YEAR OF THE RAM.

This whole piece is hauntingly real. The tourist fantasy is tackled by images by football players and dissected by museum directors. There are also images of bombs going off and comparisons to Vietnam and America. I also find it interesting that there was a question of whether to refer to the year as the year of the ram or as a sheep. The two animals are in the same species but what’s the significance of Cliffords use of the Chinese Astrology? The poem speaks of globalization within Hawaii and dwells on the tourist industry of Hawaii seemingly dismissive attitude towards negative issues that stem from colonization and continue to plague humanity.

Upon doing some further research the year of Ram is characteristic of followers, creative, charming, auspiciousness, and appealing while some of negative aspects are indulgent, irresponsible, disorganized and careless. While the people of born in 1991 do not have much to do with this reading of Cliffords Year of the Ram it does delocalize the idea of Hawaii and show how the state of Hawaii is contained within the context of the world but Clifford warns in his comparisons that Hawaii tourism industry might lead to an implosion of the island.    

THE DESCENDANTS

Dealing with the Descendants, there’s a lot to be said. The main issue I have with some other critiques of Hemming’s story is that people expect too much out of it. They expect a story that revolves around one idea of Hawaii, a more “Native” idea of Hawaii, one that’s unkempt and cursed with over reaching Haoles that sucked their land dry but the picture Hemmings paints is the other side of the story. Hemmings modern day story shows how the lives of missionary descendants are not ideal either and paradise for them is just as much of a struggle for them as it is for other lower class Hawaiians. Not matter what side of the Aloha rainbow you’re on there’s no escaping misfortune. One of my favorite lines of the novel exemplifies how Matt’s character has to deal with living with reality in paradise, “I bet in big cities you can walk down the street scowling and no one will ask you what’s wrong or encourage you to smile, but everyone here has the attitude that we’re lucky to live in Hawaii; paradise reigns supreme. I think paradise can go fuck itself.” (Hemmings 5)  I actually really like the novel. I think the family dynamics are quite particular to Hawaii, although I can’t speak with too much authority I find that while some of these issues, such as infidelity, manipulation, and parenting are universal, while the subplots make the context of Hawaii seem more real.

The issue of the land and parenting seem out of Matt’s grasp mentally. Leaving him at a loss for what to say and do. This idea of loss is quite prevalent throughout the book and even stems as far back to his native ancestors who had to deal with the loss of their cultural identity, their land and their race but it's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything. Although Hemmings moves past the past and creates an universal image of the Hawaiian family she does manage to create a new paradigm for looking at paradise, one thats more based in reality than fantasy.  

J. LONDON

Upon reading Jack London’s account of surf-riding, I find it surprising in the introduction to his literature, that “In Hawai‘i, London’s fame gave a boost to Ford as he helped found the first organization to preserve surfriding, the Outrigger Canoe Club (1908)” I wonder why there wasn’t such an establishment that was created by the Hawaiian peoples? For individuals tied so closely to their culture and heritage they don’t seem to stand up for their beliefs and values. Maybe because its in their culture to be open and accommodating they are taken advantage of and exploited. Theres an obvious spot light on the idea of Waikiki as a paradise and surfriding as a past time of the gods. This romantized view of hawaii, isn’t so bad. Hawaii is indeed a paradise I suppose the trouble is that when these stories reached the masses, it opened up a painfully real account of exotism and escape, leaving out any mention of Hawaiian custom, the people, their value system, or any kind of close up on the native habits besides surfing. This kind of negligence adds to the dispossession of the lands and properties from the native Hawaiians.

London’s record of his first attempts at surfing at wildly controlling, “Get in and wrestle with the sea; wing your heels with the skill and power that reside in you; bit the sea’s breakers, master them, and ride upon their backs as a king should.” This man vs nature interpretation I see through the text puts man in a dominant position over nature, which is an idea that can be extrapolated through London’s view of surf-riding. Contrary to this twisted and confused philosophy originally surf riding was seen by the Hawaiians as a means of spiritually connecting to the land and the water and not as a sport to be “tackled”. Sadly the tourist boom in Hawaii says otherwise and these accounts promote London’s view of surfing as a sport of kings, instead of as an application of respect and appreciation towards the land and ocean.  

GARY PAK VALLEY OF THE DEAD AIR

The story attempts to acknowledge with subtle impressions the tests and will of the various protagonists of Hawaii through a challenging stench left after the passing of a native man. The disenfranchised descendants of native Hawaiians have a repressed history— along with the plantation workers and various ethnic victims of racial violence but in this story we read about locals coming into their own as Hawaiian individuals through coming to terms with the death of Hookano and the stench that lingers in his wake.

Pak uses interesting imagery like phallic symbolism in the land through the misshapen potatoes growing on a nearby farm. This symbolism can be interpreted in a variety of ways.  As we can also see in the disturbed nature of the sex and fertility of the island how the stench, ie the death of a native, is effecting the land. Residents aren’t making love and the farms aren’t growing adequately sized produce. It seems that the haoles forceful taking of the land is a emasculating. Deprived of their native roles the people of Hawaii are effectively weaker. The land and water breath of the life or lack thereof of its inhabitants.   

