For Monday, read online “Is Hawaii’s Racial Harmony a Myth?” In a blog post, evaluate Velasquez-Manoff’s claim that his essay “doesn’t quite offer a coherent whole” because he tried to explore “what makes Hawaii unique without being seduced by” the myths, so that he could acknowledge the contradictions. 

Velazquez-Manoff claimed that his essay “Want to Be Less Racist? Move to Hawaii” wasn’t a “coherent whole;” considering his story jumped around from anecdotes to Hawaii’s history to current research and exhibited conflicting views on both the aloha spirit and the presence of racism. However, if one becomes fixated on the fact that his essay did not establish a clear thesis, then he or she has missed the entire point of his essay. The author had the solitary goal of offering up the multitude of ways in which Hawaii’s views on race differ from those present on the mainland United States. A trap the reader can fall into after reading this article is to assume Hawaii is a multicultural paradise without conflict or struggle when such a place is nonexistent. Hawaii, however, does offer many more progressive views on race that would benefit from being spread to the mainland. It can be easy to read this essay as a sort of recipe for harmony; if you follow all these steps, the whole world can live in peace. However, Velazquez-Manoff wrote the essay to debunk the myths associated with Hawaii and bring into light the truth of Hawaiian culture. This explains why the essay may come across as incomplete or segmented as the author had to draw from a variety of sources to separate fact from fiction and give his work credibility. In his essay, Velazquez-Manoff thoroughly investigated the topic he was writing about as he provided a comprehensive history of the migration, development, and struggles in Hawaii, drew information from local sources, and discussed groundbreaking research that is still being conducted. So well Velazquez-Manoff may have developed an essay that is segmented, that was intentional and probably the only way establish credibility in his goal to uncover the truth about racial views in Hawaii.