Category: History

Race and Citizenship in Hawaii’s Japanese American Consumer Culture

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Creating the Nisei MarketIn 1922 the U.S. Supreme Court declared Japanese immigrants ineligible for American citizenship because they were not “white,” dismissing the plaintiff’s appeal to skin tone. Unable to claim whiteness through naturalization laws, Japanese Americans in Hawai‘i developed their own racial currency to secure a prominent place in the Island’s postwar social hierarchy. Creating the Nisei Market: Race and Citizenship in Hawaii’s Japanese American Consumer Culture, by Shiho Imai, explores how different groups within Japanese American society (in particular the press and merchants) staked a claim to whiteness on the basis of hue and culture. Using Japanese- and English-language sources from the interwar years, it demonstrates how the meaning of whiteness evolved from mere physical distinctions to cultural markers of difference, increasingly articulated in material terms.

August 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3332-9 / $38.00 (CLOTH)

Making Transcendents Receives Award for Excellence

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Making Transcendents: Ascetics and Social Memory in Early Medieval China, by Robert Ford Campany, has been selected to receive the American Academy of Religion’s Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion (historical studies category). The award will be presented during the 2010 AAR Annual Meeting in Atlanta, on October 30–November 1, 2010.

“If one day we arrive at a more profound understanding of the hidden agendas behind so much of Chinese writing, hagiographical as well as historical, Making Transcendents will undoubtedly have played a significant role in that process.” —Journal of Asian Studies

“Invaluable for anyone who wishes to understand the phenomenon of sanctity in general and the Chinese cult of xian in particular.” —Religious Studies Review

Inaugural Volume in the Race and Ethnicity in Hawai‘i Series

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Haoles in Hawaii Haoles in Hawai‘i, by Judy Rohrer, strives to make sense of haole (white person/whiteness in Hawai‘i) and “the politics of haole” in current debates about race in Hawai‘i. Recognizing it as a form of American whiteness specific to Hawai‘i, the author argues that haole was forged and reforged over two centuries of colonization and needs to be understood in that context.

“Haoles in Hawai‘i is a terrific book. It handles complex and sensitive issues with knowledge, grace, and sophistication, while at the same time making them accessible to the general reader. Judy Rohrer knows this subject from a lifetime of experience and years of scholarly study. Although it is certain to appear on many college and university reading lists, this is a book that everyone should read. It will make Hawai‘i a better place.” —David E. Stannard, professor of American studies, University of Hawai‘i, and author of Honor Killing: How the Infamous “Massie Affair” Transformed Hawai‘i

August 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3405-0 / $14.99 (PAPER)
Race and Ethnicity in Hawai‘i

Hart Wood Authors Presentation at Reed Space HNL

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Hart WoodDon Hibbard and Glenn Mason, coauthors of Hart Wood: Architectural Regionalism in Hawai‘i, will give a presentation and discuss their work on the book on Tuesday, August 3, at 6:30 pm, at the Waikiki Parc Hotel. Books will be available for purchase and signing after the presentation. Free and open to the public, the talk is part of Interisland Terminal’s Reed Space HNL events. Free validated parking is available for Reed Space attendees.

New in the Pacific Islands Monograph Series

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Repositioning the MissionaryIn the vein of an emergent Native Pacific brand of cultural studies, Repositioning the Missionary: Rewriting the Histories of Colonialism, Native Catholicism, and Indigeneity in Guam, by Vicente M. Diaz, examines the cultural and political stakes of the historic and present-day movement to canonize Blessed Diego Luis de San Vitores (1627–1672), the Spanish Jesuit missionary who was martyred by Mata’pang of Guam while establishing the Catholic mission among the Chamorros in the Mariana Islands. The work juxtaposes official, popular, and critical perspectives of the movement to complicate prevailing ideas about colonialism, historiography, and indigenous culture and identity in the Pacific.

