Category: History

Local Story: The Massie-Kahahawai Case and the Culture of History

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Rosa-REVThe Massie-Kahahawai case of 1931–1932 shook the Territory of Hawai‘i to its very core. Thalia Massie, a young Navy wife, alleged that she had been kidnapped and raped by “some Hawaiian boys” in Waikīkī. A few days later, five young men stood accused of her rape. Mishandling of evidence and contradictory testimony led to a mistrial, but before a second trial could be convened, one of the accused, Horace Ida, was kidnapped and beaten by a group of Navy men and a second, Joseph Kahahawai, lay dead from a gunshot wound. Thalia’s husband, Thomas Massie; her mother, Grace Fortescue; and two Navy men were convicted of the lesser charge of manslaughter, despite witnesses who saw them kidnap Kahahawai and the later discovery of his body in Massie’s car. Under pressure from Congress and the Navy, territorial governor Lawrence McCully Judd commuted their sentences. After spending only an hour in the governor’s office at ‘Iolani Palace, the four were set free.

Local Story is a close examination of how Native Hawaiians, Asian immigrants, and others responded to challenges posed by the military and federal government during the case’s investigation and aftermath. In addition to providing a concise account of events as they unfolded, the book shows how this historical narrative has been told and retold in later decades to affirm a local identity among descendants of working-class Native Hawaiians, Asians, and others—in fact, this understanding of the term “local” in the islands dates from the Massie-Kahahawai case. It looks at the racial and sexual tensions in pre–World War II Hawai‘i that kept local men and white women apart and at the uneasy relationship between federal and military officials and territorial administrators. Lastly, it examines the revival of interest in the case in the last few decades: true crime accounts, a fictionalized TV mini-series, and, most recently, a play and a documentary—all spurring the formation of new collective memories about the Massie-Kahahawai case. 

Written by John P. Rosa

2014 | 176 pages
Cloth 978-0-8248-2825-7, $45.00
Paper 978-0-8248-3970-3, $19.99

Recasting Red Culture in Proletarian Japan: Childhood, Korea, and the Historical Avant-Garde

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Recasting Red Culture turns a critical eye on the influential proletarian cultural movement that flourished in 1920s and 1930s Japan. This was a diverse, cosmopolitan, and highly contested moment in Japanese history when notions of political egalitarianism were being translated into cultural practices specific to the Japanese experience. Both a political and historiographical intervention, the book offers a fascinating account of the passions—and antinomies—that animated one of the most admirable intellectual and cultural movements of Japan’s twentieth century, and argues that proletarian literature, cultural workers, and institutions fundamentally enrich our understanding of Japanese culture.

Weaving over a dozen translated fairytales, poems, and short stories into his narrative, Samuel Perry offers a fundamentally new approach to studying revolutionary culture. By examining the margins of the proletarian cultural movement, Perry effectively redefines its center as he closely reads and historicizes proletarian children’s culture, avant-garde “wall fiction,” and a literature that bears witness to Japan’s fraught relationship with its Korean colony. Along the way, he shows how proletarian culture opened up new critical spaces in the intersections of class, popular culture, childhood, gender, and ethnicity.

2014 | 248 pages | 12 illustrations
ISBN: 978-0-8248-3893-5 | $49.00s | Cloth

Architecturalized Asia: Mapping a Continent through History

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Rujivacharakul_front1-UHP.inddThis collection explores built environments and visual narratives in Asia via cartography, icons and symbols in different historical settings. Architecturalized Asia grows out of a three-year project focusing on cultural exchange in the making of Asia’s boundaries as well as its architectural styles and achievements. The editors — architectural scholars at University of Delaware, Seattle University, University of Washington and Harvard University, respectively – attracted contributions from Asia, Europe, and North America.

The manuscript consists of three sections – in Mapping Asia: Architectural Symbols from Medieval to Early Modern Periods, authors examine icons and symbols in maps and textual descriptions and other early evidence about Asian architecture. Incorporating archival materials from Asia and Europe, the essays present views of Asian architecture seen from those who lived on the continent, those who saw themselves residing along the margins, and those who identified themselves as outsiders. The second section, Conjugating Asia: The Long-Nineteenth Century and its Impetus, explores the construction of the field of Asian architecture and the political imagination of Asian built environments in the nineteenth century. It discusses the parallel narratives of colonialism and Orientalism in the construction of Asia and its architectural environment, mapping how empire-expanding influences from Europe and North America have defined “Asia” and its regions through new vocabularies and concepts, which include, among others, “Eurasia,” “Jap-Alaska,” “Asie coloniale,” “the Orient,” and “Further India.” The third section, Manifesting Asia: Building the Continent with Architecture, addresses the physical realization of “Asian” geographic ideas within a set of specific local and regional contexts in the twentieth century. It examines tangible constructions as legible documents of these notional constructions of Asia, and discusses their construction processes, materials and critical receptions as evidence of the physical’sreciprocal relationship to the conceptual. Regions and conditions covered include French Indochina, Iran, post-Soviet Central Asia, Japanese landscape, and the construction of theAfro-Asian built environment.

