By Cynthia Morihara, November 5, 2020 — My heritage is in the military in Hawaii and my father grew up there. He said that he never heard the word “haole,” which is what they call us, without the f-word in front of it. He was discriminated against, a lot more than I was because it was earlier in history.
I am not at all Hawaiian. My father was of British descent and my mother was Italian. My father’s family was there for World War II, so that is my heritage. The military has a way of uniting the country and all kinds of people are in the military. I do not always believe that what the military does is correct, but it just seems that war can create a common goal sometimes. At least it did during World War II. There was a common goal among Americans. In times since then, war has divided us. But during World War II, war unified the country.