New Journal Issues: Water as a Symbol of the Great Dao, #KeepOurLanguagesStrong + More

 

Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society (JSEALS)

Papers from the 30th Conference of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society: Special Publication (2021)

The new issue is introduced by Editor in Chief Mark Alves, who states:

The volume contains 21 papers in total: five papers on historical linguistics, eleven papers on syntax and/or morphology, and five papers on phonetics/phonology. The languages covered in this volume are spoken in throughout the greater Southeast Asian region: Mainland Southeast Asia, Insular Southeast Asia, Southern China, and the Indian Subcontinent. The papers range from detailed descriptions of linguistic aspects of understudied languages to probing questions related to multiple groups of languages in the region.

Find more research articles and reviews at eVols.

New Journal Issues: Schooling Journeys in the Southwestern Pacific, #KuToo Online Feminist Movement in Japan, Geographic Analysis of COVID-19 in L.A. + More

The Contemporary Pacific

Volume 22, Issue 2 (2021)

Special Issue: Schooling Journeys in the Southwestern Pacific

From the Guest Editors Rachel Emerine Hicks, Debra McDougall, and David Oakeshott in The Promise of Education: Schooling Journeys in the Southwester Pacific:

“Schooling journeys” is more than a metaphor in the southwestern Pacific. To step into a classroom, children and youth often travel hours each day or live for months at a time away from their families. The journey of schooling is rarely direct; it often winds between formal and informal learning and in and out of school, work, and home life. And the journey is expensive; many families struggle mightily to gather the money for fees, school supplies, uniforms, and transportation. Young people embark on these precarious journeys, and their families make sacrifices to support them, because schooling promises a better life—a move away from the backbreaking labor of subsistence agriculture toward a reliable salary that will better support their family and community. Because of the structural inequalities in school and a lack of jobs for those who complete schooling, however, few experience the socioeconomic advancement schooling promises. Still, students and their families continue to hope that schooling will lead to well-paid work. Even more important, though, going to school is seen as key to being a competent and effective person in society—increasingly for both women and men.

Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers

Volume 83 (2021)

Editor Craig S. Revels reflects over the COVID-19 pandemic and how it has affected geographers and members as he states:

Last year’s volume was published in a time of great uncertainty as the COVID-19 pandemic swept across the world, and this year’s unfortunately arrives under similar conditions, slowly improving though they may be. The tragedies, disruptions, and general state of societal affairs during the pandemic will not soon be forgotten…

Geographers have been at the forefront of research into the spread of COVID-19 since the earliest days of the pandemic, and Steve Graves and Petra Nichols contribute an analytical perspective on infection rates in Los Angeles County. In particular, they statistically identify a causal relationship between infection and a range of key socioeconomic and demographic variables, a relationship influencing the location and rate of spread for the disease. They leave us to consider how those factors must be addressed in any preparations for future public health crises.

In a significantly different context, Ray Sumner and John Menary
demonstrate that taking students into the field, always a valuable exercise, is even more rewarding when it leads to unexpected discoveries and challenges our carefully laid plans. In this case, a straightforward field methods class oriented around the Los Angeles River instead became an open-ended, student-driven exploration into the social dimensions of heritage, ethnicity,
culture, and urban development.

UHM First Annual Filipino Books and Curriculum Fair

In recognition of Filipino American History Month, the 1st Annual Filipino Books & Curriculum Fair will be held at the UHM College of Education on Tuesday, October 29, 1:30 to 4:00pm. Come by Wist Hall 133 and visit our display, as well as that of UH Bookstore and 15 other exhibitors.

Titles that we’ll be showing and taking orders for include language books by Teresita Ramos and Precy Espiritu, novels by José Rizal, and a sampling from distributed publishers Ateneo de Manila University Press and the University of the Philippines Press — the former is the publisher of Patricio Abinales’ Making Mindanao and Orthodoxy and History in the Muslim Mindanao Narrative. Works by Filipino American writers include Peter Bacho’s Entrys and Gabe Baltazar’s If It Swings, It’s Music and interviews of Jessica Hagedorn and Al Robles are featured in Words Matter: Conversations with Asian American Writers. Our display will also show books on the Hawai‘i plantation experience, for example, Tomorrow’s Memories: A Diary, 1924–1928 by Angeles Monrayo.

