Hot, Hot, Hot: Hawaii, Reconsidered

Displaced from their usual haunt and, instead, meeting at a local Shari’s, the “World Readers” group discussed Hawaii and happily downed slabs of pie ala mode.

Anne reminded us that the former Sandwich Islands entered into (limited) western unconsciousness in 1778, when Captain John Cooke happened upon them. The pristine land forms later served as a base for multinational enterprises such as Dole, of pineapple fame. It was at Honolulu’s Pearl Harbor that the United States was attacked and humiliated by the Japanese air force. Hawaii was admitted as the 50th state of the union on August 21, 1959. It is also on those islands that indigenous Hawaiians have struggled to free themselves from what they consider colonialization, the ever growing non-Hawaiian immigrant population, and the double-edged sword of tourism.

Brian read a few passages from James A. Michener’s 1959 classic fictionalized telling of Hawaiian history, “Hawaii”, in which the author, in his opening chapter, “From the Boundless Deep”, personified every aspect of the multi-millennial underwater volcanic eruptions and endless geological cataclysm. To the cold war critics, this literary device received only kudos; but today, the personification seems really over the top.

Bill brought some interesting poems, written in pidgin, a dialect that intermixes native Hawaiian and English. More on that later, as well as charges that the acclaimed poems slandered Philippino men.

The “Readers” will be taking August off”. Sorry- no “spin o’ the world” this month.