for „Ewa Villages.

2.1 Experiencing Place: Phenomenological Approach

Since the 1970s, the concept of place has received much attention and has been

explored by humanistic geographers such as Yi-Fu Tuan and Edward Relph, who cast a

philosophical light on the study of place. Prior to that, most geographers studied places

to investigate distinct ideographic attributes of different places. To these geographers,

place were nothing more than arbitrarily defined regions or areas. Not satisfied with the

fragmented nature of regional geography, some turned to spatial science and started

analyzing the generalized properties and universal laws about space. Spatial scientists

only talked about place in the central place theory, where places were treated as mere

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locations with particular functions and services (Cresswell, 2004). Unlike regional

geography and spatial science, Tuan and Relph viewed place as deeply rooted in all

human experiences, entailing more than descriptive accounts of regional attributes or

utilitarian functions provided in a certain location in boundless and shapeless space.

This experiential concept of place is influenced by phenomenology, which has in

its core concepts that of “intentionality”. German philosopher Martin Heidegger defines

intentionality as “care” in his work Being and Time (Wikipedia, n.d.), and Tuan (1974)

brings this idea to bear in his conception of place as a “field of care”. Phenomenologists

also maintain that human beings cannot simply be conscious without being conscious of

something. Relph (1976) expands from this line of thought and proposes that human

consciousness is of something in its place. He argues that our existence as human is very

much based upon “being in place”, or else we will cease to be human “beings”.

Therefore, the fundamental essence of place does not lie within material attributes,

functional utilities, or even community connections to places, as stated by Relph (1976):

The basic meaning of place, its essence, does not therefore come from locations,

nor from the trivial functions that places serve, nor from the community that

occupies it, nor from superficial or mundane experiences—though these are all

common and perhaps necessary aspects of places. The essence of place lies in the

largely unselfconscious intentionality that defines places as profound centers of

human existence. (p. 43)

The phenomenological essence of place can be illustrated with the analogy of a

home. Relph (1976) bases the idea of home on Heidegger‟s philosophy of Dasein, which

can be translated as “dwelling” or “being-in-the-world”. Dasein is what Heidegger

regarded as the very essence of authentic human existence. A home is not just any

random location that one happens to reside in a given time; it refers to a place that one

cares for. Heidegger referred to such care-taking as “sparing”, which is a sense of

responsibility and commitment to a place, both for the sake of the place itself and for

what it is to oneself and to others (Relph, 1976). Such sparing attitude is much more than

simple concerns for a place out of past experiences and future expectations, and it is, in

Relph‟s (1976) opinion, indispensible to the actions of protecting a place, or one‟s home:

Sparing is letting things, or in this context places, be the way they are; it is a

tolerance for them in their own essence; it is taking care of them through building

or cultivating without trying to subordinate them to human will. Sparing is a

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willingness to leave places alone and not to change them casually or arbitrarily,

and not to exploit them. (pp. 38-39)

Home is also a place where meaning and a sense of attachment and rootedness are

established. Home may be defined as “a unit of space organized mentally and materially

to satisfy a people‟s real and perceived basic biosocial needs and, beyond that, their

higher aesthetic-political aspirations” (Tuan, 1991, p. 102), and the making of place as

production of homeliness in space. For Tuan (1991), the creation of a home involves

both a material layer and a symbolic layer. The Western Apache people, for example,

through naming geographical features, embedded their histories, moral lessons, and even

cultural identity in the landscape (Harvey, 1996). Place names and historic tales were as

important as the physical landscape to these Native Americans because their home world

would not be complete without either one of the two parts. In fact, when English settlers

later took the land and imposed their land use system and place names upon this land, the

Western Apache found these foreign markers and practices of no value to their way of

life (Harvey, 1996). Tuan (1991) puts it this way, “A thoroughly humanized world is

created through naming natural features, classifying them in some manner, and telling

stories about them” (p. 102).

The creation and protection of places, of which home serves as an archetype, are

prime concerns for the phenomenologists. In Relph‟s (1976) Place and Placelessness,

his main concern is the increasing difficulty for people in a modern society to establish

authentic connections with places. He uses different levels of insideness and outsideness

to characterize degrees of identification people have with places, for “to be inside a place

is to belong to it and identify with it, and the more profoundly inside you are the stronger

is the identity with the place” (Relph, 1976, p. 49). Table 1 lists the different types of

insideness and outsideness identified by Relph (1976). At one end of the extreme,

existential outsideness refers to a complete alienation from place that is completely

antithetic to an unconscious rootedness to place that is existential insideness.

Besides the distinction between insideness and outsideness, another important

concept related to the existential sense of place is that of authenticity, which “consists of

a complete awareness and acceptance of responsibility for your own existence” (Relph,

1976, p. 78). An authentic attitude to place is both genuine and sincere, and is

characteristic of an existential insider. On the other hand, an inauthentic attitude to place

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is an absence of sense of place and without any awareness of the “deep and symbolic

significances of places and no appreciation of their identities”, and such an attitude “is

socially convenient and acceptable—an uncritically accepted stereotype, an intellectual of

aesthetic fashion that can be adopted without real involvement” (Relph, 1976, p. 82).

Table 1. Different types of insideness and outsideness

Insideness Outsideness

Vicarious insideness usually results from

secondhand experiences of places either through

reading literatures, listening to songs, looking at

pictures, or watching films. Ex. Prospecting

tourists who read travel guides to learn about the

potential destination places.

Behavioral insideness is a conscious recognition

of physical objects and settings in places, thus

able to discern them based on these observable

qualities. While incidental outsideness view

places as mere backdrops to events, behavioral

insideness distinguishes between the differing

appearances among places. Ex. Citizens who

recognizes the distinctive appearances of

different cities in their State/Country.

Empathetic insideness is similar to behavioral

insideness yet it concerns also with emotional

feelings and other perceptions. Ex. Immigrants

open to understand the rich meanings of the place

they immigrate to and thus identify with that

place.

Existential insideness characterizes the

experience of a person in his/her own place or

hometown where meanings and significance of

the place are perceived to a fuller extent without

the need of conscious, deliberate reflection. It is

an implicit understanding of belonging to a place.

Existential outsideness refers a conscious and

reflective noninvolvement, a feeling of alienation

from both people and places, and/or a sense of

homelessness, of unreality, and of not belonging.

Ex. Diasporas forced out of their homeland,

feeling out of place and unfamiliar with foreign

cultures and languages.

Objective outsideness is an intentional attitude of

detachment towards places, separating them from

oneself in order to exercise scientific evaluations

of places based primarily on their locational and

materialistic attributes. Ex. Planners conducting

site analyses to select an optimal location for a

TOD development.

Incidental outsideness describes a mostly

unconscious attitude towards places, where places

become insignificant backdrops of activities. Ex.

Flight crews or business people visiting different

cities attending to their tasks.

(Source: Relph, 1976)

Relph (1976) admits that purely authentic place creation and experiences are rare,

especially in modern society. In fact, he argues that people‟s inability to have authentic

relationships to place is exacerbated by media that promotes placelessness. Placelessness

is “a weakening of the identity of places to the point where they not only look alike and

feel alike and offer the same bland possibilities for experience” (Relph, 1976, p. 90). The

processes that contribute to the increasingly ubiquitous condition of placelessness include

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mass communication and culture that encourage uniformity of consumer preferences as

well as large corporations and governments that implement standardization of production

and construction. Furthermore, Relph (1976) sees tourism as a homogenizing influence

that destroys local and regional landscape, replacing unique landscape features with

synthetic landscapes and pseudo-places. He claims the phenomenon of disneyfication,

museumization, and futurization, produced by tourism, have created “other-directed

places” that are built exclusively for consumers that are mostly outsiders. He goes on

telling how increased mobility in modern times has contributed to this growing problem

of placelessness.

The phenomenological approach to place seeks to define the essence of human

existence as being in place and derives the sense of place from the emotional attachments

or rootedness to places people experience. This approach offers a perspective of place

that is useful in defending the preservation cause. However, one of the criticisms against

phenomenological approach is that the place politics derived from an essentialistic,

introverted sentiment is indeed reactionary and can sometimes be exclusionary, even to

the point of becoming antagonistic towards outsiders and newcomers (Harvey, 1996;

Massey, 1991). The constructionist approach to place, which is discussed next, is not just

critical to the phenomenological stance; it offers an alternative viewpoint which

potentially resolves the exclusiveness issue. Thus it should be taken as complementary to

the phenomenological perspective and not as a competing conceptualization.

2.2 Critiquing Place Singularity: Constructionist Approach

The basic premise of the constructionist approach is that the idea of place is

socially constructed, as stated by Harvey (1996) in his noteworthy work Justice, Nature

and the Geography of Difference that, “place, in whatever guise, is like space and time, a

social construct” (p. 293). Unlike the phenomenological approach that posits place as

essential and universal, the constructionist approach would start an inquiry by accounting

for interactions between social forces and individual agency in the production of place.

Massey (1991) conceptualizes a place to be “constructed out of a particular constellation

of social relations, meeting and weaving together at a particular locus” (p. 28). Therefore,

as one looks at various social processes instead of a static rootedness when trying to

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understand a place, there is no longer one fixed identity for any given place. What

matters then is no longer authentic sense of place or existential insideness, but from what

position one chooses to analyze a place.

