ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the political struggle of the Japanese immigrant community in the early twentieth century to maintain their autonomous Japanese language schools in the face of strong opposition from the Hawaiian Territorial Government, controlled by the haole elite. Both proponents and opponents of the Japanese language schools mobilized their respective forces to maximize their access to educational policy making. On the Japanese side, one major Japanese newspaper, and its editor, provided much of the leadership toward preserving the language schools and was backed by much of the Buddhist clergy. Direct efforts were made to remove the financial base of the language schools by such organizations as the Committee of the Japanese Section of the Hawaiian Evangelical Association. This committee passed a resolution to discontinue plantation owner's subsidies to Japanese Language Schools operated by non-Christian organizations. An umbrella organization, the Japanese Education Association, was founded in 1914 and included both Christian and Buddhist representatives.
