Duke University Press
  • Have you registered as a member of our site? Sign up today.

  • Aloha America: Hula Circuits through the U.S. Empire

    Author(s): Adria L. Imada
    Published: 2012
    Pages: 392
    Illustrations: 80 illustrations
  • Paperback: $24.95 - In Stock
    978-0-8223-5207-5
  • Cloth: $89.95 - In Stock
    978-0-8223-5196-2
  • Quantity
  • Add To Bag
  • Note on Language  ix
    Acknowledgments  xi
    Introduction. Aloha America  1
    1. Lady Jane at the Boathouse: The Intercultural World of Hula  29
    2. Modern Desires and Counter-Colonial Tactics: Gender, Performance, and the Erotics of Empire  59
    3. Impresarios on the Midway: World's Fairs and Colonial Politics  103
    4. "Hula Queens" and "Cinderella": Imagined Intimacy in the Empire  153
    5. The Troupes Meet the Troops: Imperial Hospitality and Military Photography in the Pacific Theater  213
    Epilogue. New Hula Movements  255
    Chronology. Hawai'i Exhibits at International Expositions, 1894–1915  269
    Abbreviations of Collections, Libraries, and Archives  271
    Notes  273
    Glossary  337
    Bibliography  339
    Index  357
  • Winner, 2013 Best First Book in Women's, Gender, and/or Sexuality History by the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians

    Winner, 2013 Lawrence W. Levine Award, Organization of American Historians

  • “[An] extensively researched history. . . . Archival digs brought Imada into contact with surviving dancers and their families, whose stories she wove with her own experiences to produce a comprehensive account of how the “adaptive and resilient practice” of hula works in conjunction with tourism. . . .Fascinating photographs of the dancers—with careful commentary on poses and dress—illuminate the mannerisms and views of the performers. “Publishers Weekly

    “For a reader who is not deeply familiar with hula and its culture, and may be guilty of watching hula simply for the entertainment factor, Aloha America is a refreshing page-turner. Albeit the moderate level of scholarly information, Imada makes the text easy to digest, also injecting touching anecdotes of hula life behind the stage lights. The final product is a book that is more an interesting field study than strict academic rhetoric.”—Jamie Noguchi, Honolulu Weekly

    “The brilliance of this book does not stop there, however. I find its methodology most intellectually energizing and inspiring.”—L. Ayu Saraswati, American Studies

    Awards

  • Winner, 2013 Best First Book in Women's, Gender, and/or Sexuality History by the Berkshire Conference of Women Historians

    Winner, 2013 Lawrence W. Levine Award, Organization of American Historians

  • Reviews

  • “[An] extensively researched history. . . . Archival digs brought Imada into contact with surviving dancers and their families, whose stories she wove with her own experiences to produce a comprehensive account of how the “adaptive and resilient practice” of hula works in conjunction with tourism. . . .Fascinating photographs of the dancers—with careful commentary on poses and dress—illuminate the mannerisms and views of the performers. “Publishers Weekly

    “For a reader who is not deeply familiar with hula and its culture, and may be guilty of watching hula simply for the entertainment factor, Aloha America is a refreshing page-turner. Albeit the moderate level of scholarly information, Imada makes the text easy to digest, also injecting touching anecdotes of hula life behind the stage lights. The final product is a book that is more an interesting field study than strict academic rhetoric.”—Jamie Noguchi, Honolulu Weekly

    “The brilliance of this book does not stop there, however. I find its methodology most intellectually energizing and inspiring.”—L. Ayu Saraswati, American Studies

  • "In Aloha America, Adria L. Imada shows how U.S. elites used a blend of tropicalism and orientalism to facilitate U.S. domination over Hawai'i. By foregrounding the eroticized bodies of Hawaiian women hula dancers, these elites created what Imada calls an 'imagined intimacy' between the U.S. public and the subjugated Hawaiians. The sexualized images of Hawaiian women helped to occlude resistance to U.S. imperialism in the Pacific and to make Hawai'i suitable for statehood by shifting Americans' attention away from its large Asian immigrant population. At the same time, hula served as a countercolonial archive of collective Hawaiian memory, preserving preconquest histories, epistemologies, and ontologies."—George Lipsitz, author of How Racism Takes Place

