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Abstract. This essay reassesses Crèvecoeur's theory of assimilation-the melting-pot-turned "melting-love" via Israel Zangwill and Sollors as a means to eradicate racism in America. It also analyzes the ways in which the representations of the Portuguese in American fiction were shaped by social Darwinist discourse, as well as how Elvira Osorio Roll in her novels, Background: A Novel of Hawaii and Hawaii's Kohala Breezes, draws from this type of racial discourse in her own representation of the Portuguese in Hawai'i.
Keywords: Portuguese in Hawaii, Elvira Osorio Roll, racism, prejudice
When elaborating on Crèvecoeur's melting pot theory in his discussion of theories of assimilation in the United States of America in Beyond Ethnicity: Consent and Descent in American Culture, Werner Sollors notes that a "marital union or a love relationship across boundaries that are considered significant, and often in defiance of parental desires and old descent antagonisms, is what constitutes melting-pot love" (72). This framework can be applied to two novels written by Elvira Osorio Roll, an American writer of Portuguese descent: Background: A Novel of Hawaii and Hawaii's Kohala Breezes, published in 1964, at the height of the Civil Rights Movement and ethnic awareness in America. In these novels, the narratives end with the marriage of a couple who believe in the powers of love and melting to eradicate racial prejudice from Hawai'i. Moreover, the author, too, chose "melting-pot love" for her own fulfilment with an Anglo man. Both works of fiction draw from late nineteenth-century social Darwinist discourse and America's fear of hybridity and miscegenation to justify mainstream prejudice and paranoia when attempting to maintain racial purity while demonizing Otherness-the Portuguese immigrants, in particular.
Given Hawai'i's pattern of ethnic settlement-most migrants who came from Asian cultures that were too foreign and strange for acceptance by the xenophobic American mainstream-the Portuguese in Hawai'i were affected by a unique ethnic mix that subjected them to racial stereotyping. Moreover, their work in the sugarcane plantations was perceived by haoles as inappropriate for Caucasians. In the haoles' view, it was labor reserved for those with darker complexions. Since the Portuguese engaged in this type of work, they were subsequently seen as swarthy and stigmatized by this reality. This essay will, therefore, delve into the sociological reasons why...