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
10
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).
15
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
19
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
20
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
21
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
22
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
23
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.
28
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.
31
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)
32
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
34
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.
52
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.
63
Works Cited
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