July 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3435-7 / $24.00 (PAPER)
Pacific Islands Monograph Series, No. 24
Published in association with the Center for Pacific Islands Studies, University of Hawai‘i

New in the Hawaii Studies on Korea Series

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Soldiers on the Cultural Front
Soldiers on the Cultural Front: Developments in the Early History of North Korean Literature and Literary Policy, by Tatiana Gabroussenko, presents the first consistent research on the early history of North Korea’s literature and literary policy in Western scholarship. It traces the introduction and development of Soviet-organized conventions in North Korean literary propaganda and investigates why the “romance with Moscow” was destined to be short lived. It reconstructs the biographies and worldviews of major personalities who shaped North Korean literature and teases these historical figures out of popular scholarly myth and misconception. The book also investigates the specific forms of control over intellectuals and literary matters in North Korea.

July 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3396-1 / $49.00 (CLOTH)
Hawai‘i Studies on Korea
Published in association with the Center for Korean Studies, University of Hawai‘i

Knowing the Past, Shaping the Future

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The Value of Hawaii
How did we get here? Three-and-a-half-day school weeks. Prisoners farmed out to the mainland. Tent camps for the migratory homeless. A blinkered dependence on tourism and the military for virtually all economic activity. The steady degradation of already degraded land. Contempt for anyone employed in education, health, and social service. An almost theological belief in the evil of taxes.

At a time when new leaders will be elected, and new solutions need to be found, the contributors to The Value of Hawai‘i: Knowing the Past, Shaping the Future, edited by Craig Howes and Jon Osorio, outline the causes of our current state and offer points of departure for a Hawai‘i-wide debate on our future.

July 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3529-3 / $19.99 (PAPER)
A Biography Monograph
Published in association with the Center for Biographical Research, University of Hawai‘i

A New Edition of Regulating Paradise

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Regulating ParadisePraise for the revised edition of David L. Callies’ Regulating Paradise: Land Use Controls in Hawaii:

“A masterful analysis of [Hawai‘i’s] land use laws.” —Daniel R. Mandelker, Stamper Professor of Law, Washington University, St. Louis

“Essential reading for all who seek to understand how land use is regulated in Hawai‘i or to apply the lessons learned there to other states.” —Dan Tarlock, Distinguished Professor of Law, Chicago-Kent College of Law

“Callies has vibrantly depicted the complexity, conflicts, and conundrums of navigating land use laws and regulations in Hawai‘i in a clear and entertaining manner.” —Lea Hong, Hawaiian Islands Program Director, The Trust for Public Land

“A clear and comprehensive review of Hawai‘i’s land use regulatory systems. The book effectively covers the broad sweep of State and County laws, ordinances, and processes, and how they interrelate.” —Dan Davidson, land use administrator

“A must-read for both neophyte and veteran legal practitioners. Callies’ in-depth and insightful explanations and commentaries on Hawai‘i’s complex land use and planning laws provide a road map for understanding the state’s multi-layered regulatory scheme.” —Benjamin A. Kudo, Ph.D.

“Callies has a gift of weaving together what on the surface appear to be unrelated laws and court decisions into broader underlying currents in Hawai‘i’s evolving history.” —Melvin Y. Kaneshige, Executive Vice President of Real Estate and Development, Outrigger Enterprises Group.

“An excellent treatise on the thorny issues of unique land tenure, land rights, and land control in Hawai‘i.” —Henry Eng, FAICP

July 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3475-3 / $22.00 (PAPER)

Talking Hawai‘i’s Story at Pohai Nani Auditorium

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Talking Hawaii's StoryTalking Hawaiʻi’s Story: Oral Histories of an Island People editors Michi Kodama-Nishimoto and Warren Nishimoto of the University of Hawai‘i’s Center for Oral History will speak at the Pohai Nani Auditorium (45-090 Namoku Street, Kaneohe) on Tuesday, July 6, from 7 to 8 pm.

