Description
Book SynopsisIn a bold challenge to conventional understandings of Hawai‘i’s admission as a U.S. state. Dean Saranillio tracks the disparate stories different groups tell about Hawaiian statehood by returning to historical flashpoints ranging from the turn of the century until shortly after 1959.
Trade Review"[
Unsustainable Empire is] a very powerful book with which to teach about what it means to work across social movements." -- Jaskiran Dhillon * Edge Effects *
"
Unsustainable Empire adds to scholarship on American nation-building, settler colonialism, statehood histories, and public relations politics and propaganda. The book should be a welcome addition to introductory-level history courses that deal with American empire or history and memory." -- Julie Hawks * Journal of American Culture *
"[
Unsustainable Empire] is instructive for its truly intersectional analysis of white and Asian settler colonialisms, U.S. imperialism, and heteropatriarchy, as well as many exciting passages on Hawai‘i's militant labor movement.… The book is an urgent call to expose the web of lies that empire is built on so we can build truly sustainable futures that respect Indigenous values, land, and leadership."
-- Kim Compoc * Native American and Indigenous Studies *
"Perhaps Saranillio’s most significant contribution is his rigorous theoretical analysis of settler colonialism and capitalism. . . . The most hopeful aspects of Saranillio’s work are the alternative futures made possible by a fuller understanding of Hawai‘i’s complex history. Such messaging is both necessarily encouraging and eminently useful for intellectuals employing decolonial methodologies—particularly those in settler-colonial contexts—and all those who seek a decolonized Hawai‘i." -- Shannon Pomaika‘i Hennessey * The Contemporary Pacific *
Table of ContentsPreface. "Statehood Sucks" ix
Acknowledgments xxi
Introduction. Colliding Futures of Hawai‘i Statehood 1
1. A Future Wish: Hawai‘i at the 1893 Chicago World's Columbian Exposition 31
2. The Courage to Speak: Disrupting Haole Hegemony at the 1937 Congressional Statehood Hearings 67
3. "Something Indefinable Would Be Lost": The Unruly Kamokila and
Go for Broke! 99
4. The Propaganda of Occupation: Statehood and the Cold War 131
5. Alternative Futures beyond the Settler State 171
Conclusion. Scenes of Resurgence: Slow Violence and Slow Resistance 197
Notes 211
Bibliography 245
Index 267