 

Edited by Vimalin Rujivacharakul, H. Hazel Hahn, Ken Tadashi Oshima, and Peter Christensen
Spatial Habitus: Making and Meaning in Asia’s Architecture

2014 | 324 pages
ISBN: 978-0-8248-3952-9 | $55.00s | Cloth

Waves of Resistance Wins Baldridge Prize for History

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Walker-WavesCongratulations to BYU-Hawaii history professor Dr. Isaiah Walker on being awarded the Kenneth W. Baldridge Prize for his book, Waves of Resistance: Surfing and History in Twentieth-Century Hawai‘i. The prize was announced by the Hawai‘i chapter of the Phi Alpha Theta honor society at their annual regional conference held March 8 at the University of Hawai‘i’s Mānoa campus. The Baldridge Prize recognizes the best book in any field of history written by a resident of Hawai‘i.

Exhibiting the Past Examines Exhibitionary Spaces in Postsocialist China

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Denton-Exhibiting-the-PastIn Exhibiting the Past: Historical Memory and the Politics of Museums in Postsocialist China, Kirk Denton analyzes types of museums and exhibitionary spaces: from revolutionary history museums, military museums, and memorials to martyrs to museums dedicated to literature, ethnic minorities, and local history. He discusses red tourism—a state sponsored program developed in 2003 as a new form of patriotic education designed to make revolutionary history come alive—and urban planning exhibition halls, which project utopian visions of China’s future that are rooted in new conceptions of the past. Denton’s method is narratological in the sense that he analyzes the stories museums tell about the past and the political and ideological implications of those stories.

Focusing on “official” exhibitionary culture rather than alternative or counter memory, Denton reinserts the state back into the discussion of postsocialist culture because of its centrality to that culture and to show that state discourse in China is neither monolithic nor unchanging. The book considers the variety of ways state museums are responding to the dramatic social, technological, and cultural changes China has experienced over the past three decades.

Beyond Ainu Studies: Changing Academic and Public Perspectives

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Hudson-BeyondAinuStudiesIn 2008, 140 years after it had annexed Ainu lands, the Japanese government shocked observers by finally recognizing Ainu as an Indigenous people. In this moment of unparalleled political change, it was Uzawa Kanako, a young Ainu activist, who signalled the necessity of moving beyond the historical legacy of “Ainu studies.” Mired in a colonial mindset of abject academic practices, Ainu Studies was an umbrella term for an approach that claimed scientific authority vis-à-vis Ainu, who became its research objects. As a result of this legacy, a latent sense of suspicion still hangs over the purposes and intentions of non-Ainu researchers.

This major new volume seeks to re-address the role of academic scholarship in Ainu social, cultural, and political affairs. Placing Ainu firmly into current debates over Indigeneity, Beyond Ainu Studies provides a broad yet critical overview of the history and current status of Ainu research.

Gender and Law in the Japanese Imperium

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Gender and Law in the Japanese ImperiumArguing against the popular stereotype of Japan as a non-litigious society, an international group of contributors from Japan, Taiwan, Germany, and the U.S. explores how in Japan and its colonies, as elsewhere in the modern world, law became a fundamental means of creating and regulating gendered subjects and social norms in the period from the 1870s to the 1950s. In Gender and Law in the Japanese Imperium, the authors suggest that legal discourse was subject to negotiation, interpretation, and contestation at every level of their formulation and deployment.

With this as a shared starting point, they explore key issues such reproductive and human rights, sexuality, prostitution, gender and criminality, and the formation of the modern conceptions of family and conjugality, and use these issues to complicate our understanding of the impact of civil, criminal, and administrative laws upon the lives of both Japanese citizens and colonial subjects. The result is a powerful rethinking of not only gender and law, but also the relationships between the state and civil society, the metropole and the colonies, and Japan and the West.