So what are some social processes that contribute to the construction of places?

An example would be the process of capital accumulation. This ubiquitous process

contributes extensively to the creation, sustenance, and dissolution of places, as observed

by Harvey (1996). Simply put, the free-flowing global capital tends to cause an uneven

distribution of investments and disinvestments among places, which are relatively fixed

compared to the more fluid capital. The transformation of places in light of capital

accumulation is described vividly by Harvey (1996):

The tension between place-bound fixity and spatial mobility of capital erupts into

generalized crisis when the landscape shaped in relation to a certain phase of

development (capitalist or pre-capitalist) becomes a barrier to further

accumulation. The geographical configuration of places must then be reshaped

around new transport and communications systems and physical infrastructures,

new centers and styles of production and consumption, new agglomerations of

labor power, and modified social infrastructures… Old places…have to be

devalued, destroyed, and redeveloped while new places are created. The

cathedral city becomes a heritage center, the mining community becomes a ghost

town, the old industrial center is deindustrialised, speculative boom towns or

gentrified neighbourhoods arise on the frontier of capitalist development or out of

the ashes of deindustrialised communities. (p. 296)

While he does not share the phenomenological sentiment of existential essence in

place, Harvey seems to concur that places are under threats by the flows of information,

of finance, of capital, of immigrants, of cultural practices, of ideologies, etc. in the

modern capitalistic society. Moreover, time-space compression and penetration of

market forces that impact every sphere of social life have resulted in “resistance to or

rejection of the simple capitalist (or modernist) logic of place construction” (Harvey,

1996, p. 302). Harvey‟s (1996) main interest lies precisely in the struggles attempting to

defend the threatened places. Yet his concerns are not in the protection of places per se,

but in the use of particular place qualities in the resistance against forces of global

capitalism, which he describes as “militant particularism”.

Harvey (1996) has his reservations regarding such protectionist endeavors, and he

questions the use of collective memory in creating an insider identity and excluding

outside forces. The issue he has is in fact the idea that a place can be constructed to

24

uphold the memory and identity of one single group of people. Harvey does not discount

the representation of collective memory and identity in places, such as done by the

Western Apache through the naming of landscape features, but he cannot come to terms

with the singular formation of place-based memory for the perpetuation of a particular

social order while suppressing other equally valid historic perspectives. To Harvey

(1996), places should be viewed as a “contested terrain of competing definitions” (p. 309),

where differing, even contrasting meanings based on different interpretations of history

can be attached to a single place. Massey (1991) also theorizes a progressive sense of

place where a place is said to have more than one unique identity as people would

normally have conflicting interpretations and agendas. She thinks that a place should not

only be understood solely on account of its internal history. An interesting example

would be Acropolis in Athens where some insist that it is an inherently Greek monument

while others contend that it is an icon of “Western civilization”:

The burden that the Acropolis bears is that it simultaneously “belongs” to

radically divergent imagined communities. And the question as to whom it “truly”

belongs has no direct theoretical answer: it is determined through political

contestation and struggle and, hence, is a relatively unstable determination.

(Harvey, 1996, p. 310)

Contests over meanings of places, moreover, are not just about appropriate

interpretation(s) of the past, but they are related to hopes of the future. Harvey claims

that visions of the past are clearly linked to imaginations of the future, for “the

preservation or construction of a sense of place is then an active moment in the passage

from memory to hope, from past to future. And the reconstruction of places can reveal

hidden memories that hold out the prospects for different futures” (Harvey, 1996, p. 306).

Therefore, alternative futures that are not dominated by the process of capital

accumulation or other univocal historic underpinnings can be made possible through

different place construction strategies.

In fact, a place can be subject to multiple place-making strategies, even

contradicting ones. For instance, Harvey observes that a place can be constructed as a

site to resist capital accumulation while competing with other places for capital

investment at the same time. Such contradiction is especially apparent in tourism sites

that are fighting the homogenizing forces of global capital in order to shape distinctive

place identities and local traditions while selling their “geographically embedded and

25

place-specific difference as a commodity” at the same time (Harvey, 1996, p. 325). The

capacity of places to adopt more than one place-forming strategy further attests to the

viewpoint that places are “contested terrain of competing definitions”.

While Harvey sees capitalism as the main social process that constructs people‟s

conceptions of place, capitalism is not the only social process that can be used in the

deconstruction of places. Class, gender, race and other social constructs also interact

with each other spatially and thus influence our understanding of places. For example, in

her examination of Vancouver‟s Chinatown, Anderson (1991) argues that Chinatown was

not simply created to reflect an essential “Chineseness” or to symbolize the Chinese

culture. Instead, Chinatown was first constructed as a place of difference to perpetuate

the cultural hegemony of the white European elites with discourses that portrayed

immigrants from China as inferior or depraved, and even as a disease/vice that can

pollute white people‟s racial purity. Even after the bluntly discriminatory practices were

mostly abolished, the reference of Chinatown and its development as a tourist attraction

still represent the image of an “exotic other” in contrast to the “mainstream” culture of

white Europeans (Anderson, 1991). While some may say that Chinatown is

autonomously created by the oversea Chinese to foster their cultural identity and a sense

of belonging or rootedness in a foreign land, Anderson (1991) claims that it is

nonetheless a material realization of the “Chinese otherness” in Vancouver cityscape

authorized by the white ruling class to enclose the Chinese others and keep them from

encroaching on the white domain, thereby maintaining the domination of the mainstream.

Place is therefore not simply being constructed by different social processes, it is

constructed to perpetuate certain orderings of social relations, be that racial or capital.

For place is not simply another object in the world to be studied or preserved, it is also a

framework through which the world is known; Cresswell (2004) says that the notion of

place “is as much about epistemology as it is about ontology” (p. 12). Indeed, both the

phenomenological and the constructionist approaches seek to go beyond the material

aspect and delve into the experiential and meaningful aspects of place to understand

either human existential essence or social processes and relations in places.

The constructionist approach can be instrumental in building historic contexts for

places. Instead of one unified historic context for a place, this approach suggests a

26

multiplicity of interpretation and representation of a given site. The method of preserving

properties designated to a fixed time period and to a particular historic context in a place

becomes inadequate when dealing with a multivocal conception of place proposed by the

constructionist approach. New place-making and preservation strategies thus are called

for, and the following section discusses some theories that may be used to formulate

strategies based on the concept of place and space.

2.3 Place as Lived Space

Soja (1999) invents the term “thirdspace”, a concept that bears much implication

to the understanding of place and suggests possibilities for real-world applications of

some of the place theories discussed above. Figure 4 is a diagram that illustrates the

concept of trialectics of space. Basically, Soja (1999) observes that there is a third

component to the well-articulated dialectics of space, which refers to the perceived space

of materiality and the conceived space of meaning, and this third component is what he

terms the thirdspace, which is the lived, or performed space. This concept can be further

illustrated with an example of a university. A university is a place with various

conceived meanings such as higher education, academic research, or professional

development, but it is also a place with concrete structures of libraries, classrooms,

dormitories, and administration offices etc. that generate a perceived image of a

university. However, without the daily activities that take place in the university campus,

the university buildings would not be fulfilling their said purposes. The practices and

performances of people in a place are therefore dynamically linked to our conception of

that place.

This concept of a lived space is related to Massey‟s (1991) progressive place

theory that views places as processes, and thus renders places to be fluid and not static.

In a similar vein, progressive theorists such as Pred (1984) are critical of the prevailing

notions of place as held by regional geographers and those with a phenomenological

viewpoint to be fixed and inert. Place should therefore be seen as a human product that is

never “finished” but constantly “becoming”, and it is “what takes place ceaselessly, what

contributes to history in a specific context through the creation and utilization of a

physical setting” (Pred, 1984, p. 279). However, this dynamic view of place is not held

27

exclusively by the more progressive theorists, some phenomenologists also appreciate the

importance of human activities.

Figure 4. The Trialectics of spatiality (Soja, 1996)

Relph (1976), in fact, observes that activities are one of the basic components

forming the identity of a place, besides physical setting and meanings. Yet, in his

phenomenological point of view, Relph (1976) maintains that sense of place is what

constitutes the essence of a place that is said to “persist in spite of profound changes in

the basic components of identity” (p. 49). Nevertheless, Relph does not give further

explanation to the notion of sense of place other than saying it is an authentic emotional

attachment or rootedness to a given place. Another phenomenologist David Seamon

(1980) goes a step further and argues that bodily mobility is what constitutes the essence

of the sense of place. He coins the term “place-ballet” to describe the subconscious,

routine movements that are carried out in a place for a prolonged period of time.

Therefore, it is the place-ballet instead of the abstract sense of rootedness and authenticity

that generates a feeling of belonging, which is essentially existential insideness. An

outsider who is not familiar with the common routine movements in a place would be

described as acting “out of place”. While Seamon (1980) does share Relph‟s notion of

insideness, he provides a more concrete method—participating in the daily performances

in the lived space—to produce a sense of place.

