The Politics of Natural Disasters in Gary Pak’s Children of a Fireland
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Hawaiʽi is an example of a place where decolonization has yet to take place, and where sovereignty is very much a current issue. Gary Pak, hailed as one of the most prominent Asian-Hawaiian authors, identifies himself primarily as a local writer whose fiction addresses the issue of Hawaiʽi’s cultural and (neo)colonial politics. His 2004 novel Children of a Fireland, set in an imaginary town of Kānewai, takes under scrutiny the pervasive practices of (neo)colonialism and its disturbing effects on the environment and indigenous culture. This paper argues that the many natural disasters in the novel operate on a political, and not on a cultural level. The natural disasters are presented as supernatural, even fantastical events in order to expose not just the violent impact colonialism has had on both peoples and the land, but also the manner in which it was carried out through the divine sanction of the Church. Therefore, by way of mapping religion—Christianity vs. shamanism—onto the landscape of natural phenomena, and by demonstrating the novel’s strategic use of catastrophic events, this paper argues that all fantastical and environmental catastrophes can be traced back to US imperialism. When true decolonization cannot take place, the supernatural disasters, which happen at sites of monumental importance to indigenous history, restore the landscape to its precolonial state. Ultimately, the land can only be reclaimed through the imagination. By erasing marks of colonial history and by blurring, at least, temporarily the distinctions between the local and settler communities, the supernatural disasters offer a means of overcoming imperialism.
Abstract
Hawaiʽi is an example of a place where decolonization has yet to take place, and where sovereignty is very much a current issue. Gary Pak, hailed as one of the most prominent Asian-Hawaiian authors, identifies himself primarily as a local writer whose fiction addresses the issue of Hawaiʽi’s cultural and (neo)colonial politics. His 2004 novel Children of a Fireland, set in an imaginary town of Kānewai, takes under scrutiny the pervasive practices of (neo)colonialism and its disturbing effects on the environment and indigenous culture. This paper argues that the many natural disasters in the novel operate on a political, and not on a cultural level. The natural disasters are presented as supernatural, even fantastical events in order to expose not just the violent impact colonialism has had on both peoples and the land, but also the manner in which it was carried out through the divine sanction of the Church. Therefore, by way of mapping religion—Christianity vs. shamanism—onto the landscape of natural phenomena, and by demonstrating the novel’s strategic use of catastrophic events, this paper argues that all fantastical and environmental catastrophes can be traced back to US imperialism. When true decolonization cannot take place, the supernatural disasters, which happen at sites of monumental importance to indigenous history, restore the landscape to its precolonial state. Ultimately, the land can only be reclaimed through the imagination. By erasing marks of colonial history and by blurring, at least, temporarily the distinctions between the local and settler communities, the supernatural disasters offer a means of overcoming imperialism.
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