At the turn of the century as the western frontier came to a close, America expanded its reach across the Pacific and in so doing solidified a burgeoning modern gay identity steeped in imaginations of the “Orient.” Pacific Islanders and Asian immigrants themselves in fact played a crucial role by illustrating a different way of being to western writers such as Joaquin Miller and Charles Warren Stoddard, even as they were appropriated in bohemians’ explorations of their own same-sex sexuality.

Argued October 6, 1999.Decided February 23, 2000.

ROLNICK, J., delivered the opinion of the Court.1

Petitioner Harold Rice seeks the right to vote in an election for trustees of the state Office of Hawaiian Affairs (“OHA”). Hawai’i law provides that only “Hawaiians,” a term defined in the statute as anyone who descends from an ancestor who was present in the Hawaiian Islands in 1778,2 may vote in this election. Petitioner Rice, who was born and raised and still resides in Hawai’i, descends from ranchers and missionaries who migrated to the islands in the mid-1800s. Rice v. Cayetano, 963 F. Supp. 1547, 1548 (D. Haw. 1997).