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This concept of the thirdspace or lived space has at least two implications to the

preservation of historic places. First it challenges the current preservation practices that

emphasizes strongly on both the perceived architecture and the conceived historic context

but does not pay as much attention on the third aspect of human activities. Colonial

Williamsburg, being one of the most visited outdoor historic museums, indeed hires live

actors to reenact scenes of the 18th century lifestyle to engage the visitors (Murtagh,

2006). Community groups can in fact apply this concept to liven up the places they deem

worthy to be preserved. Actions such as community cleanup day or neighborhood watch

program not only generate a sense of solidarity in the early stage of a preservation effort,

but also show how much they care for their own places.

Another implication is a more philosophical one dealing with the ever-changing

nature of places, which the progressive theorists think of as processes themselves. In

addition to the multiple perspectives that are possible for any one particular historic

period in a place, there are also many different periods of history that are open to

interpretation. This limitation has been noted as the current system requires

preservationists to establish a historic context based on one most significant time period.

There are ways to acknowledge different historic eras to compensate this shortcoming;

one of them is allowing “patina” and even modifications of subsequent eras to be

preserved, instead of restoring the property to its pristine state. Yet the more unsettling

aspect is probably the unfinished nature of places, that history is still being made after a

property is designated to be preserved. While historic places are invaluable assets to the

community and abrupt changes and destruction of these places need to be prevented,

preservation is not about halting all momentums of change.

2.4 Place: A New Direction for Preservation Movement

Place needs to be the center, the new vision of the preservation movement.

Hayden (1995) argued that “it is place‟s very same assault on all ways of knowing (sight,

sound, smell, touch and taste) that makes it powerful as a source of memory” (p. 18).

From the phenomenologist viewpoint, place is certainly an indispensible aspect in human

existence. The increased condition of placelessness has made it harder for people to have

authentic connections with places. It is therefore essential for preservationists to take a

29

firm stand and counter the many homogenizing forces that cause the destruction of

unique local landscapes. Besides, the development of an authentic sense of place

requires the cultivation of a caring attitude for and personal identification with places.

These are fundamental points of departure for preservation professional and should be

cornerstones of all preservation projects.

From the constructionist perspective, meaning and history of a place cannot be of

a single rendering, which tends to be imposed by the powerful and resourceful. These

elite few set the agendas for places according to their interpretation and imagination

while the majority that makes up the community living in these places has little or no

control over their own places. Preservationists therefore need to empower communities

to tell their own stories of their places so different voices can be heard. Place identities

can then be constructed with a diverse perspective. Also, place-making as well as

preservation visions and strategies need to be aligned with community concerns so that

not one single group of people is favored over others.

Table 2. Phenomenologist and constructionist approaches summarized

Phenomenologist Constructionist Approach Finding the essence behind the

human phenomenon, place

Identifying the interacting social

processes behind the social

construct, place

Main Concern The increased placelessness,

which is a weakening of place

identities, makes it more difficult

for people to develop authentic

connections with places.

The powerful and resourceful

few impose their interpretations

and imaginations upon places

leaving the rest with little or no

control over their own places.

Derived

Objectives for

Preservationists

1) Counter homogenizing forces

that cause the destruction of

unique local landscapes

2) Cultivate people‟s

identification with and care for

places, developing an authentic

sense of place

1) Empower communities to tell

their own stories of their

places so different voices can

be heard

2) Align place-construction

vision and strategies with

community concerns

Bearing in mind the principles derived from phenomenologist and constructionist

place theories (Table 2), a place-based vision can thus be built and strategies formulated

following Soja‟s framework of spatial trialectics, since a place can only be fully

represented when human activities are considered in addition to the material and

30

meaningful aspects. As history and architecture have led the preservation movement

since its inception in the US, the less tangible community practices is now bringing new

direction and momentum in the coming days. The following chapter attempts to put

meats on the skeleton, so to speak, providing some needed details for strategizing furture

preservation works in „Ewa Villages.

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Chapter 3

The Place That Was ‘Ewa Villages

In this chapter the three aspects that make up the place of „Ewa Villages will be

introduced, and these are the perceived physical setting, the conceived historic meanings,

and the practiced preservation activities. Each of them is important for the successful

preservation of this unique place. These brief overviews of the trialectics of „Ewa

Villages seek to provide some foundations for development of preservation strategies.

3.1 Physical Environment: The Perceived ‘Ewa Villages

„Ewa Villages were residential “camps” built by the „Ewa Plantation Company

(EPC) to house its workers. EPC was a large sugar plantation located on the Honouliuli

Plain in the southwestern corner on the island of O„ahu. Figure 5 shows the location and

extent of „Ewa Plantation land, encompassing over 9,000 acres of sugar cane field circa

1940 (Historic American Buildings Survey, 2002). From 1890s to 1940s, over 1200

residential units were built to house the plantation workers (Moy, 1995); these houses

were grouped into eight camps, or villages, as shown in Figure 6. Each of the eight

plantation villages had its distinctive forms of landscape design and architecture.

Figure 5. Location and extent of EPC land (Historic American Buildings Survey, 2002)

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Figure 6. Locations of eight plantation villages (R. M. Towill Corporation, 1991)

Although more than half of the worker camps have been demolished, three

villages still retain relatively sound structural integrity till this day, and these are Renton

Village, Tenney Village, and Varona Village. Only less than 300 houses are considered

historic buildings in these three villages today (Moy, 1995). While some of the houses

are still owned by the City and occupied by renters who pay the same plantation rate of

$57 a month (Shikina, 2007), many of the houses in these villages were rehabilitated and

sold to their current residents (Fung Associates, Inc., 2009). Another surviving camp is

the nearby Ferrnandez Village; it was subdivided and renovated in the 1970s with little or

no regards to the original designs, losing its architectural integrity as a historic plantation

camp (Hamilton, 1998; Moy, 1995).

Most of the houses in the Renton, Tenney, and Varona Villages are of single-

walled, wood-framed construction. Features common to these houses include foundation

33

posts on concrete blocks to raise floor above ground in case of flood, entry stoop or lanai,

sliding or hung windows, and simple gable or hip roof made of wood shake, rolled

asphalt, or corrugated metal depending on the age of the structure (Moy, 1995; R. M.

Towill Corporation, 1991). Color choices for the houses were restricted to white, off

white, rust, red slate, gray, and green (Moy, 1995). Mostly with two- or three-bedroom,

the average size of the houses ranges from 800 to 1,350 square feet; the largest houses are

found in Renton Village, averaging about 1,700 square feet, while the more modest-sized

houses locates in Tenney and Varona Villages, averaging about 800 to 1,000 square feet

(R. M. Towill Corporation, 1991). Figure 7 shows a typical single-family house and its

characteristic features based on the standard plan promulgated by Hawaiian Sugar

Planters‟ Association (HSPA) in 1920. That prototype got improved over the years as

can be seen in some of the larger houses found in „Ewa today (Figure 8).

Figure 7. Exterior drawing of the standard 1920 HSPA single-family house (Riznik, 1999)

Figure 8. Houses in „Ewa Plantation today

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Aside from the villages, there are several buildings worth mentioning as they

were important during the plantation days. One such building is the old plantation office,

which is now the Lanakila Baptist School (Figure 9). Built in 1935, the plantation office

was designed by architect Hart Wood with dominant feature of the Hawaiian style roof

(Moy, 1995; Riznik, 1999). Another prominent building is the old plantation store,

known as the Shopping Basket, which is now the Friendship Youth Center. Also built in

1935, the plantation store was designed by architect William Furer (Moy, 1995).

Figure 9. Plantation Management Office in 1944

1

The plantation manager‟s house was the only two-story residence, showing the

status of the manager (Figure 10). Built in 1925, it is currently unoccupied and in a state

of severe disrepair (Fung Associates, Inc., 2009). The most important structure in the

plantation was certainly the mill. It was demolished in 1985, only 15 years after EPC

was absorbed by Oahu Sugar Company (Fung Associates, Inc., 2009; Moy, 1995). The

two smoke stacks that marked the skyline could be seen from miles away, as can be seen

in Figure 11. The mill with its smoke stacks was an important landmark not only in the

Villages, but for the surrounding Leeward community as well.

1 Photo credit: https://picasaweb.google.com/waipahu46/MYHOMETOWNEWA#5508797197914903490

35

Figure 10. Plantation Manager‟s House in 1926 (Pagliaro, 1988) (left) and today (right)

Figure 11. „Ewa Plantation Mill (Davich, 1994)

While the village houses and the landmark buildings are the broad strokes of the

perceived environment, it is the smaller settings that fill in the details of plantation town

ambiance. As William Murtagh observed, “it‟s the little things—like the above-ground

wiring, no sidewalks, no curb cuts—the little things—that add flavor to this community”

(Sensui, 1992). The narrower streets and the trees around the villages all contribute to

the rural sense of place in „Ewa. The banyan trees that line the medial strip of Renton

Road, the main street of „Ewa Villages, and the shower trees and monkeypods in the

yards are some key elements of the historic district. The majestic Waianae Mountain

Range and the cane fields are what provided the rural backdrop. In fact, what makes

36

„Ewa Villages a special place may be different for everyone, depending on the

perspective one chooses to take and the degree of connection one has for this locale.

3.2 Historic Narratives: The Conceived ‘Ewa Villages

In this section, three distinct historic perspectives are offered to show how more

than one interpretation can be constructed for the same historic site. The three

perspectives discussed here are not necessarily competing against each other; they may

simply be observations made from different standpoints, basing on frameworks of

contrasting positions. While each perspective has a different degree of insideness, this

does not render any perspective more or less valid than the others. Validity of these

perspectives is not the focus here; rather they are described together to demonstrate the

multivocal nature of a place.

