This is absolute must watch. We’ve seen Sarah Vowell on The Daily Show before, and enjoy how she shares history with her dry wit and puts things in ways you can easily relate to. As Jon says, “I laugh, but I learn.”
Well, now she’s written a book on Hawai’i, Unfamiliar Fishes. She describes the “orgy of imperialism” of the summer of 1898. And she nails it. Kekula said when it was over, “that was one of the most comprehensive statements on Hawaii ever presented in such a broad media.” A whole lot of very well-informed, engaged people watch Jon Stewart. And the way she explained it was a truth that many people probably heard for the first time. A lot of people will read her book. She explains the context of the Spanish-American War, the role for Hawaii as “a naval base for our forthcoming invasions,” the missionary family children who “overthrew the Hawaiian queen so as to hand the Hawaiian Islands over to the United States,” mentions the anti-annexation petitions, and compares the joint resolution as “the sort of law New Jersey would use to declare a day Jon Bon Jovi Day.”
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| Exclusive – Sarah Vowell Extended Interview Pt. 1 | ||||
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| Exclusive – Sarah Vowell Extended Interview Pt. 2 | ||||
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(text of the above, Unfamiliar Fishes excerpt)
Unfamiliar Fishes
Unfamiliar Fishes
By Sarah Vowell
(Riverhead Hardcover, Hardcover, 9781594487873, 256pp.)
Publication Date: March 22, 2011
From the bestselling author of The Wordy Shipmates, an examination of Hawaii, the place where Manifest Destiny got a sunburn.
Many think of 1776 as the defining year of American history, when we became a nation devoted to the pursuit of happiness through self- government. In Unfamiliar Fishes, Sarah Vowell argues that 1898 might be a year just as defining, when, in an orgy of imperialism, the United States annexed Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and invaded first Cuba, then the Philippines, becoming an international superpower practically overnight.
Among the developments in these outposts of 1898, Vowell considers the Americanization of Hawaii the most intriguing. From the arrival of New England missionaries in 1820, their goal to Christianize the local heathen, to the coup d’état of the missionaries’ sons in 1893, which overthrew the Hawaiian queen, the events leading up to American annexation feature a cast of beguiling, and often appealing or tragic, characters: whalers who fired cannons at the Bible-thumpers denying them their God-given right to whores, an incestuous princess pulled between her new god and her brother-husband, sugar barons, lepers, con men, Theodore Roosevelt, and the last Hawaiian queen, a songwriter whose sentimental ode “Aloha ‘Oe” serenaded the first Hawaiian president of the United States during his 2009 inaugural parade.
With her trademark smart-alecky insights and reporting, Vowell lights out to discover the off, emblematic, and exceptional history of the fiftieth state, and in so doing finds America, warts and all.
Mahalo, that video information was cool!
I love Vowell’s! She noted that the joint resolution as “the sort of law New Jersey would use to declare a day Jon Bon Jovi Day.” She should write a broader book on how much of the “USA” is illegally occupied by the USA! Texas was also “annexed” via a Bon Jovi like joint resolution. No treaty, no annexation! Alaska was fraudently added to the USA even though the statehood vote was invalid under international law.
There are only 47 legal stars on that flag. Time to get this message out to the American public. Maybe Sarah Vowell can get it done.
Thanks for the post.
Is this our “tipping point”? Is this the time to be “on the right side of history”? Will our former constitutional law professor pay heed to the executive agreements of his predecessor? We can see the finish line, can’t we?
Aloha kakou,
You could have knocked me over with a feather! I was amazed at the interview, and pleased. Me, the glutton, wanted more, more…like the Executive Agreement talked about…however, it was a funny rendition of a scathing commentary on greed and Empire building. If I remember rightly when I was little- and at the time thought Hawai’i was the US, no one taught us better at Ala Wai School- I was teased for being British and that we had an Empire and the US didn’t….Aue! little did I know!