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Unfamiliar Fishes

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  • Unfamiliar Fishes

    http://moourl.com/0fm4b (YouTube video of Vowell reading from her new book - visuals are all "creative" variations of plate lunch)
    http://www.indiebound.org/book/9781594487873 (info on book)
    http://newyork.timeout.com/arts-cult...hes-an-excerpt (an excerpt, like it says)

    Sarah Vowell's new book gets into the overthrow of Hawaiian monarchy ... and plate lunch, as only she can do.

  • #2
    Re: Unfamiliar Fishes

    interesting concept - except there is no Treaty of Annexation. Therefore, no annexation. I do like her description though of President Obama being our first "Plate Lunch president".
    Last edited by anapuni808; March 9, 2011, 07:58 AM.
    "Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be."
    – Sydney J. Harris

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    • #3
      Re: Unfamiliar Fishes

      Originally posted by anapuni808 View Post
      interesting concept - except there is no Treaty of Annexation. Therefore, no annexation.
      Possibly she means the one signed by Sherman, Hatch, Thurston & Kinney in 1897 - but as it was never ratified by the U.S., you are right - it's only a "proposed" treaty.

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      • #4
        Re: Unfamiliar Fishes

        there is not now nor has there ever been a Treaty of Annexation. Therefore, I hope her book is labeled as fiction because her concept of understanding Hawaii is based on something that is just plain not true. and calling Queen Lili`uokalani a "songwriter" is just plain disrespectful. That surely could have been phrased differently! This is not a book I would consider buying or even reading.
        "Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be."
        – Sydney J. Harris

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        • #5
          Re: Unfamiliar Fishes

          Originally posted by anapuni808 View Post
          there is not now nor has there ever been a Treaty of Annexation.
          Semantically speaking (as I respectfully defer to your stronger knowledge in this realm), how would you refer to the document presented here? Even though that wasn't ratified, didn't the Newlands Resolution technically (if not questionably or illegally) "annex" Hawai`i? Is there a more appropriate term to refer to the action of these documents?

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          • #6
            Re: Unfamiliar Fishes

            Originally posted by Leo Lakio View Post
            Semantically speaking (as I respectfully defer to your stronger knowledge in this realm), how would you refer to the document presented here? Even though that wasn't ratified, didn't the Newlands Resolution technically (if not questionably or illegally) "annex" Hawai`i? Is there a more appropriate term to refer to the action of these documents?
            the words under the title, "never ratified by the United States", answers your question. The Newlands Resolution had no power to annex anything. and that is in the US Constitution. "Taking" might be a good word to use instead. I could go on & on but what it boils down to is you either believe what happened here was illegal & wrong, or you don't. There is not really any middle ground on the issue.

            However, all this has been discussed before & at great length on other threads. Your thread here is about the book, "Unfamiliar Fishes" and that is what it should remain.
            "Democracy is the only system that persists in asking the powers that be whether they are the powers that ought to be."
            – Sydney J. Harris

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            • #7
              Re: Unfamiliar Fishes

              Originally posted by anapuni808 View Post
              I could go on & on but what it boils down to is you either believe what happened here was illegal & wrong, or you don't. There is not really any middle ground on the issue.
              I don't know about that. It seems in this case that someone believes what happened here was illegal and wrong but also believes it was an annexation. That sounds like a middle ground. When it comes to belief, there's ALWAYS middle ground.
              But I'm disturbed! I'm depressed! I'm inadequate! I GOT IT ALL! (George Costanza)
              GrouchyTeacher.com

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              • #8
                Re: Unfamiliar Fishes

                As well, a lot of 'stuff' happened, some of it legal and correct, some of it questionable. I, and the U.S. Government, find the annexation resolution legal and binding, regardless of the legality of the Overthrow.
                May I always be found beneath your contempt.

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                • #9
                  Re: Unfamiliar Fishes

                  I recently started reading this one as well. I'm not sure how I feel about her style. It's full of interesting tidbits, though--stuff I managed to ignore in Hawaiian History class. The first 90 pages or so, seems like it's all about the missionaries.