The first perspective is the developmental history of the „Ewa plantation and the

Villages. It is basically taking the viewpoint of the plantation owners and managers. The

next one is about ethnic relations among immigrant workers of various nationalities and

the plantation management. From this perspective one can glance into the formation

process of the multicultural society that is today‟s Hawaii. Thirdly, there is the

perspective of those who had resided in the Villages but had not worked in the plantation.

People who hold such viewpoint are generally descendents of plantation workers. Since

this group spent their childhood years in „Ewa, they have a higher degree of insideness

compare to any other groups of observers. They are also among the most enthusiastic in

preserving the Villages.

3.2.1 Development of ‘Ewa Villages: Planter’s Perspective

Founded in 1890, „Ewa Plantation Company (EPC) was first conceived by a few

entrepreneurs who saw the profitability of the fledgling sugar industry on the Hawaiian

Islands. Two critical factors contributed to the location of „Ewa Plantation in such an

arid and remote part of the island —James Campbell‟s artesian wells and Ben

Dillingham‟s rail line; the former provided the Plantation with an abundant source of

cheap water and the latter connected it to other parts of the island (Pagliaro, 1988). Yet it

was the few visionaries who led the company from its humble beginning and made it into

37

a successful business that not only brought in profits, but left undeniable imprints on the

island landscape and society.

The beginning decade of EPC was marked by some of the most difficult times in

the history of the company. The first mill (Figure 12) in EPC was completed by the end

of 1891 albeit some complication, yet its grinding mechanism broke down shortly after

the first crop was harvested in 1892 and thus called for a change of system; the

production of sugar in the ensuing years was affected until the second mill was completed

in 1895 (Ewa Hurri-Cane, 2011). Also witnessed in the first decade was the overthrow of

the Kingdom of Hawai„i and the sugar price plummet caused by the passage of the

McKinley Tariff Act (Pagliaro, 1988). With much hard work and persistence, W. J.

Lowrie, the first manager of EPC, was able to lead the company out of a mire of debt and

handed the management baton to George Renton, Sr. in 1899. Soon after he assumed the

manager role, Renton took EPC a step further and made it one of the most productive

sugar plantations in the world (Historic American Buildings Survey, 2002).

Besides being efficient in sugar production, Renton was also known for his

visionary approach in dealing with social affairs of the labor force. Addressing the

perennial labor shortage issue in EPC, Renton advocated the hiring of married workers

instead of single male workers as well as the provision of company housing. In a 1900

report, he said,

In the opinion of the writer it would be better to bring in married men, with or

without children, rather than single men. The average single laborer is unsettled,

and removal from place to place cuts but a small figure in his estimation; while

each cottage and garden, however humble, of the married man will become a

center towards which its members will look with varying degrees of attachment.

(Pagliaro, 1988, p. 12)

His progressive ideal made „Ewa Plantation a frontrunner in worker housing

provision. In fact, the 1906 Pipeline Village was among the first to be built on

separate lots for workers with families, much unlike the bachelor barracks

common in the time (Riznik, 1999). In effect, Renton‟s vision changed the make-

up of the EPC workforce, from a pool of transient contract labors to a community

of committed employees.

38

Figure 12. The First „Ewa Mill, 1893 (Pagliaro, 1988)

Succeeding in his father‟s position as the third manager of EPC in 1921, George

Renton, Jr. immediately needed to face the labor shortage problem that was a result of the

1920 strike (Ewa Hurri-Cane, 1970). While Hawaiian Sugar Planters‟ Association did

not give in to the laborer‟s demands of salary increase (Sharma, 1980), it did require

planters to improve worker‟s housing and comply with a new HSPA standard (Riznik,

1999). Already ahead of the game, EPC still followed suit with additional building and

housing upkeep, and young Renton went a step further to improve the overall living

condition in the Villages by building several public structures. He oversaw the

construction of a new administration building, a new store, a new hospital, and a sport

and recreation facility, Tenney Center (Pagliaro, 1988). Furthermore, Renton had

promoted health care for employees and opened the Ewa Health Center (Historic

American Buildings Survey, 2002). The attention paid to worker and family health made

the infant mortality rate drop to even lower level compared to the City of Honolulu

(Pagliaro, 1988). All these policies made „Ewa Plantation not only a desirable place to

work, but also to live. Therefore by the end of 1929, the plantation was recorded to have

a residential population of nearly 5,000 (Pagliaro, 1988; Hamilton, 1998).

The above history briefly sums up the first forty years of „Ewa Plantation‟s history,

with emphases given to the workers‟ villages. This historic perspective is based on

39

accounts of the company management, so it tends to focus on the improvement of

production techniques, such as developing new cane species and enhancing milling

efficiency, and the obstacles that hindered production, including blight caused by pests,

uncertainties and fluctuations in the market, and labor shortages. While the management

did concern itself with the welfare of the workers, it was largely a business calculation

stemming from its more fundamental interest in increasing the profit margins. Therefore,

it can be said that the planters‟ motivation behind improving living conditions in „Ewa

Villages was for increasing efficiency and reducing turnover rate of the workers, which

ultimately was about boosting the bottom line.

3.2.2 Ethnic and Labor Relation: Worker’s Perspective

As remarked by Hamilton (1998), Hawai„i‟s current multicultural society is

shaped and formed by the plantation agriculture that had dominated the island economy

for over 120 years. That history has influenced the patterns of land ownership, social

relations, local food, pidgin language, and even local humor, among other things. In

order to better understand the political-economic and social-cultural transformations in

Hawai„i, it is imperative to document and interpret the plantation history in Hawai„i.

Indeed, the mixture of the diverse ethnic groups in Hawai„i did not suddenly happen in

one day, and their relations with each other today can certainly be traced back to the

plantation era.

The Native Hawaiian population was estimated at 800,000 when Cook arrived

Hawai„i in 1778 (Fujikane, 2008); yet because of imported diseases, the Hawaiian

population was down to about 70,000 in 1853, and a meager 44,000 by 1878 (Liu, 1984).

Therefore by the time the sugar plantation started to take root in Hawai„i, the shortage of

labor caused the planters to consider immigrant labors as a solution. Workers who came

to Hawai„i were mainly from Asian countries due to proximity and their farming

experiences (Liu, 1984). In „Ewa Plantation Company, there used to be workers from

China, Portugal, Japan, Korea, and the Philippines over the years (Ewa Hurri-Cane,

1970).

Toward the end of 19th century, planters started to realize that by importing and

employing workers of different ethnicities, they could prevent worker cooperating in

negotiation for higher wages and better benefits (Liu, 1984). In a statement to the

40

Hawai„i Labor Commission in 1895, George Renton, then EPC manager said, “If

immigrants of various nationalities would come in until there are sufficient of them in the

country to offset any one nationality, we would be better off” (Liu, 1984, p. 203). This

sentiment was agreed by the majority of plantation managers, as another 1895 remark

stated, “Keep a variety of laborers, that is different nationalities, and thus prevent any

concerted action in the case of strikes, for there are few, if any cases of Japanese, Chinese,

and Portuguese entering into a strike as a unit” (ibid.).

Such divide-and-rule policy was reflected in the layout of the plantation worker

camps, as was the case in „Ewa Villages. Basically, the eight villages were ethnically-

homogeneous camps in order to separate laborers of different ethnicities. For example,

Fernandez Village was formally called the Filipino Camp, and Verona Village, which

was called Banana Village, also housed mainly Filipino workers (Ewa Marches Forward:

Modern Houses Replace Slum, 1957). Tenney Village used to be referred to as the

Japanese Camp as its population was predominantly Japanese; Renton Village was

nicknamed “Haole Camp” as white middle management and skilled laborers used to

reside here (Moy, 1995).

Some scholars do not consider racial grouping to be a conscious policy and others

point out that workers preferred to live with those of the same nationality and language

(Riznik, 1999). Whether intentional or not, segregation in worker camps had minimized

mingling, promoted competition, and reinforced a hierarchical structure among ethnic

groups. In fact, Liu (1984) pointed out that before the 1900s, ethnic groups were

segregated because planters were keeping Asian workers confined to the field doing the

unskilled, labor-intensive jobs, and keeping them from taking the skilled positions. In

several cases, the wages were determined by workers‟ nationalities; basically Portuguese

workers would always earn more than the Chinese who earned more than the Japanese,

regardless of experience (Liu, 1984).

Besides the divide-and-rule tactics, the planters wanted surplus laborers to be

imported as strikebreakers. Indeed, Filipino workers were recruited to prevent Japanese

workers from becoming a dominant labor force in the plantation system. The 1909

Japanese strike disturbed sugar production enough that it signaled the management the

need for another ethnic group of workers to dilute the Japanese concentration; that very

41

year was when emigration to Hawai‟i started in the Philippines (Sharma, 1980). This

policy in particular reflected planters‟ preference for transient labors, and how workers

were viewed as nothing more than “instruments of production”, “cattle upon the

mountain ranges”, or “jute bags from India” (ibid.).

