A Paradise Lost - KOPS - Universität Konstanz

consciousness in such places demands a revaluation and a rewriting of history, one that
highlights the gaps and contradictions, one that gives voice to the silenced, the
indigenous, the subaltern. Due to its possible scope and discursive form, the novel is the
preferred medium for dealing critically with local or world history. Foci are often time
periods that entailed profound changes, like the arrival of Captain Cook and of the
missionaries, or the overthrow of the monarchy, or those about which certain groups feel
that their viewpoint has never been mentioned, like plantation life, or Japanese
internment after Pearl Harbor. Generally, and not surprisingly, World War II is a frequent
time frame and topic for Local (and outsider) novels, both due to the tremendous impact
it had on the Islands and to the dramatic potential of ‘the War.’ There are also less
obvious historic events which might have gone unnoticed in the rest of the world but have
wrought havoc on the lives of Hawai’i residents or their forebears, such as tsunamis (tidal
waves) and hurricanes, leprosy, or the forced prostitution of mostly Korean women by the
Japanese army in World War II.
Just as the unofficial parts of history, the gaps and silences in
conventional/hegemonic historiography, are taken up by Local writers, so also the private,
particular, and marginal histories are turned into literature. Biographical writing is a
locally prevalent literary mode. Several of Hawaii’s cultures, such as native Hawaiian and
Chinese, traditionally place great significance on lineage and genealogy. The islands’
multicultural setup with its frequency of immigrant and mixed ethnic backgrounds
reinforces this importance placed on descent. Cumulatively, this accounts for the
frequency of novels and poetry dealing with personal and family history. Authors explain
that their impulse for writing stems from the wish to remember and preserve a past or
dying lifestyle, to keep a record for the coming generations. One can also argue that
immigrant family histories set in Hawai’i create roots and a sense of home. Besides
fulfilling the human desire to belong somewhere, they can serve as vindications in the
face of native claims of exclusivity. In the works of the Bamboo Ridge poets Cathy Song,
Juliet S. Kono, Eric Chock, and Wing Tek Lum, history figures prominently. In the light
of recent charges directed at the Bamboo Ridge editors, such as publishing only Asian
possession, a rhetoric that colonizes Native Hawaiians with its claim to produce knowledge superior to what
Native Hawaiians themselves know” (Wood 1996: 26). For a related argument, see also footnote # 381 on
page 144.
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