Reading of the Day October 21, 2008

This is mostly because I feel bad for not posting for nearly a week… makes me look like i’ve been lazy!

Barman, Jean. 1995. New land, new lives: Hawaiian settlement in British Columbia. The Hawaiian Journal of History 29: 1-32.
Annotation: This article provides a description of the lives of Native Hawaiians in British Columbia during the 18th and 19th centuries.  Hawaiians visited “North American as seamen, fur trade laborers, or independent adventurers” (1).  Those who stayed behind in British Columbia enjoyed equal rights to whites, including voting privileges, versus the racial discrimination they would have experienced in the United States.  Hawaiians married into and assimilated into mainstream society by marrying Native Americans.  They settled primarily near the coast, but it is impossible to calculate exactly how many of them actually settled, due to name misspellings, and name changing during documentation.  These Hawaiians were described as mainly Catholic, but following practices such as separation and remarriage.  Many people intermarried, but for the most part, the men sought Indian women and the women sought white men.  The dominant language was English.  Since the 1970s, “some families have begun to visit Hawaiʻi, hoping, so far without success, to recover an actual as well as a spiritual link with families there.  Operation ʻOhana, the recent initiative by the Hawaiian government to enroll all persons of aboriginal Hawaiian ancestry into a cultural association based in pride in  heritage, has been greeted with enthusiasm” (25).  In the 1991 Canada census, 545 people claimed Hawaiian ancestry and 2,490 claimed themselves part Hawaiian.  The author believes that “the majority of persons from the Hawaiian Islands, however, likely classified themselves as American in terms of origin” (25).

Reading of the Day… October 8, 2008

Kauanui, J. Kēhaulani. 1998. Off-Island Hawaiians “Making” ourselves at “Home”: A [gendered] contradiction in terms?. Women’s Studies International Forum 21(6): 681-693.

Annotation: The article centers around the issue of Hawaiian sovereignty but discusses it in terms of gender and the diasporic Hawaiian community.  In terms of gender issues, the author claims that women play a large role in maintaining ʻohana (quoting Trask) and inherently are the leaders of the sovereignty movement, as evidenced by the leaders of groups such as Ka Lāhui Hawaiʻi.  Briefly, the author delves into gender stereotypes surrounding hula, which might “deter them from engaging in these cultural forms” (691).  In terms of Hawaiians away from home, the author focuses on the controversy and conflicts between mainland Hawaiians and on-island Hawaiians in terms of the definition of what a Hawaiian is.  The author gives several definitions of Hawaiian and native Hawaiian, addressing the fact that since so many people consider it different things, it is difficult to determine membership for mainland Hawaiians.  Particularly when mainland Hawaiians cannot vote and have little voice in organizations like OHA and Ka Lāhui, although according to the author, as of 1998, Ka Lāhui was becoming more open to mainland Hawaiian participation.  The author also goes through the ways mainland Hawaiians maintain and preserve their culture, giving examples of organizations and na halau, such as Hui Hawaiʻi o San Diego and canoe clubs as well as hoʻolauleʻa, ʻukulele festivals, hula festivals, classes and workshops.  The author also evaluates Akaka’s article in the OHA newsletter, “Hawaiians Come Home, Your Nation Needs You” in terms of how mainland Hawaiians came to be and calls into question the attack on mainland Hawaiians concerning their “Hawaiianess”.  Ultimately, the author implies that mainland Hawaiians are just as capable of maintaining and supporting the Sovereignty movement as on-island Hawaiians and that it is important to understand how the Hawaiian diasporic community came to be and is being maintained.