Book Launch for New Hawaii Chinese History Center Book

Join the Hawaii Chinese History Center, the Associated Chinese University Women, and United Chinese Society of Hawaii in celebrating the publication of Chinese Pioneer Families of Maui, Molokai, and Lanai.

Sunday, November 8, 1:00-3:00 pm, Kilauea Recreation Center, 4109 Kilauea Avenue, Honolulu: Co-editor Ken Yee and several of the oral history participants will be on hand to sign books. Festivities will include a lion dance, Hawaiian music of Maui and Molokai place-name songs, and simple refreshments.

Please RSVP by email (ginny96825@yahoo.com) by October 30.

Chinese Pioneer Families of Maui, Molokai, and Lanai is distributed by University of Hawai‘i Press.

Chinese Pioneer Families of Maui, Molokai, and Lanai

Chinese Pioneer Families of Maui, Molokai, and Lanai
During the last half of the 1800s through the early 1900s Chinese migrated from their villages in the Pearl River Delta in Kwangtung Province (Guangdong) and many found their way to the neighbor islands in Hawaii. Chinese Pioneer Families of Maui, Molokai, and Lanai, edited by Ken Yee and Nancy Wong Yee, is a fascinating collection of oral histories filled with the voices of their children and grandchildren. They tell stories that are both universal and particular about the lives of the early immigrants and their families and how they adapted to their new home in the Hawaiian islands, even as they held fast to their ties to China. These colorful, multigenerational stories paint a larger picture of the cultural traditions and social life of that time and illustrate how these immigrants became part of the fabric of Hawaii. Reference materials and maps provide useful resources for those wishing to trace their own roots.

Chinese Historic Sites and Pioneer Families Series
October 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3449-4 / $25.00 (PAPER)
Distributed for the Hawaii Chinese History Center

Lucky Come Hawaii Author Jon Shirota Comes Home

Lucky Come HawaiiNationally acclaimed author Jon Shirota, whose Lucky Come Hawaii was the first novel by an Asian American Hawai‘i author to become a bestseller, will be back in the Islands for several public appearances sponsored by the Manoa Foundation. Lucky Come Hawaii will be released in a new, revised edition in late November by Manoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing and University of Hawai‘i Press.

Thursday, November 5, 3:00-4:30 pm: University of Hawai‘i at Manoa, Kuykendall Hall, Room 410. Shirota will talk on the Okinawan sense of place in his writings, including those in the latest Manoa journal, Voices from Okinawa.

Thursday, November 5–Sunday, December 6, various times: Kumu Kahua Theatre, 46 Merchant Street, Downtown Honolulu. Performances of Shirota’s play, Voices from Okinawa.

Monday, November 9, 5:00-6:00 pm:
UH-West O‘ahu, Kuhialoko Lanai (E-Building). Shirota’s talk, “Akisamiyo! From a Pig Farmer to a Writer” will follow a reception at 4:00. This event is part of the Chancellor’s Lecture Series and is co-sponsored by the UHM Center for Okinawan Studies.

Friday, November 13, 7:00 pm: Kapi‘olani Community College, Ohi‘a Building. “A Conversation with Jon Shirota” will be hosted by Chancellor Leon Richards; part of KCC’s International Week celebration. Entertainment by Okinawan dance and sanshin performers.

Visit Voices from Okinawa Online for more information on Jon Shirota and his work.

New from Albert Wendt: The Adventures of Vela

The Adventures of Vela
“We are the remembered cord that stretches across the abyss of all that we’ve forgotten,” sang Vela.

Journey through the many stories and worlds of the immortal Vela, the Samoan song maker, poet, and storyteller—Vela, who was so red and ugly at birth they called him the Cooked; Vela the lonely admirer of pigs and the connoisseur of feet; Vela the lover of song maker Mulialofa. Follow Vela down through centuries as he encounters the single-minded society of the Tagata-Nei and the Smellocracy of Olfact and recounts the stories of Lady Nafanua, the fearless warrior queen, before whom travelling chroniclers still bow down today.

