Aloha America: Hula Circuits through the U.S. Empire by Adria L Imada (review)

Aloha America: Hula Circuits through the U.S. Empire is an interdisciplinary work that explores how hula performances aided in the securing of Hawai‘i as part of the US empire. Adria Imada examines the various ways that female hula dancers embodied the relationship of hospitality between Hawaiians and the United States from the time of Hawai‘i’s illegal overthrow in 1893 to its becoming the fiftieth state in 1959. Tracing an arc between the Hawaiian monarchy’s deliberate resurgence of hula practices in the face of American cultural and political imperialism, the first hula circuits that came to the US continent and Europe in the late nineteenth century, and contemporary hula circuits, she specifically shows that Hawaiian performers engaged in counter-colonial, rather than anticolonial, acts that have both strengthened and weakened US hegemony in the Islands. This history of performance, argues Imada, obfuscates the American occupation of Hawai‘i. Imada is an associate professor of history at the University of California, Irvine. Being from Hawai‘i and a practitioner of hula, she brings experience and knowledge to this important work.

In chapter 1, “Lady Jane at the Boathouse: The Intercultural World of Hula,” Imada discusses the resurgence of hula as a cultural and political practice under King David Kalākaua. Despite direct opposition by Christian missionaries, who were influential in hula’s suppression earlier in the century, under Kalākaua hula became state sponsored in 1886. As Imada demonstrates, the monarchy viewed hula as an essential practice that empowered Native Hawaiians in a globalized world that continuously but also paradoxically reinforced Native Hawaiian inferiority. When diplomats and foreign travelers came to the Islands, Kalākaua hosted guests at the Healani boathouse and showcased Hawaiian arts and culture including hula. Once reserved for people of a certain status and genealogy, under state sponsorship, hula became something in which commoners were able to participate. Specifically, this shift allowed females from commoner backgrounds to increase their cultural and political capital by engaging in hula. Additionally, hula began to incorporate the various cultural influences in the Islands including non-Hawaiian words and instruments. This type of hula was known as hula ku‘i. Imada details these practices as acts of resilience, writing, “In the face of vast cultural and political dislocation, they were actively shaping a Native Hawaiian modernity that would help them adapt to and survive formal colonization in the next decades” (46). While many changes were occurring in the Islands, she demonstrates that Native Hawaiians actively created a world that was modern and yet still centered in Native Hawaiian epistemes.

In chapter 2, “Modern Desires and Counter-Colonial Tactics: Gender, Performance, and the Erotics of Empire,” Imada traces hula and hula troupes in the continental United States and Europe in the late nineteenth century. Piecing together sparse archival sources amid an overabundance of unnamed photographs of women and troupes, she uses a nonlinear chronology to highlight what James C Scott calls “hidden transcripts” (see Scott’s Domination and the Arts of Resistance [1990]). Incorporating personal photographs and mementos of performers, this chapter highlights methods and narratives that are often obscured in or absent from national and state archives. Following a hula troupe that performed at the World’s Columbian Exposition in 1893, on the vaudeville circuit, and in various theaters and palaces in major cities in Europe, for example, Imada reveals some of the movements, desires, and challenges encountered by its members. Originally departing before the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom, the troupe found themselves as both colonial subjects and cultural ambassadors while engaging in counter-colonial acts by performing certain chants, songs, and pieces that honored their sovereignty. Tracing hula’s move from being solely a cultural practice to one tied to capital, Imada highlights how dancers gradually became...