A Paradise Lost - KOPS - Universität Konstanz

important for someone to establish a primarily Hawaiian-focused literary journal,
there will be a need for a Local community journal like Bamboo Ridge for a long
time to come. 266
Nevertheless, this encompassing Local is always in danger of glossing over the
complexities of interethnic relations, of obscuring “its own exclusions and historicity,” as
Gima rightly notes. 267 While ‘Oiwi: A Native Hawaiian Journal answered the need for an
explicitly indigenous venue for creative expression in 1998, several other literary
magazines have been publishing – among other foci – island writing in recent decades. In
1991, Sumida could still note that “the repetition of editors’ and contributors’ names from
one journal to another shows how tight is the circle of Hawaii’s literary net.” 268
The balmy dreams of these islands deny the local writer a voice because they reduce the local to less than
human, and they render the natural Hawaiian social setting unrecognizable and truly unspeakable,
whether in reality or in conception to the resident.
Stephen Sumida – And the View from the Shore 269
4.5 And the View from the Shore: Stephen Sumida’s Pioneering Work
Out of the consolidation of local Asian writers initiated by the Talk Story Conference also
emerged the invaluable work of Stephen Sumida, who tirelessly strove to invalidate
266 Chock 1996: 20, 23. What I find problematic in Chock’s delineation are his references to the unifying
role of the United States, which arguably are neocolonial and imperialist: “We are attempting to encompass
a veriety of ethnic and other voices while moving toward some kind of ideal multicultural nation, of which
Hawaii itself is a kind of model. […] This view comprises a vision of America as a leader in the
development of World Culture. While remaining grounded in our separate histories, we all seek ways to
create a better composite future” (13, 23).
267 Gima 1997: 40. She then quotes Jonathan Okamura criticizing “Localism” for being “a limited, if not
divisive, form of multiculturalism since it establishes and maintains categorical boundaries between local
and nonlocal groups.”
268 Sumida 1991: xi. Seaweeds and Constructions, edited by Richard Hamasaki (with the assistance of the
late Wayne Westlake) from 1976 to 1984, published Asian and Asian American, Local, and Polynesian
literature and art. Ramrod was edited by Joseph Balaz and appeared from 1980 to 1997. Hawai’i Review,
appearing from 1973 to the present, edited initially by Dana Naone Hall and presently by Lisa Linn Kanae,
is the University of Hawaii’s literary journal. Its precursor, the Hawaii Quill Magazine which ran from
1928 to 1937, was an early avenue for Local creative expression. As a student, O.A. Bushnell had been
president of the Hawaii Quill Society, and had published texts in the journal. In between, the student journal
Kapa ran from 1963 to 1972, its last issues featuring early texts from Darrell Lum and Dana Naone Hall.
269 Sumida 1991: 270-1.
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