The program will include book readings, presented by storyteller Nyla Fujii-Babb and UH English professor Craig Howes, followed by a question-and-answer session. Fujii-Babb will read Edith Anzai Yonenaka’s narrative, “Recollections from the Windward Side,” and Howes will read Alfred Preis’ compelling chapter, ‘Interned: Experiences of an ‘Enemy Alien.’”

The talk and reading is the third event in the Pohai Nani Retirement Community’s Yamashita Lecture Series on Hawaiʻi. The program is free and open to the public. Books will be available for purchase from UH Press.

For more information on the event, contact Carolyn Nakamura, Pohai Nani’s resident services coordinator, at (808) 236-7805.

Human Agency and the Self in Thought and Politics

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Individualism in Early China
Conventional wisdom has it that the concept of individualism was absent in early China. In Individualism in Early China: Human Agency and the Self in Thought and Politics, an uncommon study of the self and human agency in ancient China, Erica Fox Brindley provides an important corrective to this view and persuasively argues that an idea of individualism can be applied to the study of early Chinese thought and politics with intriguing results. She introduces the development of ideological and religious beliefs that link universal, cosmic authority to the individual in ways that may be referred to as individualistic and illustrates how these evolved alongside and potentially helped contribute to larger sociopolitical changes of the time, such as the centralization of political authority and the growth in the social mobility of the educated elite class.

“Contrary to common claims about the absence of individualism in early China and its supposed reification in ‘the West,’ both the Western and Chinese traditions have historically been characterized by diverse and constantly evolving attitudes toward the individual. This book serves as an important corrective to monolithic or essentializing accounts of early Chinese thought, and the narrative concerning the evolution of the concept of the individual in early China is an interesting and novel one. It will appeal widely to people working on early Chinese thought and comparative religion more broadly.” —Edward Slingerland, University of British Columbia

June 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3386-2 / $52.00 (CLOTH)

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

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In the last week Hawai‘i has seen two of its dailies, long-time rivals the Honolulu Star-Bulletin and the Honolulu Advertiser, “merge” into the new Honolulu Star-Advertiser. Now’s your chance to read all about the history of Hawai‘i’s newspapers and SAVE BIG!

Presstime in ParadisePurchase George Chaplin’s Presstime in Paradise: The Life and Times of The Honolulu Advertiser, 1856–1995, for $9.99 (hardcover; regular price $41.99) or $5.99 (paperback; regular price $21.99). The Hawaiian Journal of History calls Presstime in Paradise “a solid and highly readable contribution. . . . A primary source for future historians. . . . . Irreplaceable.”

Shaping HistoryOr purchase the award-winning Shaping History: The Role of Newspapers in Hawai‘i, by Helen Geracimos Chapin, for $4.99 (paperback; regular price $31.99). Winner of a Ka Palapala Po‘okela Award for Excellence in Reference Books, Shaping History “[brings] to light the obscure but important history of Hawai‘i’s alternative press [. . .] another of Chapin’s contributions is to illustrate the coziness of Hawai‘i’s mainstream press with the powers that be” (Honolulu Magazine).

Tahitians, Europeans, and Ecological Exchange

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Trading NatureWhen Captain Samuel Wallis became the first European to land at Tahiti in June 1767, he left not only a British flag on shore but also three guinea hens, a pair of turkeys, a pregnant cat, and a garden planted with peas for the chiefess Purea. Thereafter, a succession of European captains, missionaries, and others planted seeds and introduced livestock from around the world. In turn, the islanders traded away great quantities of important island resources, including valuable and spiritually significant plants and animals. What did these exchanges mean? What was their impact? The answers are often unexpected. They also reveal the ways islanders retained control over their societies and landscapes in an era of increasing European intervention. Jennifer Newell’s Trading Nature: Tahitians, Europeans, and Ecological Exchange explores—from both the European and Tahitian perspective—the effects of “ecological exchange” on one island from the mid-eighteenth century to the present day.

May 2010 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3281-0 / $45.00 (CLOTH)

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