Global Asian American Popular Cultures by Shilpa Dave LeiLani Nishime Tasha Oren

Author:Shilpa Dave, LeiLani Nishime, Tasha Oren [Shilpa Dave, LeiLani Nishime, Tasha Oren]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, Social & Cultural Studies, Social Science, Cultural Studies, Ethnic Studies
ISBN: 9781479837496
Publisher: NYU Press
Published: 2016-05-16T04:00:00+00:00

State of Tourism

For Jon Goss, the narrative of the tourist scapes of Hawai‘i follows a cyclical arc of “innocence, corruption, and redemption.”10 This story arc is complicit with the official history of Hawai‘i from the vantage of the imperial culture in which innocent native culture is corrupted by colonialism but redeemed through its attachment to the United States. In the 1960s tourist films of Hawai‘i, this redemption is achieved and displayed through the expansion of the tourist industry and thus economic independence of the former colony. And tourist development coincides with individual character development. In Blue Hawaii, Chad describes his assertion of financial independence from his parents as his “declaration of independence.” The narrative encodes an allegory about the status of Hawai‘i for the mainland viewer, as paradoxically attaining independence as it becomes moored to the united States. In this case, independence is the consequence of ever more tourism. Chad has to reconcile the paradoxes and conflicts in his quest for the pleasures of leisure by shirking the duties of work. His desire is complicit with the tourist desire to throw off the yoke of industrialism and find freedom in the experience of pure pleasure. Or as Maile reminds Chad, whom she finds napping on a surfboard: “You can’t spend the rest of your life on a surfboard.” Chad will find a way to bring together the opposing forces of leisure and work by making his leisure into work—just as he integrates a number of other oppositions that he encounters.

Chad searches for a viable career in the tourist industry working for a small tour guide company instead of working in agricultural business raising pineapples with his father. His search for a lucrative and independent business allegorizes the shift in Hawai‘i from the plantation economy to tourism. His maturation to independence allegorizes what is deemed as the “economic maturation” of Hawai‘i. He embodies all of the major industries and institutions on the islands: military, agriculture, and tourism. He refuses the former two for the latter, asserting that “Hawaii has a big future and I want to be a part of it,” referring to the major expansion of the tourist enterprise in the islands. The opportunities of agriculture have been fully tapped and are deemed part of an inert past, while tourism promises a whole new range of possibilities. But his initial refusal to join his family business is only transitional and will be revised when Chad realizes that he can combine both industries and integrate the interests of both generations; he fulfills his father’s expectations and his own entrepreneurial desires by uniting them. He links his tour company with the work of his father’s firm, the Southern Pineapple Company, by offering tours to its employees and arranging incentive trips. His idea is to provide reinvigorating island respites for workers so that they might return to the mainland and work more efficiently.

Chad initially works for another tour company where he learns the ropes of the industry and proves his potential for mature development.

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