Palaka: A story about Hawai‘i’s hardworking, proud print

From right to left: Late Kona Historical Society Board President Allen Wall shares favorite ranching memories with respected Hawaiian Cultural Historian Danny Akaka Jr. and his wife Anna. Both men are wearing palaka shirts.

By Carolyn Lucas-Zenk, Kona Historical Society Community Engagement Manager

Danny Akaka Jr. wears palaka shirts probably more than any other aloha shirts. He counted 49 palaka shirts of various colors, three palaka shorts, and one palaka jacket shirt in his closet. His go-to is a Western-style, red palaka shirt with a white yoke. This special shirt came from the famed Arakawa’s on O‘ahu and was gifted to him by his dad – the late Senator Daniel Akaka – who was the first Native Hawaiian to serve in the U.S. Senate, a pioneer in Hawai‘i politics, a fixture for decades on Capitol Hill, and a “humble, true ambassador of aloha.” His first memory of palaka lies fondly with his dad.

“At that time, I was in elementary at Kamehameha Schools Kapālama campus and my Dad was a school principal at the Ewa Elementary as well as the Minister of Music at the Kawaiaha‘o Church. He would usually wear aloha shirts, and on occasion, he’d wear palaka shirts,” he said. “When Dad eventually got into the political arena, he would sometimes wear palaka at the campaign rallies perhaps as a way to identity with Hawai‘i’s past, as he recalled, and its ‘hard working’ and industrious values along with the great pride that he felt for his beloved Aloha State.”

That Akaka Jr., a respected Hawaiian cultural historian and kahu, loves palaka – one of the most authentically Hawai‘i shirts printed with a distinctive woven pattern of checkers – is no surprise. More surprising is how palaka has endured, as well as how this print is enjoying yet another peak of popularity. It’s having a resurgence in fashion as evident of its use on cloth face masks, hats, bags, shirts, dresses and rompers. Among the brands currently using it are Western Aloha, Matt Bruening, Ari South, Sundot Marine Flags, and The Keiki Dept.

To gain a better understanding of the importance of palaka and the birth of this icon, Kona Historical Society talked story with Western Aloha’s Paul Sullivan and Dale Hope. In 2013, Sullivan got the idea to combine his two favorite shirts, Western shirts and aloha shirts. He founded Western Aloha, a company specializing in the performance and style of Western shirts with prints inspired by the Hawaiian spirit of aloha. Palaka is one of its signatures.

“We strive to represent concepts with creativity and integrity with every theme we choose while creating a textile design. Treating the subject with authenticity,” said Hope, who is Western Aloha’s art director, the founder of Kahala Sportswear, a second-generation aloha shirt maker, and author of the book “The Aloha Shirt: Spirit of the Islands.”

For Sullivan, “it’s extremely important to honor and preserve Hawai‘i’s culture and history with Western’s Aloha’s designs.” When he first moved to Hawai‘i, he noticed people wearing palaka with “a great sense of style,” including Akaka Jr. who was sitting barefoot on the lanai of the well-known Eva Parker Woods Cottage, wearing a palaka shirt, and holding an ‘ukulele. That image of Akaka Jr. and his fondness for the print inspired Sullivan to include it in his company’s collection. Sullivan bought his first palaka shirt in 1993 at a thrift store to bus tables at Kona Ranch House. He only stopped wearing that shirt because it was his favorite and didn’t want to mess it up. “Wearing a palaka combines my love and appreciation of Hawai‘i with my own personal history. It’s the kind of shirt I would have worn all day long as a kid,” he added.

Hope likes palaka so much that he once had a surfboard bag made of it. He thinks wearing palaka today is a statement, one that “you are steeped in with the culture, you’re Hawaiian, if not by blood, certainly with your heart.”

“Palaka is more aloha than the aloha shirt,” Goro Arakawa once told Hope. Goro would know. For many, he was the best-known face of Arakawa’s, an iconic department store in Waipahu, O ‘ahu, started by his parents Zempan and Tsuru Arakawa. Several media outlets describe Goro as a civic leader, historian, promoter and advocate, who was instrumental in helping the public understand plantation life, its lifestyle, and what it meant to Hawaiʻi and its people. Arakawa’s is often credited for making palaka shirts a fashion statement locally because of its efforts to explain their significance, especially to plantation life, in the store’s ads and blurbs that appeared in newspapers.

“Goro’s father started as an immigrant on Oahu in 1904, working as a water boy on the sugar plantation on Oahu in Waipahu. Eventually, he obtained a sewing machine and started making lunch bags, and tabis for plantation workers. After studying how to make a shirt, he started making palaka work shirts for the plantation workers,” Hope said. “Over time, Goro’s parents’ tailor shop grew to be the largest rural department store in Hawaiʻi. Palaka, sturdy like twill and duck, was favored by the sugar and pineapple plantation workers as it was durable and protected them while working outdoors. Stevedores appreciated the durable cloth for their work on the docks. Paniolo, Hawaiian cowboys, wore ‘strong as iron’ palaka fabric for their rugged ranch work.”

This black and white gathered palaka skirt features a flower pattern near the bottom and seven button holes on the waist band. Inside the white flannel lining, near the top of the waist, is a label stating “Patented April 11, 1871.”