For more information, click here.

An American Girl in the Hawaiian Islands Earns AAUP Outstanding Rating

Each year the Association of American University Presses (AAUP) compiles its University Press Books for Public and Secondary Schools Libraries, a bibliography of titles submitted by member presses as a tool for collection development. The books are rated by committees of public and secondary-school librarians from two divisions of the American Library Association.

An American Girl in the Hawaiian IslandsIn this year’s collection, An American Girl in the Hawaiian Islands: Letters of Carrie Prudence Winter, 1890–1893, edited by Sandra Bonura and Deborah Day, received a top “Outstanding” rating. As defined by the selection process, Outstanding titles have “exceptional editorial content and subject matter. They are essential additions to most library collections.”

The reviewer’s comments below can be viewed at the end of the listing (sorted by Dewey Decimal class) of the 2013 Outstanding Titles.

The use of Carrie Prudence Winter’s original letters is what allows this book to become a rare primary source on topics such as: women missionaries, the last days of Hawaii’s monarchy, and a long-distance 19th century courtship. Ms. Winter’s use of language paints a compelling picture, engaging a reader’s imagination while they learn of a world few knew so intimately.”—Stacey Hayman (CODES/RUSA)

Besides being available online, the print bibliography was distributed last month at the American Library Association annual conference in Chicago. General information on the bibliography and rating system, as well as how to order copies, can be found here.

An American Girl in the Hawaiian Islands also was one of three finalists in the biography category of this year’s San Diego Book Awards.

An American Girl in the Hawaiian Islands – Author Talk at Native Books

An American Girl
When twenty-three-year-old Carrie Prudence Winter caught her first glimpse of Honolulu from aboard the Zealandia in October 1890, she had “never seen anything so beautiful.” She had been traveling for two months since leaving her family home in Connecticut and was at last only a few miles from her final destination, Kawaiaha’o Female Seminary, a flourishing boarding school for Hawaiian girls. As the daughter of staunch New England Congregationalists, Winter had dreamed of being a missionary teacher as a child and reasoned that “teaching for a few years among the Sandwich Islands seemed particularly attractive” while her fiancé pursued a science degree. During her three years at Kawaiaha’o, Winter wrote often and at length to her “beloved Charlie”; her lively and affectionate letters, excerpted in An American Girl in the Hawaiian Islands, selected and edited by Sandra Bonura and Deborah Day, provide readers with not only an intimate look at nineteenth-century courtship, but also many invaluable details about life in Hawai’i during the last years of the monarchy and a young woman’s struggle to enter a career while adjusting to surroundings that were unlike anything she had ever experienced.

September 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3627-6 / $39.00 (CLOTH)

Sandra Bonura will give a talk on the surprising discovery of Carrie Prudence Winter’s correspondence and photos and share additional insight into the lives of the students and teachers at Kawaiaha‘o Female Seminary during the turbulent years of the overthrow: Sunday, September 23, 3-5 pm, Native Books/Na Mea Hawai‘i, Ward Warehouse. Light refreshments will be served. A limited number of books airflown for this event will be available.

Challenging Racism, Sexism, and Homophobia in the Academy

Transforming the Ivory TowerPeople outside and within colleges and universities often view these institutions as fair and reasonable, far removed from the inequalities that afflict society in general. Despite greater numbers of women, working class people, and people of color—as well as increased visibility for LGBTQ students and staff—over the past fifty years, universities remain “ivory towers” that perpetuate institutionalized forms of sexism, classism, racism, and homophobia. Transforming the Ivory Tower: Challenging Racism, Sexism, and Homophobia in the Academy, edited by Brett C. Stockdill and Mary Yu Danico, builds on the rich legacy of historical struggles to open universities to dissenting voices and oppressed groups. Each chapter is guided by a commitment to praxis—the idea that theoretical understandings of inequality must be applied to concrete strategies for change.