The locals speak in Pidgin, which helps the reader understand their non native mentalities while the narrator relays the story in American english. In order to re-establish the sense of harmony the locals propagate hawaiian traditions and the enactment leads to resolution through appreciation of the land and the former owner of the land, Hookano.   

da wäwae outta ke kalipa

In Lois-Ann Yamanaka’s raw modern vocality of Hawaiian pidgin she pronounces a dimension of post-colonization engendered with poetic details of street smarts, tough lessons and female heart. In an interview with Caroline Wright from IS magazine, she highlights several nuances that have affected her work as a writer. One in particular is her relation with her grandmother. She does not mention much besides her current caretaking routine of the elderly woman but in a follow up question she does divulge that since her grandmother’s conversion from Kanya to Christianity, she got raised as a “foot washing baptist”. In relation to a close reading from SNATPT, I choose to focus on the poem, “The Foot”, a component of the Blame in Parts series. As the reader moves through the poem they feel subjected to accusations of slipper tampering and leaving their toe jam in the inappropriately borrowed slippers, “And if I catch/the asshole/who using my/rubber slippers/and making me/catch their toe jams/I going broke their ass. (Yamanaka, SNATPT, pg. 69)

Accordingly so, Robert Frost said “Poetry is what get’s lost in translation” So what is Yamanaka’s “foot” saying?  I intend to look at this poetic translation through the lens of colonialism.

What I find particularly interesting is that prior to Hawaii’s colonization footwear was not as popular. During the adoption of these customs, their sense of modesty was awakened, while the art of living barefoot, that came with the surf riding culture, diminished. Coming to incorporate footwear into their daily regimen, Hawaiian peoples have unofficially adopted the slipper as their state footwear, as it is the most seen and worn shoe on the island, pushing the Hawaiian cultural aspect of comfortability through the perpetuation of this symbol in jewelry, tattoos, still lifes and sculptures. While rubber slippers are still in accord with the Hawaiian’s lifestyle choice of a balanced minimalist nature they can be considered a new paradigm of existence with which to view cross cultural colonization. Although the Hawaiian rubber slipper is a descendant of the Japanese Zori sandal, the iconic rubber slipper is a physical mediator of Hawaiian values, like practicality, thriftiness, humility and personal freedom inspite of the oppressively binding closed toe shoes of mainland western morally based ideals.

The significance of toe jam in the poem seems to signal a fragmented sense of selfishness, intrusion and criticism that is also conveyed in the two other poems under the heading “Blame in Parts”. Toe jam being the dead skin cells, sock fluff, surface dirt, sweat, skin oils and bacteria accumulated throughout the day which poor hygienic practices or certain feet-related medical conditions such as athlete's foot can make the appearance and odor of toe jam even more noticeable. The misappropriate instances of self-centeredness with explicit connections to manners, hygiene, and greed from the reading seem to culminate to a blame in whole with relation to social etiquette passed down by the early pioneering missionaries in Hawaii. The toe jam is like a micro version of the dispossession of Hawaiian cultures and the infringement of privacy leading to difficulties produced by imperialism's consumerist nature.

Spahr: Colonial Guilt and Feeling Better About It

Juliana Spahr’s poetry highlights the concepts and the issues of belonging and of owning in “Some of We and the Land that was Never Ours.” The speaker identifies and categorizes the subjects, “some of we,” into multiple categories in which those who worked the land, described by the speaker as “[s]ome of we wore the land,” “[s]ome of we carried the ground“ are distinct from those who were foreigners, “[s]ome of we were to settle. Some of we were to arrange.” For those who settle, the speaker asserts “the land was never ours . . . [n]ever to be owned” (12). These assertions are reminiscent of ancient Hawaiian culture, in which the Hawaiians did not have the same concept of ownership as modern Westerners. In this way, Spahr gives cultural authority to the Natives and aligns herself with them as an ally; her alignment with native Hawaiians is present in other poems in the book as well, such as the detail of the role of invasive species, which she portrays negatively in “Sonnets,” and an exploration of her colonial/white guilt in “Dole Street.” The poem “Some of We . . . “ acts as an introduction to her exploration in this sense--the foreigners claimed ownership of land that could not be owned, and that they definitely did not own, nor have any rights thereof until it was taken (a verb she uses in “Things of Each Possible Relation . . .”) by force.

Spahr explores white/colonial guilt in “Dole Street,” a poem named after the street on which she lived that was named after a white annexationist.  The poem begins with the story of the twin rain spirits who give the Hawaiians fresh water, which “eventually attracts foreigners who do not respect the water, who plant water lilies from afar in it, who build a church overlooking it,” reiterating the narrative of arrangement and change (45-6). A native Hawaiian story is used to illustrate the Native belief, deliberately setting it against the “taking” done by the foreigners, who end up destroying with their lack of respect. The speaker then announces, “I am a part of Dole Street’s swirl of connection whether I like it or not” and that “[a]s the stereotypical continental schoolteacher, I need to think about how to respect the water that is there, how to not suck it all up with my root system” (47, 49). She is guilty because she benefits from the colonialism that forced Western education onto the island, but she navigates through guilt by respecting natives and by asserting that she must be responsible and use her Western privilege to acknowledge the destructive and oppressive effects that colonialism had on Hawaii.

Adoption in the Queen's story

One thing I found interesting in Liliuokalani's story was the adoption of the children amongst the nobility. In Western society, most adoptions occur because the parents are unable to take care of the children for whatever reason. But, in the time of Liliuokalani, the noble families adopted each other's children, almost as if they were trading, in order to form a bond amongst the different groups. The adoptions were a lot like today's open adoptions, where the birth parents were able to contact their children. However, Liliuokalani stated that her adoptive parents were the parents that she acknowledged as her own. I thought that it was an interesting change of perspective, considering that most adopted children in today's society and the media are so interested in finding their birth parents. I like the idea of a more porous sense of family, and although it is very unconventional by today's standards, I think that the native Hawaiians were on to something because their society did seem to be a lot more peaceful than those that we're seeing today, but perhaps that was only because they were so isolated for so long from the bigger, more powerful societies.