A Paradise Lost - KOPS - Universität Konstanz

nation, in this case, the United States. In my opinion, this is especially true in Hawai’i,
given the state’s extremely mixed population. Nevertheless, ‘being American’ has for
several decades been an issue in the islands and their literature as well, as such different
novels as Milton Murayama’s All I Asking for Is My Body and Graham Salisbury’s Under
the Blood-Red Sun will show.
One thing remains to be noted: As a scare term used by American New Right
politicians and journalists to signal a crisis in higher education and intellectual life,
cultural studies is often thrown together with multiculturalism and deconstruction.
Rather, cultural studies constitutes a school of thought that utilizes positions established
in the context of theorizing the postcolonial or postmodern. The works of critics and
writers such as Edward Said and Salman Rushdie on colonialism, discourses of power,
and hybridization, may thus be consulted to understand the literatures and cultures of
Hawai’i.
Our country has been and is being plasticized, cheapened, and exploited. They’re selling it in
plastic leis, coconut ashtrays, and cans of ‘genuine, original Aloha.’ They’ve raped us, sold us, killed us,
2.2 Postcolonialism
and still they expect us to behave…. Hawai’i is a colony of the imperialist United States.
Kehau Lee on evictions of Hawaiians from native lands, 1970 55
Although Hawai’i has never been a classical literal colony, imperial interests have vied
for the North Pacific islands since their ‘discovery’ by James Cook in 1776. Since 1810,
the islands were under the central rule of chief Kamehameha I., and under his successors
became a tiny British-style monarchy. In 1843, one George Paulet actually seized power
for the British, but was reprimanded by his superiors. After the incident, several treaties
were negotiated between Britain, France and the United States to ensure that none would
do so again. However, a sugar planters’ lobby gained considerable influence in local
politics, and launched a coup d’etat in 1893, forcing the last queen to abdicate. Then,
after almost a century as an ‘independent kingdom,’ the islands’ strategic value for the
55 Quoted in Haunani-Kay Trask, From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawai’i,
Honolulu 1999: 1-2.
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