Ethnic Lit of Hawaii (60; XL ES 370)

Note: This section has an enrollment maximum of
60.  It is designed to interest
non-English majors, but it can be applied toward the major or minor as well.


            In
this course, we will be reading literatures written by a broad range of writers
who focus on the importance of the languages, cultures, and knowledges that
shape and are shaped by Hawai‘i as a place. 
We will first examine the ways that Kanaka ‘Ōiwi writers like Queen Lili‘uokalani trace their mo‘okū‘auhau or genealogies back to the kulāiwi, the ancestral lands, and
continue to use forms of mo‘olelo in their written narratives.  By contrast, many other narratives emerged from efforts in the
1970s to define a “local” identity in community struggles to protect leased
agricultural lands slated for commercial and urban development.  Visual texts of local solidarity in newspapers
show people linking their arms in a human blockade across Kamehameha Highway in
front of the Waiāhole Poi Factory in protest against the police-enforced
eviction of farmers.  We will then
turn to texts that trace interethnic conflicts between groups in Hawai‘i and an
increased awareness that Kanaka ‘Ōiwi
struggles for the kulāiwi are
based on a genealogical relationship with land that differs from the
relationship that non-Hawaiian local people have with land.  We will discuss the complexities of  local communities, such as the survival strategies
of a young local Filipino boy growing up gay and working-class in Kalihi and the
sexual trafficking of Korean women to the local bar system in Hawai‘i that is
the legacy of Japanese and U.S. militarism in Korea.  We will then turn to the ways that writers in
Hawai‘i articulate a vision of a future beyond settler colonialism and globalized
corporate exploitation, a vision of ‘āina
momona, the abundance of the land, based on the restoration of lo‘i kalo (taro
terraces), loko i‘a (fishponds), ‘auwai (waterways) and the knowledge conveyed in
narrative forms such as mo‘olelo, ‘ōlelo
no‘eau and mo‘okū‘auhau that is
necessary to sustain ‘āina
momona and its sacred sites.  Throughout
the course,
we will engage in close textual analyses of the narrative strategies with which
Hawai‘i writers negotiate the specificities of these conditions, and we will
also consider how their narrative innovations are inextricable from a broader
consideration of the power relations within which these texts are produced and
read

            This course has a Hawaiian and Asian or
Pacific Issues (HAP) Focus designation. 
Hawaiian and Asian issues are fully integrated into the main course
material and will constitute at least 2/3 of the course content.

 

Requirements: Two
mid-term exams, a final exam, seven scheduled quizzes, attendance and
participation.

Required Texts
(available at Revolution Books)
: Queen Lili‘uokalani, Hawaii’s Story by Hawaii’s Queen;Darrell Lum and Eric Chock, eds., The Best of Bamboo Ridge; R. Zamora Linmark, Rolling the R’s;Nora Okja Keller, Fox Girl; Candace Fujikane and Jonathan Okamura, eds., Asian Settler Colonialism: From Local
Governance to the Habits of Everyday Life in Hawai‘i
; Haunani-Kay Trask, Light in the Crevice Never Seen; Lilikalā Kame‘eleihiwa, A Legendary Tradition of Kamapua‘a, the Legendary Pig-God.  A required course reader will include works
by Noelani Goodyear-Ka‘ōpua,
Linda Revilla, Noenoe Silva, Gizelle Gajelonia, Keanu Sai, Alice Chai, Ho‘oulumāhiehie, Richard Hamasaki, Ann
Kapulani Landgraf, Sucheng Chan, Eric Yamamoto, Walter Ritte, and others.  The course reader will be available during
the second week of classes.