A Paradise Lost - KOPS - Universität Konstanz

5.4 Place
I would not have
traded places
with anyone
not even
God
Graham Salisbury – “Island Boyz” 538
While the ‘South Seas’ have been associated with notions of an earthly paradise for
several centuries, the massive promotion of the Hawaiian Islands as tourist paradise is a
more recent phenomenon. Many writers have attempted to counter the ubiquitous
marketing jargon by evoking what they experience as the reality of Hawai’i, from city life
and the mundane to hidden beauty and backstreet trouble. If a Local writer speaks of
paradise, he usually does so in either an ironic or a spiteful fashion. Much more common
is the depiction of a contested space: islands, beaches, valleys, and other specific places
are imaginatively (re)claimed. On a different level, place is envisioned as home, as the
ground in which Local identity is rooted. The close connection of place and community
(or place and family, as in ‘ohana), expressed in many of the analyzed texts is
exemplified by the founding narrative of Bamboo Ridge:
The press itself was named after a fishing spot on the east coast of O’ahu where
Local fishermen fish the slide-bait way, a Local invention. Fishermen cast their
lines out, and when their leads get caught on coral heads, they slide a baited hook
down the line. […]As more and more fishermen were initiated into the secret of
that particular fishing spot, the once secluded site became surrounded by a ridge
of bamboo fishing poles, suggesting both the formation of a sizable community
and the threat the community poses to the secrets necessary to good fishing. But
the generative myth behind Bamboo Ridge suggests that the community formed is
more important than the actual fish caught. Instead, the trope of Bamboo Ridge
further unifies the Local community against the commercial fishing boats
538 Graham Salisbury, Island Boyz: Short Stories, New York 2002: 5.
205