Another way of controlling the laborers was to create worker dependence on the

plantation system. For example, part of the payment to workers was made in perquisites

that could only be spent in the plantation store. Workers also needed to go to the

plantation clinics to see a doctor and the fees would be deducted from their paychecks

(Sharma, 1980). One of the most effective means used by the plantation management

was the housing provided to workers. Having the power to evict any “trouble-maker”,

“agitator”, or “striker”, loss of housing was used as a means of punishment. In fact,

during the 1920 sugar strike, all Japanese workers in „Ewa Plantation saved two who

didn‟t participate in the strike were evicted, even the very sick (Duus, 1999).

Segregation of workers by ethnicity as well as positions and wage level has left an

impression of an ethnic hierarchy in the collective memory. Such an impression may

contribute to the formation of ethnic stereotypes and structural inequality among people

in Hawai„i, as contended by Okamura (2008). In addition, planters‟ strategy of using

workers of different ethnic origin as strikebreakers may have further exacerbated the

antagonism among ethnic groups. Some scholars cited the cooperation between ethnic

groups, such as between Japanese and Filipino workers in the unsuccessful 1920 strike,

sharing of ethnic food among workers, the development of a common pigeon English,

and the high intermarriage rate as indications of a harmonious multicultural society in

Hawai„i; this view, however, conveniently ignores the subtle racism and discrimination

that have long alienated certain ethnic groups from participating meaningfully in the

society (Okamura, 2008).

Paternalistic control of plantation labor was common before the 1946 sugar strike

that was a turning point of the sugar plantation worker conditions. Workers of different

ethnicities came together as “one big union” and successfully obtain their demands in the

1946 strike led by the International Longshoremen‟s and Warehousemen‟s Union (Horne,

2011; Sharma, 1980). In the author‟s humble opinion, it was this pivotal event that

indeed transformed the „Ewa Villages into a desirable place to live and work. The

42

housing provision changed from the perquisite system to a rental one, and

homeownership became more of a reachable dream for workers due to the wage raise

(Riznik, 1999). It was thus through the successful union struggles that Hawai„i‟s

plantation workers became the best-paid agricultural workers in the world (Dorrance,

2000).

3.2.3 Life Stories around the Villages: Resident’s Perspective

Living in „Ewa Villages was recounted by many former residents as a special

privilege that offered fond memories and relationships with friends and families. This is

especially true for the many descendants of the workers, since they spent their childhood

years in this place. While some of them stayed through their adulthood and worked in

the plantation, many others left the plantation town. Yet these old time residents share a

deep sense of attachment to „Ewa, and the stories retold reflect their deep connection to

this place.

For those who were born in „Ewa Villages, many were born in the „Ewa Hospital.

In a close knit plantation community such as „Ewa, personal relationship with service

providers such as doctors and nurses was common. Milton Oshiro, who grew up in „Ewa

Villages, remembers Ms. Greene, the plantation nurse who tended the new-born in

neighborhood health centers, where homemade soup, poi, and bottles of evaporated milk

were given to new mothers (Oshiro, 1994; Sensui, 1992). Roger Yasui, another resident

from „Ewa, recalled the nurse drove her wagon to „Ewa School to care for the sick or

injured students (Friends For „Ewa, n.d.). She was highly regarded by the residents in the

40‟s and 50‟s.

Many of the old time residents also went to „Ewa School. In one case, four

generations of a family have attended „Ewa School. Millie Miranda Soma herself, her

father, all her five children, and her grandson all went to „Ewa School (Friends For „Ewa,

n.d.). May Day picnic was one of the most memorable school events for many. Masami

Murakami, a member of „Ewa School class of 1939, remembers the May Day picnic at

the Paradise Cove beach, which was known as DPD then (Friends For „Ewa, n.d.).

Figure 13 shows the school children riding along in open train cars pulled by a

locomotive ready to go to the beach. They would pass through miles of sugar cane fields

before reaching the beach at the west tip of the plantation.

43

Harvest season in „Ewa was another important event during the plantation days,

and it started at the beginning of the summer. The bustling tractors, cranes, and

tournahaulers would be busy day and night clearing the fields where earlier in the year

stood bountiful stalks of sugar cane (Oshiro, 1994). The rumbling noise of the machinery

at night was like a comforting lullaby for the sleepless children. Another resident Stan

Perry remembers he and his friends used to hide between Tenney Village and Pepper

Row to pick from the cane cars some of the sweetest pieces, especially the H-109 cane,

and chew for the sweetness, against the dentist‟s advice (Friends For „Ewa, n.d.). That

was one of the reasons why so many children look forward to this time of the year even

though many of them were needed to help out in the cane fields during summer time.

Figure 13. „Ewa School children going to DPD in 1925

1

Yet another memorable event was the „Ewa Carnival at Tenney Center, which

was held every year on Labor Day. It was an event that the entire „Ewa community

participated, from building the booths to the cleaning afterwards; in fact, the whole

Leeward community used to come out to „Ewa to enjoy a great variety of ethnic food,

which was one of the highlights of the event. Veda Gyotoku Tom, an old time resident,

specifically recalls the swimming pool being turned into a fish pond for sports fishing

1 Photo credit: https://picasaweb.google.com/waipahu46/MYHOMETOWNEWA#5517300028558775874

44

during the Carnival (Friends For „Ewa, n.d.). To children, the Carnival was the end of

summer celebration and marked the beginning of a new school year (Oshiro, 1994).

Still more activities that are mentioned in the recollections of old time residents

include: watching the Saturday matinees for only nine cents in the movie theater, the

annual lei-draping of the Lincoln statue in front of the „Ewa School on Lincoln Day,

attending the Japanese school after the “English school” every afternoon, receiving gifts

from Santa after the Christmas program in the „Ewa Gym, participating in the Bon Dance

ritual hosted by Soto Mission in the Japanese Clubhouse, playing basketball, baseball,

and other sports, swimming in the ditch behind the „Ewa School, and many others

(Friends For „Ewa, n.d.; Oshiro, 1994). A song well-known among many „Ewa residents

sums up well the general sentiment these old timers hold for their beloved Villages:

„Ewa is our happy home; yes, yes, oh yes.

Never from it shall we roam; no, no, oh no.

Oh how happy we shall be, when we go to DPD.

Soda water we shall drink; yes, yes, oh yes.

3.3 Preservation Efforts: The Practiced ‘Ewa Villages

As activities in the sugarcane fields and around the Villages were a defining

component that substantiated „Ewa as a plantation town, today‟s „Ewa Villages need to

be verified as a historic district by preservation actions taken by those who care about this

place. This section will discuss the community endeavors that first started preservation in

„Ewa Villages and also some government follow-up attempts to institutionalize the

preservation work. While formal recognition and regulatory protection are certainly

desirable for preservation projects, these should not be seen as replacements for

grassroots movement.

3.3.1 Community-based Preservation Projects

The personal account of Penny Pagliaro (1994), founder of Friends For „Ewa

(FFE), sheds light regarding the grass-root preservation efforts of „Ewa Villages. In the

late 1980s, Pagliaro and a few other preservation-minded professionals started assisting

community members to save the historic villages. From the first Friends For „Ewa

community meeting held in April 1989, a broad-based, grassroots community

mobilization has generated much momentum and attentions. Among the many things

discussed in the first meeting, three of them deserve special attention.

45

First, besides introducing the fundamentals of preservation, an archived silent

movie of the „Ewa Plantation was showcased to honor old „Ewa. Through the images of

the past, the emotional attachment to the historic place was successfully galvanized.

Second, instead of dwelling on the unfamiliar and abstract concepts of preservation, the

meeting focused on a tangible issue of stopping a proposal to widen Renton Road by the

City and County. Since Renton Road was, and to some degree still is, regarded as the

Main Street of „Ewa Villages, residents responded with an outcry against the proposed

measure.

Third, besides having a clear and concrete focal point, action-oriented strategies

were given for the attending residents to follow up. Specifically two actions were

recommended; one is to write to the City opposing the road-widening proposal, and the

other is to participate in a village clean-up day. Both of the actions brought effective

results. The petition letters successfully stopped the road-widening plan before the

second meeting a month later. The clean-up day event not only ridded Renton Road of

litter, it also generated a sense of solidarity within the „Ewa Villages community.

After the first community meeting, Friends For „Ewa continued to work with the

community to revitalize the old plantation town. A survey was given to residents to

gather the needs of the community during May and June of 1989 (Pagliaro, 1994). Based

on the collected responses, Friends For „Ewa started a „Ewa Improvement project, which

consisted of the clean-up day events. In addition, new trees were planted around the

villages to beautify the place. Also, FFE arranged for the City to remove abandoned

vehicles left by the roadside. These efforts were important not only for the mending of

physical environment, but also for inciting a sense of caring for their place among the

residents.

A monthly newsletter by the FFE started being distributed on December 1989 to

its membership, not only for those who still resided in „Ewa, but also all around Hawai„i

and even to the US mainland. The newsletter was more than an effective communication

tool, posting updates of the organization. For example, old time residents were able to

share their memories in „Ewa through the newsletter, and historic accounts of the

plantation were also published. One featured column in the newsletter was dedicated to

generate interesting anecdotes of old „Ewa, which usually started with the title, “Do you

46

remember…?” By showing old pictures of a building, an object, or a group of people,

the column aimed to solicit written submissions of related stories. An example is shown

in Figure 14. The newsletter in effect became a channel to pass on living memories in

„Ewa Villages.

