A Paradise Lost - KOPS - Universität Konstanz

epresentative of ‘progress’ and ‘development’ that threaten Local fishing, eroding
a Local past. 539
The title of Sumida’s study And the View from the Shore stresses the need for a Hawai’i-
centered perspective as much as Hall’s earlier admonition to “turn and face the mountains
of Manoa.” With “Da Mainland to Me,” Joe Balaz has written a poem that reiterates this
perspective:
Wat you mean continent
brah?!
Da mainland is da
mainland,
dats where you goin, eh?!
Eh, like I told you,
dats da continent –
Hawai’i
is da mainland to me. 540
As the term ‘Local’ indicates, a strong sense of place is central to the formation of a Local
identity. Charlene Gima states:
Certainly one major commonality that people in Hawai’i share – perhaps more so
than on the continent – is locality, a definite geographical community. That is to
say, people in Hawai’i all live on these islands, this volcanic chain that is
separated from other lands (and thereby other communities) by thousands of miles
of ocean. 541
The surrounding ocean is another creatively appropriated space, alternately cast as border
and refuge, antagonist and cradle, sacred and threatening, healing and challenging.
539 Fujikane 1996: 89.
540 “Da Mainland to me,” in Balaz 1999.
541 Gima 1997: 19-20.
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