The Rise of Ethnic Studies at the University of Hawai'i: Anti-War, Student and Early Community Struggles

by John Witeck
posted August 1, 2002

This article was published initially in the Journal, Social Process in Hawai'i, titled "The Ethnic Studies Story" Vol. 39, 1999. It is posted here with permission from the author.

The 1960s witnessed the birth and development of the United States' student movement and its related phenomena in Hawai'i. This movement was also global, spurred on by the inconsistencies and inequities of modern society and by outrage towards the US war against the peoples of Indochina. In other industrialized capitalist countries, similar simultaneous youth-generated revolts arose - in France (witness the 1968 Paris youth and worker uprisings), Germany, Scandinavia, Italy, Australia, Aotearoa (New Zealand), Canada, and Japan. These movements were also deeply inspired by the lengthy, determined struggle of the peoples of Indochina for self determination. The Vietnamese revolution overcame French colonial rule initially and, finally, by 1972, even with the loss of over two million Vietnamese, defeated US military intervention. Other movements for liberation in Africa, Central and South America, and Asia also sparked students' interest and gained wide support. The student movement globally became a significant, though generally disconnected, force (at the international level) in those heady times of dissent, protest, and uprising.

In the US and Hawai'i, college attendance swelled and a broader crosssection of youth went to college, where previously only clerics, educators, businessmen, aspiring professionals and the well-to-do were permitted. The GI bill, the rise of community colleges and the development of education as big business, were responsible for the growth of the diploma mill, which also sought to train students for new corporate and government jobs required by the imperium. The goal of such education also was to inculcate proper societal values in the young and aspiring who, during the Vietnam War era and its attendant military draft, could obtain student deferments against conscription by staying enrolled in colleges.

Rise 2 -Rise of the Student Movement