Figure 14. “Do you remember…?” column in FFE newsletter (Friends For „Ewa, n.d.)

The rebuilding of social fabric among the village residents is another area that the

„Ewa preservationists tackled. Besides concerns for the physical environment, the survey

revealed many issues that the community was facing: drugs, vandalism, juvenile gangs,

robbery, and more; one specific problem was a series of arsons, in fact forty reported

cases during a three month period from Jun to August, 1989, allegedly set by two youth

47

gangs in the area (Pagliaro, 1994). The FFE vigorously expressed the residents‟ concerns

to the plantation manager at the time, Bill Balfour, as well as many other government

officials, from Governor to Neighborhood Board members. As a result, Oahu Sugar and

former State Representative Annelle Amaral cosponsored a community meeting with

FFE to start a Neighborhood Watch program, which had sixty-nine volunteers by the end

of 1989 (Pagliaro, 1994). It is remarkable that Friends For „Ewa, as a historic

preservation organization, took on some broader community issues and contributed to the

preservation of the community, in addition to the historic buildings.

Although the grassroots efforts were certainly critical in the revitalization of „Ewa

Villages, many of the preservation objectives of FFE would not have materialized if not

for their many allies. Joyce Wilson, wife of the Roderick Wilson who was the new

president of Amfac/JMB group that owned Oahu Sugar, was an avid supporter of the

preservation cause, and she was the key person in stopping the demolition of „Ewa‟s

houses (Pagliaro, 1994). The demolition was part of Oahu Sugar‟s agreement with

Campbell Estate that there would be no improvement on the plantation villages before the

lease expired in 1996 so eviction of residents would be minimized. Also, former

Councilman John DeSoto was the sponsor of the resolution to designate „Ewa Village as

a Special Design District, although it did not pass as a result of the Planning

Department‟s rejection.

As external interest in „Ewa Village rose, guided tours of the Villages were given

to interested people. „Ewa residents would serve as volunteer tour guides. An

introduction to the historic plantation was given in a slide show presentation. The tour

would end at the Hawaiian Railway Society headquarters at the end of Renton Road near

Verona Village. Some of the more fortunate visitors were able to take a ride on the old

sugar train into the cane fields if the schedule matched. Many visiting preservationists

were given this tour in „Ewa to garner their comments of support, such as Nicholas

Pappas, then Chief Historic Architect of Colonial Williamsburg and Peter James of the

National Trust of Australia (Pagliaro, 1994).

The centennial celebration, a two-day event held in August, 1990, brought „Ewa

Village the attention of the entire State of Hawai„i. An estimated five thousand former

„Ewa residents participated in this gathering of nostalgia, and officials from all levels of

48

the government attended, including the Governor and the Mayor (Pagliaro, 1994). The

first evening was a reunion of „Ewa Elementary School alumni, with Senator Daniel

Akaka as the keynote speaker, who announced his resolution to save „Ewa Villages

(ibid.). The second day was an all-day picnic that gave the participants an opportunity to

experience the old „Ewa town. The centennial celebration also brought unprecedented

press coverage that introduced the preservation work of „Ewa to the wider public.

Virtually none of the aforementioned community efforts in preserving „Ewa

Villages two decades ago can be found today in the „Ewa community. This is because

much of the community endeavors were taken over by the City government‟s

revitalization project, which will be discussed in the following section (Chapman, n.d.).

As a result of the grassroots mobilization voicing the concerns of the community, the

City indeed got persuaded and altered their planning scheme to incorporate preservation

principles in the revitalization project. Although initially some might see the City‟s

project as an indication of community‟s success in influencing the City‟s decision-

making process, it is clear now that the revitalization project in effect sabotaged the

community-based preservation work in „Ewa.

3.3.2 Government-led Revitalization Project

In the early 1990s, the City and County of Honolulu condemned „Ewa Villages

and acquired them from Campbell Estate to implement the „Ewa Villages Revitalization

Project (Fung Associates, Inc., 2009). The primary focus of the revitalization project

was housing provision, even though preservation did become part of the program as a

result of the community advocacy by FFE. In fact, among the roughly 600 acres of

project area, only 140 of which were designated as the historic core, which encompasses

the three historic plantation villages, Renton, Tenney, and Varona, the mill area with

some remaining buildings, the entrance to the community, and some community

buildings such as the manger/supervisor houses, post office, and school facilities

(Hamilton, 1998). Moreover, while nearly 300 historic houses were to be rehabilitated,

about 1,500 new units would be built as in-fill within or around the historic villages; the

in-fill units were to be designed to match the scale and to blend into the plantation theme

(Chapman, n.d.; Davich, 1994). Other elements of the revitalization project include an

49

elementary school, district park, 18-hole golf course and commercial retail center. Figure

15 shows a drawn scheme of the project.

Figure 15. „Ewa Villages Revitalization Project Plan

The rehabilitation works of historic properties were given to the „Ewa Villages

Nonprofit Development Corporation, headed by Doug Davich (Chapman, n.d.; Davich,

1994). To accommodate existing residents, the houses were restored with a batch

rotation schedule. Basically, a first group of houses were restored to serve as temporary

shelters for residents whose houses were being restored. The rehabilitated houses all got

new electric wiring and new bathrooms, and re-roofing was done with the historic

material of cedar shingle from the Pacific Northwest (Chapman, n.d.). Boards, windows,

and doors were examined and repaired; replacements were done only when necessary.

The owners could choose the color of the house, but only form the historic schemes in the

approved palette (Chapman, n.d.).

The more significant changes in the Villages, however, were a number of

landscape features such as street design and utility lines. First, the streets in „Ewa

Villages do not meet the City and County standards as they are narrower, some of which

only nine feet wide, and do not have curbs or sidewalks (Moy, 1995). In order to

maintain the rural ambiance, a compromise was made that allowed for the narrow street

width by having the drainage culvert in the center, thus avoiding introducing modern

50

design features, such as sidewalks (Chapman, n.d.). As for utilities such as telephone and

electric lines, they used to be placed behind and between houses historically; these were

relocated to the public right-of-way at the street front since the land was being subdivided

into private lots (ibid.).

One of the emphases of the revitalization project is to provide housing for the

existing residents, or “tenants of record”, who were still paying a minimal rent to Oahu

Sugar at the time. Since housing was seen as a perquisite for plantation workers, these

tenants of record did not have any experience with homeownership. Even though the

residents were subsidized for their purchase, the gap between the rent they used to pay,

about $50 a month, and the expected monthly mortgage payment, $800 at the very least,

was still considerable (Chapman, n.d.). Therefore, even with the minimal down

payments that some loan programs required, many residents, generally the older, retired

people, were forced to move out from the Villages. Many residents did enjoy

homeownership for the very first time with the subsidy provided by the City and County.

Descendents of the existing residents were given the same subsidy, and so many younger

families did purchase the houses and some of them moved in with their older parents.

Owners of the historic houses as well as the in-fill houses are required to sign

covenants subjecting them to a design review process for any proposed changes on the

houses. This Conditions, Covenants and Restrictions (CC&Rs) scheme was adopted

since the City officials rejected designation of „Ewa Villages as a Special Design District.

The design guidelines in the CC&Rs are administered by „Ewa Villages Owners‟

Association, and the design review process overseen by the State Historic Preservation

Division should any exterior changes be proposed in the historic core area (R. M. Towill

Corporation, 1993). While the CC&Rs does control proposed design changes for

occupied houses, such preservation measure becomes less than helpful for uninhabited

structures such as the Plantation Manager‟s House, which has been left unattended and

without maintenance for years (Fung Associates, Inc., 2009).

In sum, the revitalization project had four stated goals, and these include 1)

providing affordable housing opportunities and a continued sense of community for the

approximately 1,100 existing residents (250 families), 2) preserving the historic character

of the plantation town, 3) developing a drainage program to alleviate flooding in the

51

villages, and 4) breaking even financially (Hamilton, 1998). The first two goals were

seen as having different degrees of success by the mid-1990s, and the „Ewa Villages Golf

Course did remove the villages from flood zone. However, by 1997, the City Council

was informed of the financial deficit of the revitalization project, partly due to an

unexpected housing market plummet. In fact, nearly two hundred houses and lots

remained unsold by 1999 (KPMG LLP, 1999). Investigations of the financial situation

ensued, which eventually led to the discovery of corruption cases by City housing

officials (Pang & Barayuga, 2000). The breakdown of financial integrity eventually

brought the unfinished revitalization project to a halt.

Preservation of „Ewa Villages has become stagnant since and many historic

houses were left in a state of neglect and disrepair for years. In fact, houses in Varona

Villages never got rehabilitated and residents there are still renters; some of them worry

that they would eventually lose their houses as development around „Ewa is booming

(Shikina, 2007). Even worse, forty-two homeowners expressed problems they

experienced with the rehabilitated or newly constructed houses to Senator Akaka in 2003

(Guba & Guba, 2003). Their houses suffered from foundation and structural damages,

plumbing and electrical problems, shoddy roof work, and severe pest infestations; these

conditions were exacerbated by an unresponsive City government (ibid.). The conditions

were so bad for some of them that several residents wanted to employ the ten-year buy-

back option given to them, but got rejected as the City did not want the “used” houses

and did not have funds to purchase the houses back.