The Adventures of Vela, by Albert Wendt, is a Pacific epic.

The Adventures of Vela is a tour de force that drives you to reconsider not only relations between the divine and the earthly, the dominated and the domiant, and the teller and the told, but also how narrative can sing its heart out.” —The Listener

October 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3420-3 / $26.00 (PAPER)

Book Launch and Reading for Talking Hawaii’s Story

Talking StoryA book launch and reading for Talking Hawai‘i’s Story: Oral Histories of an Island People, edited by Michi Kodama-Nishimoto, Warren S. Nishimoto, and Cynthia A. Oshiro, is scheduled for Sunday, October 18, 2009, 2:00-3:30 pm, at the School of Architecture Auditorium, University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa. The reading will be directed and produced by Aloha Shorts. Light refreshments and free on-campus parking will be available.

This event is sponsored by the Center for Oral History, the Center for Biographical Research, and the Hawai‘i Council for the Humanities. For more information, contact the Center for Oral History (phone: 956-6259 or email: wnishimo@hawaii.edu) or the Center for Biographical Research (phone: 956-3774 or email: biograph@hawaii.edu).

Talking Hawai‘i’s Story is published by University of Hawai‘i Press for the Center for Oral History and Center for Biographical Research.

Ben Norris Retrospective in Boston

Ben NorrisChilds Gallery in Boston is presenting a career-defining retrospective of works by Ben Norris to celebrate the recent publication of Ben Norris: American Modernist, 1910-2006, distributed by University of Hawai‘i Press for Copley Square Press. The exhibit runs to November 14, 2009. For more information, contact Childs Gallery, 169 Newbury Street, Boston, MA, 02116, 617-266-1108, email: info@childsgallery.com.

Work from the retrospective can be viewed here.

Van Dyke receives UH Regents’ Medal for Excellence in Research

University of Hawai‘i law professor Jon Van Dyke, author of Who Owns the Crown Lands of Hawai‘i?, has been awarded the University of Hawai‘i Regents’ Medal for Excellence in Research. The medal for research recognizes “scholarly contributions that expand the boundaries of knowledge and enrich the lives of students and the community.”

Professor Van Dyke and the two other recipients of this year’s award will be recognized at the annual convocation ceremony on September 15, 10 a.m., at UH’s Kennedy Theatre.

Go Green with UH Press


“Go Green” with University of Hawai‘i Press. Support our green initiative by signing up for an email alert when our Hawai‘i and the Pacific 2010 catalog is available for download in September 2009. To conserve resources we will be offering this catalog in electronic format only.

Also sign up for email announcements of new books in your choice of subjects. Mahalo!

Photo: Robert J. Shallenberger (from Hawaiian Birds of the Sea: Na Manu Kai, available November 2009)

Hawaiian Art and National Culture of the Kalakaua Era

Arts of KingshipThe Arts of Kingship: Hawaiian Art and National Culture of the Kalakaua Era, by Stacy L. Kamehiro, offers a sustained and detailed account of Hawaiian public art and architecture during the reign of David Kalakaua, the nativist and cosmopolitan ruler of the Hawaiian Kingdom from 1874 to 1891. Kamehiro provides visual and historical analysis of Kalakaua’s coronation and regalia, the King Kamehameha Statue, ‘Iolani Palace, and the Hawaiian National Museum, drawing them together in a common historical, political, and cultural frame. Each articulated Hawaiian national identities and navigated the turbulence of colonialism in distinctive ways and has endured as a key cultural symbol.

August 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3358-9 / $24.00 (PAPER)

MP3 Files Now Available for Gagana Samoa and Fundamental Written Chinese

Accompanying MP3 audio files are now available for download:

Gagana Samoa: A Samoan Language Coursebook, Revised Edition, by Galumalemana Afeleti Hunkin at http://www.hawaii.edu/uhpress/mp3/gagana/;

Fundamental Written Chinese, by Nora Yao, Margaret Lee, and Robert Sanders, at http://www.hawaii.edu/uhpress/mp3/fwc/.

Streaming RealAudio files for both books will be available shortly.

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