Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • 12 - I Kū Mau Mau (Standing Together): Native Hawaiian Literary Politics

  • from Part II - Assimilation and Modernity (1879–1967)
  • Edited by Melanie Benson Taylor, Dartmouth College, New Hampshire
  • Book:
    The Cambridge History of Native American Literature
    Published online:
    18 September 2020
    Print publication:
    17 September 2020, pp 213-232

  • Summary

    Native Hawaiian literature has always provided a foundation of knowledge suggesting a course of action, particularly in times of tremendous social, cultural, and political upheaval. In this way, such literature has always been intertwined with politics. Despite settler colonial attempts to appropriate or subvert the political power of Hawaiian literature, Native Hawaiians continue to evoke traditional orature and compose new literature to directly respond to conditions of settler colonialism, while celebrating the beauty, complexity and continuity of our people and our connection to our land and culture. This essay traces the origins and development of Hawaiian literature as a strategy of national political and cultural consciousness. Reclaiming Indigenous literature from the settler colonial imaginary is an integral part of Hawaiian identity, sovereignty, and nation building. In practice and performance, contemporary Hawaiian literature is an expression of kū mau mau, standing together with a cohesive political purpose to uplift the nation.