Friday, November 30, 2012
"Aloha Spirit Going to Hell" - Horton
In this blog post I am going to discuss the article by Tom Horton called "The Inevitable Visiting Writer". In this article he brings up the disappointment many writers felt when they visited Hawaii. He stated that many writers, "judges it to be below whatever standards he has raised for his personal vision of the ideal Island Paradise?" (Horton 84). Hawaii is a real place with real problems but so many people want to view it as a kind of utopia. This is a theme I discussed in one of my blog postings on The Descendants. As I discussed the setting of Hawaii in the book amplifies the problems they are dealing with because those kind of problems are not supposed to happen in paradise. As Horton discusses many authors felt this way too. They built up in their heads what Hawaii would be and were sorely disappointed with it's reality. An aspect of this is not wanting to see Hawaii as a place in the present. Instead many writers wanted to view it as this idyllic place that modernity has not touched. As Horton explains, "Hawaii isn't what it used to be or should have become" (Horton 85). Something has ruined Hawaii and prevented it from being the paradise is was or is supposed to be. They main culprit for destroying Hawaii or what it should have become is according to the article haloes (Horton 86). This blame is partially due but they are not completely responsible. By completely blaming haloes for Hawaii's not being paradise takes away the humanity of the native Hawaiian people. It assumes that they are not human and had no problems before white men came. Their problems became far greater once the haoles arrived but they were still humans and Hawaii was never a complete island paradise. They were real people who had hierarchies, competition, and so much more that kept them from being far from perfect. In the end the Horton article is another example of trying to dispel the common stereotypes held by outsiders about Hawaii.
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I totally agree with this reflection on Horton's article. I don't like the way these writers who were experiencing writer's block have to rely on Hawaii to instill some sort of inspiration for their writing. Hawaii shouldn't be a commodity or a stereotypical label as a permanent "paradise" setting because first of all, Hawaii doesn't owe any of them shit. Hawaii's not responsible for anything, especially not when they had their land taken away and their cultural traditions being bastardized and yet America still wants more. These writers are just stemming from their angst about travel, diaspora, political agenda, transcultural predicaments for the late 20th century, and the idea of translation between global histories. The article definitely echoes on the themes of post-colonial kind of postmodernity unrest, cultural domination, imperialism, and the desire to reclaim indigenous nations. Imperial globalization is evident. Why do we think that the situation in Hawaii is as bad as some of these writers have been quoted saying so or blown out of proportion with preconceived notions/premonitions of it as a permanent "paradise"? Does the "darker" side of Hawaii exists merely because native/local Hawaiian authors who don't have any preconceptions themselves? Is Hawaii's beauty only superficially so to these writers? What exactly is so dark and mysterious about Hawaii in general? The darker side of Hawaii we've learned so far deals with race issues and what else? Maybe the annexation of Hawaii? How about that?
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