Part of Kona Historical Society’s collections is the book “Japanese Immigrant Clothing in Hawaiʻi 1885-1941” by Barbara F. Kawakami, a dressmaker who was born on a sugarcane plantation and served as a respected consultant on Japanese immigrant clothing for Hawai‘i Public Television, Waipahu Cultural Garden Park, Bishop Museum and the Japanese American National Museum. In this book, Kawakami explains the word palaka is a transliteration of the English word “frock,” used to identify the loose-fitting, long-sleeved, cotton, upper garments worn by English and American seamen arriving here in the 1800s.

According to Hawai‘i scholar Alfons L. Korn, these frocks became prime items of trade goods between natives and early visitors. As the material became popular, Kawakami and Korn think the word palaka became descriptive of the fabric design rather than the garments themselves.

In his essay, “Some notes on the origin of certain Hawaiian shirts: frock, smock-frock, block, and palaka,” for the journal, Ocean Linguistics, Vol. 15, Nos. 1 and 2, Korn wrote, “Peter Young Kaeo (1836-1880), an inmate of the leprosy settlement at Kalaupapa, on the island of Molokai, reported in a letter to his cousin, the Dowager Queen Emma (1836-1885), dated November 4, 1873, that he had recently visited the settlement store and there purchased several yards of cotton twill ‘to make me some frocks Palaka … [Kaeo’s underlining].’” He added, “It is clear to a reader today, from the fuller context of Peter Kaeo’s humdrum piece of news, that the type of ‘frocks’ he had in mind was not at all the same as the Hawaiian ‘palaka shirts’ of the twentieth century. The latter, widely familiar throughout the Hawaiian Islands at least since the 1920s as a periodically revived fashion, are distinctly recognizable because of their plaid-like woven (not printed) pattern combining blue-and-white checkered stripes.”

Plantation workers first embraced palaka for its sturdiness. While the Portuguese and Hawaiian laborers wore palaka shirts, early Japanese immigrants used palaka only for work jackets, according to Kawakami.

“The issei referred to the palaka fabric as gobanji (the Japanese term for a plaid, or check, design). They were particularly fond of the palaka because it reminded them of the plaid prints in the yukata (unlined kimono made of printed cotton) they had worn in the summer months in their villages back home,” she wrote.

Akaka Jr. thinks there’s another good reason for the longevity of palaka, especially in agriculture. “The palaka is a durable cotton fabric which could endure heavy duty and labor intensive work in Hawai‘i’s warm climate, whether outdoor or indoor, and so was compatible for plantations, coffee farms and ranch work or even as labor wear in industries such as work within the pineapple canneries,” he said. “Palaka cloth may have also been cost effective for the plantations and the ranches when the cotton fabric was purchased in large quantities. As the sugar and the pineapple plantations slowly phased out with these ag products being produced elsewhere globally, the use of palaka work clothing was also minimized but then continued to be in use by paniolos and coffee farmers.”

Though palaka is susceptible to fashion trends like any other fabric, Hope estimated its heyday started in the 1920s and ‘30s. Back then, palaka, woven of 100 percent cotton, was very thick, strong, and rough. Available only in navy or dark blue, it sold for about 29 cents a yard in the early 1920s and about 75 cents a yard in the late 1930s, according to Kawakami.

“The 1932 the Commercial and Industrial Development Committee on the Honolulu Chamber of Commerce reported palaka and sailor moku’s have grown to be almost a national costume, so typically Hawaiian they are. The grass skirt that strangers visualize on dusky maids is seldom seen, but palaka - blue denim trousers - have their places in the wardrobes of every islander,” Hope said. “For years the laborer has worn a palaka to work; it has been a part of the cowboy’s picturesque costume: and stevedores have worn them on the docks. In recent years the smart set of Hawai‘i have annexed the palaka and sailor moku's to their wardrobes. Boys and girls wear them to school, to play, to football games, to parties, the young wear them to house parties, to cocktail parties and beach parties.”

Another noteworthy heyday was the 1960s. Akaka said there was “a comeback with the revitalization of the old style kanikapila Hawaiian music and groups such as the Sons of Hawai‘i whose trademark uniform shirt was the palaka shirt.” Other icons who have helped immortalize palaka include Palani Vaughn, Moe Keale, Brother Smitty, and George Kuo, as well as beloved and respected late Kona paniolo Billy Paris and Allen Wall, he added. Wall was also a past Kona Historical Society Board president.

Nowadays, Akaka Jr. has noticed a growing interest and the popularity of Hawai‘i’s culture and the renaissance of the Hawaiian language along with its music, hula, arts, sciences, cultural practices and even vintage aloha attire, including palaka. The “Hawaiian Renaissance,” which blossomed in the early 1970s, voiced a definite announcement that the vitality of the Hawaiian people was still thriving and continues today.

“Palaka will always be around for the long run, in some way or form and never get old. Perhaps others like me will use and wear palaka not only for its comfortable fabric but also as their ID to Hawai‘i,” he said.

In 1978, Phillip Henry Kalani “Pilipo” Springer and Thelma Kihalani Stillman were photographed in their home by Megan Maud Mitchell. The couple is wearing palaka.