Articles advocating a name change for McKinley High School have made many aware of the gravely harmful actions of President William McKinley against the Hawaiian people. But McKinley caused great hurt to many other ethnicities in Hawaii, too.

Most Chinese, Japanese and Portuguese living here today trace their roots back to ancestors who lived in the Hawaiian kingdom before the 1893 overthrow. Their families were loyal to the queen. This was their home. Their nation was overthrown.

The McKinley Tariff of 1890 was the principal cause for the overthrow. It cut sugar profits in half, providing the final impetus. Annexation to the U.S. would bring relief from that tariff.

Following the overthrow, Chinese, Japanese and Portuguese were among those who signed the Ku‘e Petition and other documents sent to Congress to protest annexation. All in Congress knew that 80%-90% of island people opposed annexation, and it agreed, with the Senate repeatedly refusing to give the two-thirds vote required by the Constitution for a Treaty of Annexation.

Then came the Spanish-American War in 1898. President McKinley forcefully called for “loyalty to our nation at war,” pressuring Congress to take Hawaii as an essential staging area for battles in the Philippines. Still lacking enough votes, McKinley pushed acquisition through using a Joint Resolution of Congress (not even a bill), even though congressional members knew it contradicted the Constitution and had no power beyond U.S. borders.

Within weeks of passage of the Newlands Resolution, the new Fort McKinley was created where Kapiolani Park is today. Tens of thousands of U.S. troops transited through it.

Adm. George Dewey sank the Spanish fleet in Manila Bay and won the Philippines from Spain in one day. Filipinos thought they had been liberated, but soon faced McKinley’s determination to subordinate them as a colony of the American empire. Battles for independence ensued. Fort McKinley in Hawaii provided all of the needs for American troops, who killed over 20,000 Filipino combatants; 200,000 Filipino civilians also died from violence, famine and disease.

In 1900, McKinley sent the U.S. Marines to China to join other nations in putting down the Boxer Rebellion, an uprising of peasants and farmers, eventually joined by China’s Qing government, against foreigners and the changes they brought to religion, trade and society. Estimates rise to 100,000 Chinese killed in the battles.

Puerto Rico suffered a fate quite similar to that of Hawaii. Under McKinley, Puerto Rico was taken in the Spanish-American War. As happened in Hawaii, the U.S. then subjugated its people and made great efforts to thoroughly Americanize them. Unlike in Hawaii, though, by the 1930s a nationalist movement rose up across Puerto Rico — growing strong enough in the 1950s that America bombed towns to suppress it.

In 1945, the U.S. had signed onto the United Nations Charter, agreeing to prepare Puerto Rico, Hawaii and other colonies for independence. It even put Puerto Rico and Hawaii on the U.N. list of non-self-governing territories, the first formal step — then changed its mind.

In 1952 — fulfilling a UN requirement to allow colonies to “choose their form of self-determination” — the U.S. held a farcical plebescite in Puerto Rico, just as it would in Hawaii in 1959. In both cases, no training for independence had ever been done, and “independence” was not a choice on the ballot.

Let us also mention that there would have been no Pearl Harbor nor Japanese-enduring internment camps if McKinley had not usurped Hawaii.

The McKinley name-change effort began as “a Hawaiian thing.” But as seen here, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Filipinos and Puerto Ricans have all been gravely hurt, both in Hawaii and in their homelands, by this man’s ruthless ambitions.

President McKinley is a symbol of white American supremacy; subjugation of peoples; suppression of local languages, cultures and identities; bringing suffering and death to hundreds of thousands who would protest. This fine school deserves a better name.

Kioni Dudley, Ph.D., is a former teacher; Lyla Berg, Ph.D., is a former principal; Aoloa Patao is a teacher. This was co-signed by Leon Siu, Piilani Kaopuiki, Poka Laenui and Professor Williamson Chang.