Haole

Haole (/ˈhaʊliː/; Hawaiian [ˈhɔule]) is a term used in the state of Hawaii to refer to individuals who are not descendants of native Hawaiians and the other ethnicities that were brought in to work the plantations. The ethnic groups that worked in the plantations include Puerto Ricans, Portuguese, Japanese, Filipino and Chinese. The term "haole" is mostly used to refer to caucasians or white people. In the Hawaiian language, the term has been used historically and currently to refer to any foreigner or anything else introduced to the Hawaiian islands of foreign origin. The origins of the word predate the 1778 arrival of Captain James Cook, as recorded in several chants stemming from antiquity. Its use historically has ranged from descriptive to race invective.

Haole first became associated with the children of European immigrants in the early 1820s. It unified the self-identity of these Hawaii-born children whose parents were as much culturally different as they were similar. With the first three generations of Haole playing key roles in the rise of the economic and political power shifts that have lasted through the current day,Haole evolved into a term that was often used in contempt especially after the missionaries imposed strict rules prohibiting games, singing, and playing. It evolved further to racial meaning, replacing "malihini" (newcomer) in addressing people of Caucasian descent who move to Hawaii from the U.S. mainland by the 1860s. A 1906 phrase book sometimes translates it to "English (language)".

The Hawaiian Dictionary by Pukui and Elbert gives no etymology of the word.

The 1865 Dictionary of the Hawaiian Language, compiled by Lorrin Andrews, shows the pronunciation as ha-o-le. A popular belief is that the word is properly written and pronounced as hāʻole, literally meaning "no breath," because foreigners did not know or use the honi, a Polynesian greeting by touching nose-to-nose and inhaling or essentially sharing each other's breaths, and so the foreigners were described as breathless. The implication is not only that foreigners are aloof and ignorant of local ways, but also literally have no spirit or life within.

...
Wikipedia