These troubling facts reflect how the old plantation‟s paternalistic management

style is not suitable to be adopted by the City, as one independent Realtor who had

reservations about government being involved in building (Guba & Guba, 2003). The

City‟s revitalization project should be credited with incorporating some very progressive

ideals, including the housing opportunities provided for the tenants of record. The

unintended and abrupt ending of the project indeed halted the preservation movement in

„Ewa, and thus the current study aim to find means to reinitiate preservation activities.

Drawn from historic lessons of past preservation practices in „Ewa, a place-based vision

and preservation strategies will be laid out in the following chapter.

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Chapter 4

Preserving ‘Ewa Villages

The current system of preservation laws stipulates standards for designations that

would trigger review processes when government undertakings may affect the designated

properties. In addition, zoning regulations provide substantial protection for properties in

historic districts deemed significant by local authorities. These mechanisms, while

effective in preserving many of the architecturally significant historic properties, tend to

leave out “resources that are valuable for their ability to convey history, support

community memory, and nurture people‟s attachment to place” (Kaufman, 2009, p. 38).

„Ewa Villages is a historic district in the Hawai„i State Register of Historic Places, and

physical alteration on exterior of village houses are controlled by active CC&Rs. These

provisions indeed serve to protect the historic landscape in „Ewa, albeit in a limited

fashion.

4.1 Current Situation and the Proposed Vision

As the west side of the Island of O„ahu has been developed rapidly in recent years,

development pressure is mounting around „Ewa Villages. In fact, the City has proposed

to site a transit station across from Varona Villages, as an attempt to drive growth

(Shikina, 2007). Currently, the City and County of Honolulu is revising the „Ewa

Development Plan, and the „Ewa Villages Master Plan of the 1992 Revitalization Project

will soon be updated (Department of Planning and Permitting, 2011). This is therefore an

ideal time to start a community strategic planning process to voice the community‟s

concerns and guide the plan-revision process.

„Ewa Villages is considered one of the historic and cultural resources in the

Development Plan. However, it is also a site proposed for future residential development

and transit-oriented development, as population in the greater „Ewa area is projected to

more than double by 2035 (Department of Planning and Permitting, 2011). When the

Revitalization Project stopped in the 1990s, many of the historic houses were not

rehabilitated. At the same time, many multi-family units proposed in the Project did not

get built, and the Villages thus maintained a greater degree of its rural ambiance as a

53

result. Once the Master Plan is revised and the Revitalization Project started again,

housing density and traffic flow will also increase. If not done properly, „Ewa Villages

can lose its plantation town identity and become another suburban neighborhood.

To succeed in this second attempt to revitalize the historic plantation villages, the

City government needs to change its paternalistic administrative style. Instead of

command and control, the City should adapt to the role of a resource provider and

technical advisor and let the community lead and supervise the rehabilitation project.

Hawai„i‟s government should be one that embraces the more progressive ideals as it was

influenced greatly by the labor movement that resisted the paternalistic “Big Five” factors

and plantation management. If the history of „Ewa Villages sheds any light on the

governance style of the City government, it is that the ruling elites would need to listen to

the demands of the public in order to create a desired place of living, as did the plantation

management eventually concede to requests made by the union after the 1946 sugar strike.

It is the symbolic interpretation such as the labor movement that will change the

status of a historic district such as „Ewa Villages from a place that is only significant to

the current and former residents to a prevalent landmark in the imaginary landscape of

the greater public. Indeed, through the representation and communication of the past,

preservationists not only convey their particular historic perspectives, but also their

expectations of the present and the futures, all of which are done with the social processes

of selection, contextualization, and interpretation (Barthel, 1996). Therefore,

preservation is about much more than funding the restoration of old buildings and

structures, it is about fighting for the protection of beloved places and the power to retell

stories of those places.

By no means does this deny the importance of smaller tales and fond memories of

residents. Kaufman (2009) says it best:

“History” is a story that has shaped each one of us in profound ways. Yet because

it is much bigger even than all of the individual memories of everyone alive, it

must be constructed, told, and retold in order to exist at all. Without this continual

retelling, we would see only the most recent effects of history, never their causes,

conditions, or connections. History only exists in the telling. (p. 49)

Happenings around the village corners, occurrences with playmates and buddies, and

daily routines out in the cane fields, all of these contribute to the rich history of „Ewa

54

Villages. It is therefore important to further document the stories of „Ewa and even to

integrate various perspectives to obtain a more complete history.

The telling and retelling of stories by community members are kinds of

participatory preservation initiatives that can reverse some of the biases against

preservation. Early preservation efforts were said to be mostly reactionary responses to

external forces of change, such as those brought about by industrialization, urbanization,

and expansion of transportation systems (Barthel, 1989). Constructionist scholars also

criticized preservation to be reactionary and inert. Yet storytelling and other community-

based activities such as the Friends For „Ewa monthly community meetings, clean-up

days, and neighborhood watch program can be dynamic and create legitimacy for the

preservation process.

Most importantly, planners in City government should move away from an

objective outsideness, as described by Relph (1976) to be an intentional attitude of

detachment separating themselves from places in order to exercise scientific, spatial

evaluations based primarily on locational and materialistic attributes, and move toward an

empathetic insideness, which constitutes both a conscious recognition of physical settings

and a perception of emotional feelings in places. Tuan (1977) shrewdly notes:

Abstract knowledge about a place can be acquired in short order if one is diligent.

The visual quality of an environment is quickly tallied if one has the artist‟s eye.

But the „feel‟ of a place takes longer to acquire. It is made up of experiences,

mostly fleeting and undramatic, repeated day after day and over the span of years.

(p. 183)

Although planners may never possess the same feeling of rootedness community

members might have for their places, it is essential to have a posture of an open mind to

perceive the deeper emotions and meanings in places that an otherwise technical-oriented

expert would likely miss.

The vision proposed in this section is aiming to preserve and sustain all three

dimensions of „Ewa Villages, namely, the physical, the meaningful, and the practiced

aspects of the place. Those three elements are the outer layer of the vision and they stem

from Soja‟s framework of spatial trialectics. The central principles holding these

elements of the proposed vision are the care for and the connection to a place that only

sensible and steady participation can foster. In other words, the preservation of „Ewa

Villages centers on the cultivation of a sense of place among people who see „Ewa as

55

their own and call it their home. Figure 16 shows a schematic of the proposed place-

based preservation vision.

Figure 16. Schematic of place-based preservation vision

4.2 Recommended Preservation Strategies

Strategies are recommended in this section as ongoing community activities and

organization, and many of them have indeed being done or proposed in the past. Some of

the strategies stemmed from methods and scenarios found in Nick Wates‟ (2000) The

Community Planning Handbook. The recommended strategies have three dimensions

and they correspond to the three elements on the outer rim of the place-based vision.

Figure 17 shows the three separate dimensions of the recommended strategies, with

colors matching the vision elements.

As with conventional historic preservation, the first dimension of the proposed

strategies deals with the perceived space of „Ewa Villages. An independent non-profit

Protecting Sense of Place

at „Ewa Villages

Preserving Perceived

Space

Enhancing Conceived

Space

Sustaining Lived Space

56

design center can take charge in this area. Collaboration or partnership with the City

government may be necessary in the start-up phase, as funding and administration would

be a challenge at first. In fact, a design center with five full-time technical staff can cost

as much as $200,000 a year to operate (Wates, 2000). Initially, the design center would

focus on providing maintenance of building and landscape in the historic villages,

starting from the Manager‟s House, being a prime candidate as the center‟s location.

Then over time, it can supervise rehabilitation works of the unfinished Revitalization

Project when situation permits. The center will mainly be staffed with architects and

design specialists.

Figure 17. Recommended preservation strategies

One of the techniques in preserving historic properties is adaptive reuse. Besides

keeping old buildings from being torn down and rebuilt, adaptive reuse can also provide

economic and environmental benefits at times. In fact, many of the „Ewa buildings that

have been rehabilitated are now reused for different purposes. For example, the

Shopping Basket, which was the old plantation store, was restored by Friendship Bible

Church and is now the Friendship Youth Center. The old plantation office has been used

by Lanakila Baptist Schools as their high school facility. Some of the mill structures

were proposed to be turned into a commercial and retail complex in the Revitalization

Project (R. M. Towill Corporation, 1992). One of the bigger structures is currently

occupied by the Honolulu Police Department, and they maintain the structure well (Fung

Design Center

• Non-profit organization; partnership with the City in start-up

• Maintaining houses and landscape within „Ewa Villages

• Supervising rehabilitation work when Revitalization Project resumes

Preservation Shop

• Collecting historic documents and old photos for local culture/history research

• Conducting educational events such as workshop and guided tours

• Operating gift shop selling related items

Community Activities

• Hosting annual preservation weekend

• Continuing clean-up days and neighborhood watch program

• Reinstating community activities such as „Ewa Carnival

57

Associates, Inc., 2009). The Manager‟s House was proposed to be reused as a plantation

mill museum, also in the Revitalization Project (R. M. Towill Corporation, 1992). In the

current proposal, the Manger‟s House would be used as offices for the design center,

again applying the adaptive reuse principle.