                  Here's a quote I liked. It refers to Rev. Hiram Bingham's worries that Hawaii would fall apart after the kapu system was abolished, unless a strong replacement religion were instilled:
                  Anarchy as a movement or a disposition is difficult to cultivated in a society in which each person knows his place, in which there is nothing more important than hierarchy and lineage, where children clean their belly buttons to honor their ancestors, where rulers' sexuality is not only openly discussed, it is celebrated with choreography because procreation is the root of continuity and tradition.

                  It's tempting to reduce the initial encounters between Hawaiians and missionaries to some sort of clunky prequel to Footloose. After all, when Daniel Chamberlain witnessed his first hula, he wrote, "I scarcely ever saw anything look more Satanic." Yet a procreative hula honoring a high chief strikes me as emblematically Hawaiian because it is conservative. The cultural collision of the New Englanders and their new neighbors isn't a quarrel between barefoot, freewheeling libertines and starchy, buttoned-up paragons of virtue (though this is how the missionaries see it). To me, it is the story of traditionalists squaring off.

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                  • #10
                    Re: Unfamiliar Fishes

                    I read it and thoroughly enjoyed it. Several tidbits that she offered were left out of my Hawaiian history classes (and now I'd like to know if it's because of the teacher or the publishers of the textbooks).

                    I never really delved into Hawaii's annexation, so I can't really judge her perspectives. For now, fences make nice seats.
                    Twitter: LookMaICanWrite


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                    • #11
                      Re: Unfamiliar Fishes

                      My wife and I both bought this book separately (for our respective reading devices of choice). She finished it, and liked it, but as she's read most of Vowell's other books, she thought this one repeated some of the themes of her other titles and wasn't quite as coherent as her other works.

                      I haven't gotten more than a few chapters in, and can definitely say her meandering style is an acquired taste (or an outright mess, depending on your point of view). She'll go off on a tangent, then take a tangent from that tangent, and... well, I'm pretty sure she doesn't get back to the main narrative she started the chapter with.

                      But I do very much like reading the perspective of someone who's more a student of American and European (Western) history, putting the annexation of Hawaii in a different global context than I've heard before. She also found little gems in the archive that I've not seen referenced anywhere before.

                      As I blogged when the book came out, I'm mostly happy that someone with a contemporary, pop-culture aware audience is tackling a topic that most Americans know almost nothing about. However framed, more awareness of that period in both U.S. and Hawaii history can only be a good thing.

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                      • #12
                        Re: Unfamiliar Fishes

                        I finished this a couple of months ago. I pretty much have to agree with pzarquon that her "pop history" approach winds up feeling a little scattershot. But for example, her digressions into American and missionary relationships with the Cherokee became more understandable when I realized this book isn't about the Hawaiian people. It's about the missionaries who traveled to the islands, what they did there, and how they prepared the islands culturally and politically for annexation. She also argues that the annexation was in character with the US's previous expansion into North America and 1898 widespread power consolidation as spoils of the Spanish-American War (the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico, and Cuba--or at least Guantanamo Bay).

                        She tries to portray the missionaries as both an incursion of cultural xenophobes and simultaneously as true believers who cared about the well-being of the Hawaiians. As an aspiring educator, I was fascinated to learn how the missionaries learned to speak Hawaiian, devised a system for writing it down, and taught Hawaiians to read--reaching a 75% literacy level in two generations, outdistancing the US's reading ability. Of course, this was all in service of getting printing presses working putting out Hawaiian translations of the Bible (done by eight ministers over 15 years, directly from the Hebrew...amazing!) I didn't think I could find missionaries sympathetic, but I sort of did by the end.

                        So I learn a lot more details of people and places (like I said before, stuff I'd carefully ignored in middle school), and there's a lengthy biography in the back. Although it did not satisfy me as much as I'd like, it did leave me hungry for more history about our islands. It's a quick and easy read, and I hope it inspires others to dig in and understand more.

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                        • #13
                          Re: Unfamiliar Fishes

                          Originally posted by pzarquon View Post
                          I haven't gotten more than a few chapters in, and can definitely say her meandering style is an acquired taste (or an outright mess, depending on your point of view). She'll go off on a tangent, then take a tangent from that tangent, and... well, I'm pretty sure she doesn't get back to the main narrative she started the chapter with.
                          Originally posted by Pohaku View Post
                          I pretty much have to agree with pzarquon that her "pop history" approach winds up feeling a little scattershot.
                          My (overdue) take is similar: http://www.hawaiithreads.com/showpos...&postcount=672

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