Asian Settler Colonialism Forum

Editors Candace Fujikane and Jonathan Okamura will lead a public forum on their groundbreaking book Asian Settler Colonialism: From Local Governance to the Habits of Everyday Life in Hawai‘i at the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i, Saturday, May 23, 2009, 1:00-2:30 p.m. In a series of essays, contributors from various fields and disciplines investigate aspects of Asian settler colonialism to illustrate its diverse operations and impact on Native Hawaiians. Contributor Haunani-Kay Trask, author of From a Native Daughter: Colonialism and Sovereignty in Hawai‘i, is among the guest speakers scheduled to participate in the forum. For more information on this and other upcoming JCCH events, click here.

Candace Fujikane and Jonathan Okamura will participate in the panel “Island Settler Colonialism” at the Hawai‘i Book and Music Festival, May 17, 2009, at Honolulu Hale. Click here for more details.

Hawaii Book and Music Festival 2009

University of Hawai‘i Press will be among the local publishers participating in the Hawai‘i Book and Music Festival this weekend, May 16-17, 10 am-5 pm, at Honolulu Hale. Admission and parking are free to the general public.

UH Press authors Jon Van Dyke (Who Owns the Crown Lands of Hawai‘i), Heather Diamond (American Aloha: Cultural Tourism and the Negotiation of Tradition), Davianna McGregor (Na Kua‘aina: Living Hawaiian Culture), Carlos Andrade (Ha‘ena: Through the Eyes of the Ancestors), Richard Hamasaki (Westlake: Poems by Wayne Kaumualii Westlake; From the Spider Bone Diaries: Poems and Songs), Witi Ihimaera (The Uncle’s Story; Woman Far Walking, distributed for Huia Publishers, NZ), Gary Pak (Children of a Fireland; A Ricepaper Airplane), Robert Barclay (Melal: A Novel of the Pacific), Jon Thares Davidann (Hawai‘i at the Crossroads of the U.S. and Japan before the Pacific War), and Candace Fujikane and Jon Okamura (Asian Settler Colonialism: From Local Governance to the Habits of Everyday Life in Hawai‘i) will be leading or participating in numerous panels and discussions at the festival. Click here for a detailed schedule of events.

UH Press Titles Honored at the 2009 Ka Palapala Award Ceremony

University of Hawai‘i Press books were among the winners at this year’s Ka Palapala Po‘okela Awards Ceremony, held on May 9, 2009, at the Bishop Museum. The awards are presented by the Hawai‘i Book Publishers Association to recognize the finest books published during the previous year.

Who Owns the Crown Lands of Hawai‘i, by Jon M. Van Dyke, took three top honors: Excellence in Hawaiian Culture, Text/Reference, and Nonfiction. The Nation calls Van Dyke’s book “definitive. Who Owns the Crown Lands of Hawaii? [is] certain to become the standard reference for that question.”

Ha‘ena: Through the Eyes of the Ancestors, by Carlos Andrade, received Honorable Mentions for Excellence in Hawaiian Culture and Nonfiction. Andrade’s work is an ambitious attempt to provide a unique perspective in the complex story of the ahupua‘a of Ha‘ena.

Dying in a Strange Land, by Milton Murayama, received an Honorable Mention for Excellence in Literature. Familiar faces from All I Asking For Is My Body, Five Years on a Rock, and Plantation Boy return to advance the story of the Oyama family from the years immediately following World War II to the 1980s.

Haena Now Available in Paperback

Ha‘ena: Through the Eyes of the Ancestors, by Carlos Andrade, is now available in paperback. Ha‘ena received Honorable Mentions for Excellence in Hawaiian Culture and Nonfiction at the 2009 Ka Palapala Po‘okela Award Ceremony, sponsored annually by the Hawai‘i Book Publishers Association.

Ha‘ena is a land steeped in antiquity yet vibrantly beautiful today as any Hollywood fantasy of a tropical paradise. He ‘aina momona, a rich and fertile land linked to the sea and the rising and setting sun, is a place of gods and goddesses: Pele and her sister, Hi‘iaka, and Laka, patron of hula. It epitomizes the best that can be found in the district of northwestern Kaua‘i, known to aboriginal Hawaiians as Hale Le‘a (House of Pleasure and Delight). This work is an ambitious attempt to provide a unique perspective in the complex story of the ahupua‘a of Ha‘ena.

May 2009 / ISBN 978-0-8248-3410-4 / $18.00 (PAPER)

Carlos Andrade will discuss Ha‘ena and moderate the panel “Holding Fast to the Land” at the Hawai‘i Book and Music Festival, May 16-17, 2009, at Honolulu Hale. Click here for more details.

Readings and Performances in Honor of Wayne Westlake

To celebrate the recent publication of Westlake: Poems by Wayne Kaumualii Westlake (1947–1984), friends and supporters of the late poet will present readings and performances on Saturday, May 16, 2009, at ThirtyNineHotel from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

For a list of participants and event details, please go to http://www.freewebs.com/redflea

Westlake editor Richard Hamasaki will participate in the panel “Poets and Sense of Place” at the Hawai‘i Book and Music Festival, May 16, 2009, at Honolulu Hale. Click here for more details.

Victoria Kneubuhl at the National Museum of the American Indian

As part of the Vine Deloria, Jr., Native Writers Series, Victoria Kneubuhl will be lecturing at the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, May 13, 2009, 6:30 p.m.

Kneubuhl’s play The Conversion of Ka‘ahumanu (featured in Hawai‘i Nei: Island Plays) will be performed at the Museum’s Rasmuson Theater on Friday, May 15, 7:30 p.m., and on Saturday, May 16, 2009, 2:00 p.m. Follow the production of the play at http://www.nmainativetheater.blogspot.com/