The second dimension is concerned with the conceived space of „Ewa Villages.

A preservation shop staffed with community historians and volunteers may fulfill such

purpose. One of the tasks of a preservation shop may be to collect old photos and historic

documents. These resources would benefit the research of local histories and cultures.

Besides, educational events such as preservation workshops, „Ewa history storytelling,

guided tours, etc. should be held in order to foster a sense of caring for the place and its

history. The preservation shop would also comprise a gift shop that sells products such

as books, pamphlets, videos, manuals, postcards, (building/train) models, T-shirt, etc.

Some other features in the preservation shop may include: community bulletin board with

job ads, event posters, other announcement items; bird‟s-eye view photograph of local

area; seating area; magazine rack; and a reception desk. The shop may be operated by

the same non-profit organization as the design center; they can even share the same

building.

A very important function of the preserved „Ewa Villages is to be mnemonic pegs,

prompting the telling of socially valuable stories: stories of history, tradition, and shared

memory. Kaufman (2009) proposed the term, story sites, for places that serve this

purpose, and these include historical sites and cultural sites. The values and benefits of

such sites are identified, such as anchoring individual life stories, preserving social

capital, nurturing cultural capital, and fostering historic awareness. Some of the values

seem reproducible in newer buildings, such as the supporting of social capital, which

refers to “connections among individuals—social networks and the norms of reciprocity

and trustworthiness that arise from them” (Kaufman, 2009, p. 43). However, the many

nuanced conditions of a place conducive to traditional social bounding would not be

replaceable even with properties of the same functions. For example, a fast food joint

will cater to a different demographic group than a saimin stand.

Thirdly, community organizations such as Friends For „Ewa need to collaborate in

hosting activities to sustain the lived space of „Ewa Villages. An annual preservation

58

weekend similar to the centennial celebration would be a worthwhile endeavor. Some of

the preservation weekend activities may include: opening ceremony with keynote address

follow by reception/fund-raising luncheon; preservation seminars and community history

forums; exhibition of local culture and history; community “open-house” tours; Labor

Day Carnival with food-selling booths; and „Ewa School reunions. Also, other

significant traditions such as Bon Dancing at Soto Mission and Lincoln Day lei-draping

at „Ewa School should be continued to perpetuate the lived „Ewa.

Architectural and historic elements are indeed the main focuses in preservation

projects. Yet in a living community such as „Ewa Villages, community activities are

equally, if not more, important. For local residents, activities as simple as clean-up days

and the neighborhood watch program are ways to learn and to demonstrate a sense of

caring for their place. Grassroots activism also exerts community control over their own

place, fending off paternalistic government actions. Also, it is through the continual

community practices that new traditions will be formed. A tradition of participatory

preservation can be developed to sustain the lived space in „Ewa Villages.

4.3 Community Preservation Work Process

The recommended strategies are the author‟s attempt to prescribe a set of

programs to reinitiate preservation works in „Ewa Villages. In order to empower the

community through preservation works, it is necessary to initiate a community strategic

planning process that can generate an action plan that is truly community-based. While

preservationists and planners can guide and facilitate the process, the ownership of the

process should be of the community; or else it is no different from the plantation

management‟s or the City government‟s paternalism. A process chart of suggested

community preservation works is shown in Figure 18.

The process starts from preservationists cultivating a sense of connection with

„Ewa Villages among community people, especially for those who do not have ties to the

historic plantation. When Penny Pagliaro and others started Friends For „Ewa decades

earlier, their preservation ideals were soon received by many residents at the time. That

was late 1980s when Oahu Sugar was still in operation and most of the residents were

either plantation workers or their relatives. Now the plantation had ceased operation for

59

more than a decade; many people have left „Ewa Villages and many others have moved

in. The community needs to be reminded of their plantation past again, before the

strategic planning process can start with a critical amount of concerned residents.

Preservation workshops, historic forums, as well as activities such as the „Ewa Carnival

are ways to rekindle an enthusiasm for the plantation past during this “warm-up” phase.

Building upon the foundation of past preservation efforts, community groups such as

Friends For „Ewa and „Ewa Historic Preservation Society should collaborate in these

endeavors and lead the community together in the (re-)learning of its history.

Ideally, the community strategic planning process will be initiated by the

collaborating community organizations once they are determined to implement the

resulted plan and thus resolved to finish the process. The community groups may need

expert assistance in facilitating the strategic planning process and also financial support

in implementing the resulted plan. Therefore it would be beneficial to partner with

agencies such as the State Historic Preservation Division or the UH-Manoa Department

of Urban and Regional Planning. Through this process, community needs and concerns

will be identified, as well as the resources and opportunities. Trough public deliberations,

a preservation vision as well as goals and objectives can be form with majority consensus.

Assuming the proposed vision and recommended strategies in this study are adopted into

the strategic plan, organizational planning will also be necessary in the process to ensure

successful operations of Design Center and Preservation Shop.

In the implementation phase, all three dimensions of the recommended strategies

are required to realize the place-based vision as proposed. Aside from these preservation

programs, however, the success or demise of the preservation efforts hinges greatly upon

the economic situations within and around the Villages. As mentioned above, the success

of the FFE initiatives was due in part to the plantation operation that remained, which

provided the needed livelihood to the community in „Ewa Villages. On the other hand,

the revitalization project was brought down by a less-than-optimal housing market. With

senior housing such as the Franciscan Vistas Ewa being developed, economic

opportunities associated with such development can be explored. Residents can cater to,

for example, the health care service needs, or open up convenience or other types of

stores in the Villages to support senior living as well as to provide employment

60

opportunities. Finding alternative livelihoods to replace plantation agriculture is crucial

in maintaining a living community such as „Ewa Villages.

Figure 18. Process chart of community preservation works

Finally, an evaluation stage is necessary to improve future preservation works

through participant feedbacks. Besides using the strategically planned objectives as

Cultivate Personal/Community Identification with „Ewa Villages

• Collaboration between community organizations, such as Friends For „Ewa and „Ewa Historic Preservation Society

• Workshops introducing preservation principles and story-telling events recounting history of „Ewa Villages

• Reinstating community activities such as the „Ewa Carnival

Initiate Community Preservation Strategic Planning Process

• Partnering with government and other agencies such as State Historic Preservation Division and University of Hawaii, Manoa

• Community/neighborhood meetings sharing concerns and needs

• Organizational planning preparing to launch Design Center and Preservation Shop and to administer community activities

Implement Preservation Strategies

• Setting up Design Center and Preservation Shop

• Holding activities such as annual preservation weekend, clean-up days, and neighborhood watch program

• Supporting local economic development

• Advocating preservation values in occasions such as Neighborhood Board meetings and in plan-revision public hearings

Evaluate Preservation Project Outcomes

• Using strategic plan objectives as criteria for evaluation

• Gathering feedbacks from community members to refine preservation vision and strategies

• Communicating preservation work outcomes to participants and stakeholders quarterly

61

potential evaluation criteria, implementation outcomes need to be recorded and

communicated periodically to participants and stakeholders. This reporting mechanism

may be especially critical in establishing financial accountability and trust in

rehabilitation works among residents. One of the reasons that the City‟s revitalization

project was mired with financial difficulties more than a decade ago was a lack of routine

reporting to the City Council (KPMG LLP, 1999). Evaluation is akin to historical

research where they both identify strengths for emulation and weaknesses for adjustment.

While vision and strategies can be made to sound good on paper, the strategic

planning process is the key to generate community consensus and momentum in carrying

out preservation works. Well-executed planning process can not only improve project

outcomes, but also reduce conflicts and encourage togetherness within the community.

Although this may be time-consuming and at times exhausting, the outcomes can and will

be rewarding if properly done. This is why technical assistance from outside agencies

and resolution to implement the resulted plan in the beginning of the process are crucial.

4.4 Concluding Remarks

Dr. Bill Murtagh used to viewed „Ewa Villages as Hawai„i‟s Colonial

Williamsburg, and during Friends For „Ewa‟s heyday it was even considered by the

National Park Service as worthy of National Landmark designation (Pagliaro, 1994).

Those high remarks may be significant records even if not fully obtained. However, for

residents who have lived in „Ewa Villages during one time or another, it has special

meanings for various different reasons regardless of the remarks. It is those special

connections, or senses of place, that make „Ewa Villages a special place for the residents.

While there are many ways to know a place, personal experiences of the place are

essential to cultivate a sense of place.

In an age that is impressed with mobility and speed of travel, it is rare that people

would be willing to take the time to develop rootedness in a place. Although sense of

place has become mostly inauthentic for people in modern society, authentic sense of

place is still attainable especially when people care for a place, intentionally. Relph

(1976) is right to say that to simply have concerns for a place out of past experiences and

future expectations is not enough to spur actions to protect a place, and that taking care

62

for a place will also require a sense of responsibility and respect for and a commitment to

that place, both for the sake of the place itself and for what it is to oneself and to others.

This statement challenges planners and preservationists to seize every opportunity to

advocate for preservation values and to stand firmly against ideologies of uncontrolled

growth and unchecked market (Kaufman, 2004). Fostering the commitment and

responsibility to places is the first order of business for preservationists who intend to go

beyond saving bricks and mortar to properly take care of places of significance such as

„Ewa Villages.

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Works Cited

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