March 2012 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3526-2 / $39.00 (CLOTH)

Ann Bayer to Lecture on the Nature of Giftedness

Ann Bayer, author of Going Against the Grain: When Professionals in Hawai‘i Choose Public Schools Instead of Private Schools, will join Maenette Ah Nee-Benham, Robyn McMullin, and moderator Ann Brandman to discuss “The Nature of Giftedness, The Nurturing of Leaders,” the first in the 2010 Sakamaki Extraordinary Lectures series. The lecture, free and open to the public, will be held on Wednesday, June 2, at 7:00 pm in the University of Hawai‘i’s Architecture Auditorium. For more information, call 956-2729.

What characterizes a gifted child? What is the best way to nurture their talents? What can we learn from the Native Hawaiian concept of those with outstanding abilities? And what does the public school environment have to teach our future leaders? We explore these and other questions with a panel of experts in their fields.

Teaching and Learning across Asia and the Pacific

Remaking Area StudiesRemaking Area Studies, edited by Terence Wesley-Smith and Jon Goss, identifies the challenges facing area studies as an organized intellectual project in this era of globalization, focusing in particular on conceptual issues and implications for pedagogical practice in Asia and the Pacific. The crisis in area studies is widely acknowledged; various prescriptions for solutions have been forthcoming, but few have also pursued practical applications of critical ideas for both teachers and students. The collection not only makes the case for more culturally sensitive and empowering forms of area studies, but indicates how these ideas can be translated into effective student-centered learning practices through the establishment of interactive regional learning communities.

April 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3321-3 / $45.00 (CLOTH)
Published in association with the School of Pacific and Asian Studies, University of Hawai‘i

Ann Shea Bayer in Bookstores and in the News

Ann Shea Bayer, author of Going Against the Grain: When Professionals in Hawai‘i Choose Public Schools Instead of Private Schools, will be signing at two Honolulu bookstores in August:

Borders Ward Center, Saturday, August 15, 2009, 2:00-3:00 p.m.
Barnes & Noble Kahala Mall, Sunday, August 16, 2009, 1:00-2:00 p.m.

Dr. Bayer was recently featured in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin.

Photo: Honolulu Star-Bulletin

The Public vs. Private School Debate in Hawai`i

Going Against the Grain: When Professionals in Hawai‘i Choose Public Schools Instead of Private Schools is about passion, advocacy, and the willingness of parents to “go against the grain.” It’s about Hawai‘i professionals choosing public education for their children in a state that adheres to a commonly held belief that “public schools are failing and private schools are succeeding.” University of Hawai‘i education professor Ann Bayer interviewed fifty-one parents, including five who chose private schools. Physicians, professors, attorneys, military officers, teachers, legislators, business executives and entrepreneurs, bankers, and administrators of both genders and from a wide range of ethnic backgrounds were among those interviewed.

Bayer begins by asking parents why they chose to send their children to public schools. She also asks them to describe the reaction of families, friends, and colleagues to their decision and their children’s school experiences—both positive and negative. From these conversations the concept of what constitutes a “good public school” emerges as well as the opportunities provided by such schools. Several parents remark that their children have gone on to attend the same colleges and universities as private school graduates. Other chapters examine more closely the prevalent belief in the superiority of Hawai‘i’s private schools and its impact on students, parents, and teachers. Bayer argues that it is important to understand this belief system and how both newcomers and longtime residents are exposed to it given its influence on parental decisions about schooling. Finally, she returns to interviews with parents for suggestions on how to improve public education in Hawai‘i and to address the question “Why should we care about the public school system?” Responses spark frank discussions on the broader implications for the civic and economic health of a community fragmented by two-tiered schooling.

March 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3339-8 / $26.00 (PAPER)