I would imagine that since James cook (an Englishman) first came to Hawaii
in 1778, the English measures were used among the white settlers and
traders. What the natives used among themselves is anyone's guess, if they
ever had a measuring system. The early British influence must have been
strong if the island flag includes a Union Jack.
The metric system may have gained some foothold in Hawaii do to the large
amount of Asian immigrants and tourists it draws. Wanting to keep the Asian
tourist money flowing in they may cater more to Asian habits including using
the metric system.
Wikipedia says:
As of the 2000 Census, 73.44% of Hawaii residents age 5 and older speak only
English at home. Tagalog speakers make up 5.37% (which includes non-native
speakers of Wikang Filipino, the national co-official Tagalog-based
language), followed by Japanese at 4.96%, Ilokano at 4.05%, Chinese at
1.92%, Hawaiian at 1.68%, Spanish at 1.66%, Korean at 1.61%, and Samoan at
1.01%.[41]
This could indicate that about 25 % of the population would favor metric if
they use it when speaking their native languages. It would be interesting
to know how the native islanders and non-English immigrants feel about the
metric system, but I have no idea how one would go about finding out.
Simon
--------------------------------------------------
From: "John Frewen-Lord" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, 2009-08-13 11:39
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Cc: "Nat Hager" <[email protected]>
Subject: [USMA:45600] Re: Hawaii metric
I have often wondered what measurement system was used in Hawaii before it
became a US State in the early 1960s. Does anyone know?
John F-L
----- Original Message -----
From: "Nat Hager III" <[email protected]>
To: "U.S. Metric Association" <[email protected]>
Cc: "Nat Hager" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, August 13, 2009 3:31 PM
Subject: [USMA:45599] Hawaii metric
Back in June I got stuck with the dirty job of having to attend an NSF
grantees conference, in of all places, Honolulu. So I managed,
particularly
considering it was being paid for out of the grant.
When the conference was over I was stuck in Honolulu on a Thursday night,
with not much on the calendar for the following week as it was a short
week
due to 4th July. So I made the best of a bad situation, and spent a few
days on the Big Island, Maui, and Kauai. <g>
In the course of the week I noticed a lot of metric road signs, which
I've
attached. More general pictures are at
http://www.win.net/dorsea/nehager
follow the obvious links.
Nat