Celebrating the Enduring Legacies of Queen Lili‘uokalani

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Hawaii's Story by Hawaii's QueenOn Sunday, January 26, at 3:30 p.m., UH Mānoa’s Hamilton Library will host “He Lei, He Aloha: This is a Lei of Love, The Legacies of Queen Lili‘uokalani,” a free program that celebrates the enduring legacies of Queen Lili‘uokalani, the last reigning monarch of the kingdom of Hawai‘i. The participatory program, which is presented by the Hawaiʻi State Public Library System, will be narrated by Meleanna Aluli Meyer, artist, educator, filmmaker, and descendant of Emma Nawahi, confidante of the Queen.

Part of the 45-minute program will feature readings from Hawaii’s Story by Hawaii’s Queen, a new edition of which has just been published by Hui Hānai, an auxiliary organization to the Queen Lili‘uokalani Children’s Center. UH Press is honored to be distributing this enhanced and annotated edition and will have copies available for purchase at the event.

For more information, click here.

The Making of the First Korean President

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Lew-Making1stKoreanPresThe only full-scale history of Syngman Rhee’s early career in English was published nearly six decades ago. Now, Young Ick Lew uncovers little-known aspects of Rhee’s leadership roles prior to 1948, when he became the Republic of Korea’s first president. In The Making of the First Korean President: Syngman Rhee’s Quest for Independence, 1875–1948, Lew delves into Rhee’s background, investigates his abortive diplomatic missions, and explains how and why he was impeached as the head of the Korean Provisional Government in 1925. He analyzes the numerous personal conflicts between Rhee and other prominent Korean leaders, including some close friends and supporters who eventually denounced him as an autocrat.

Based on exhaustive research that incorporates archival records as well as secondary sources in Korean, English, and Japanese, The Making of the First Korean President meticulously lays out the key developments of Rhee’s pre-presidential career. This richly illustrated volume is essential reading for anyone with an interest in modern Korean history and will serve as a lasting portrait of one of the pivotal figures in the evolution of Korea as it journeyed from colonial suppression to freedom and security.

November 2013 | ISBN: 978-0-8248-3168-4 | $68.00 | Cloth

UH Press at American Historical Association Annual Meeting, January 2-5, Washington, D.C.

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University of Hawai‘i Press is exhibiting at the American Historical Association’s Annual Meeting, January 2-5 in Washington, D.C.

Press acquisitions editor Masako Ikeda is attending. Please visit our booth to browse our newest titles and take advantage of the event special: a 20% discount and free shipping in the U.S. The free shipping applies to orders received or placed at the conference.

Ancient Ryukyu: An Archaeological Study of Island Communities

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Ancient Ryukyu explores 30,000 years of human occupation in the Ryukyu Islands, from the earliest human presence in the region up to A.D. 1609 and the emergence of the Ryukyu Kingdom. It focuses on the unique geopolitical position of the islands, their environment, and the many human communities whose historical activities can be discerned. Drawing on the impressive work of dozens of local archaeologists who have brought the islands’ early history to life, Richard Pearson describes explorers and sojourners and colonists who arrived thousands of years ago, and their ancient trade links to Japan, Korea, and China.

Through analysis of work completed at about 120 sites described in dozens of rare Japanese government reports with limited circulation, Pearson is able to show that many modern features of the culture, politics, and economy of the Ryukyu Islands have very deep roots.

“This extremely important study in Pacific and island archaeology makes use of the huge database generated by Okinawan archaeology in the postwar era and places the Okinawan islands in the context of current theoretical debates within island archaeology in the Pacific and beyond. It is also a major study of premodern Okinawa. With its many valuable overviews and discussions, as well as its original analyses and interpretations, it will undoubtedly become the definitive text in English.” —Mark Hudson, Nishikyushu University

November 2013 | 432 pages | 36 illustrations | 20 maps
ISBN: 978-0-8248-3712-9 | $55.00 | Cloth

After the New Order: Space, Politics, and Jakarta

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After the New Order: Space, Politics, and JakartaThis new work explores the formation of populist urban programs in post-Suharto Jakarta and the cultural and political contradictions that have arisen as a result of the continuing influence of the Suharto-era’s neoliberal ideology of development. Analyzing a spectrum of urban agendas from waterfront city to green environment and housing for the poor, Kusno deepens our understanding of the spatial mediation of power, the interaction between elite and populist urban imaginings, and how past ideologies are integral to the present even as they are newly reconfigured.

After the New Order will be essential reading for anyone—including Asianists, urban historians, social scientists, architects, and planners—concerned with the interplay of space, power, and identity.

November 2013 | 304 pages | 33 illustrations
ISBN: 978-0-8248-3745-7 | $60.00s | Cloth

Writing Past Colonialism

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