    "Attentive to global forces of U.S. imperialism and to the agency of discrete cultural producers, Adria L. Imada conceives of Hawaiian hula as constitutive of colonial relations involving collaboration and resistance. Moreover and significantly, 'hula circuits' outside of Hawai`i, she suggests, sustained Hawaiian culture (and hence nationhood) even as they transformed it—an astute and provocative contention."—Gary Y. Okihiro, author of Island World: A History of Hawai’i and the United States

  • Permission to Photocopy (coursepacks)

    If you are requesting permission to photocopy material for classroom use, please contact the Copyright Clearance Center at copyright.com;

    If the Copyright Clearance Center cannot grant permission, you may request permission from our Copyrights & Permissions Manager (use Contact Information listed below).

    Permission to Reprint

    If you are requesting permission to reprint DUP material (journal or book selection) in another book or in any other format, contact our Copyrights & Permissions Manager (use Contact Information listed below).

    Images/Art

    Many images/art used in material copyrighted by Duke University Press are controlled, not by the Press, but by the owner of the image. Please check the credit line adjacent to the illustration, as well as the front and back matter of the book for a list of credits. You must obtain permission directly from the owner of the image. Occasionally, Duke University Press controls the rights to maps or other drawings. Please direct permission requests for these images to permissions@dukeupress.edu.
    For book covers to accompany reviews, please contact the publicity department.

    Subsidiary Rights/Foreign Translations

    If you're interested in a Duke University Press book for subsidiary rights/translations, please contact permissions@dukeupress.edu. Include the book title/author, rights sought, and estimated print run.

    Disability Requests

    Instructions for requesting an electronic text on behalf of a student with disabilities are available here.

    Rights & Permissions Contact Information

    Email: permissions@dukeupress.edu
    Email contact for coursepacks: asstpermissions@dukeupress.edu
    Fax: 919-688-4574
    Mail:
    Duke University Press
    Rights and Permissions
    905 W. Main Street
    Suite 18B
    Durham, NC 27701

    For all requests please include:
    1. Author's name. If book has an editor that is different from the article author, include editor's name also.
    2. Title of the journal article or book chapter and title of journal or title of book
    3. Page numbers (if excerpting, provide specifics)
    For coursepacks, please also note: The number of copies requested, the school and professor requesting
    For reprints and subsidiary rights, please also note: Your volume title, publication date, publisher, print run, page count, rights sought
  • Description

    Aloha America reveals the role of hula in legitimating U.S. imperial ambitions in Hawai'i. Hula performers began touring throughout the continental United States and Europe in the late nineteenth century. These "hula circuits" introduced hula, and Hawaiians, to U.S. audiences, establishing an "imagined intimacy," a powerful fantasy that enabled Americans to possess their colony physically and symbolically. Meanwhile, in the early years of American imperialism in the Pacific, touring hula performers incorporated veiled critiques of U.S. expansionism into their productions.

    At vaudeville theaters, international expositions, commercial nightclubs, and military bases, Hawaiian women acted as ambassadors of aloha, enabling Americans to imagine Hawai'i as feminine and benign, and the relation between colonizer and colonized as mutually desired. By the 1930s, Hawaiian culture, particularly its music and hula, had enormous promotional value. In the 1940s, thousands of U.S. soldiers and military personnel in Hawai'i were entertained by hula performances, many of which were filmed by military photographers. Yet, as Adria L. Imada shows, Hawaiians also used hula as a means of cultural survival and countercolonial political praxis. In Aloha America, Imada focuses on the years between the 1890s and the 1960s, examining little-known performances and films before turning to the present-day reappropriation of hula by the Hawaiian self-determination movement.

    About The Author(s)

    Adria L. Imada is Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at the University of California, San Diego.
Explore More

Sign-in or register now to opt-in to receive periodic emails about titles within this subject.

Share

Create a reading list or add to an existing list. Sign-in or register now to continue.