Nonnative Identity, Gendered Labor, and Native Homeland in Local Literature from Hawai'i: Marie Hara's Bananaheart and Other Stories

This article traces how women of Japanese descent in Marie Hara's short story collection Bananaheart and Other Stories (1994) lay claim to the Native homeland of Hawai'i through acts of social reproduction. It also analyzes how the land, as repository of repressed histories, emerges as a force of the uncanny to respond to these claims. The ensuing struggles between the characters and land illuminate the relationships among gendered labor, space, and time that complicate non-native claims to belonging in Hawai'i.