Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

Staging Democracy and Multiculturalism

Staging Democracy and Multiculturalism This article examines the critical role Hawai‘i’s Japanese American diaspora played at the 1970 Osaka Exposition in facilitating a Hawai‘i-Japan economic partnership and disseminating messages of Hawai‘i’s multiculturalism and democracy to local and international audiences. White and Japanese American male government officials and members of the Governor’s Citizen Advisory Committee for the Expo emphasized the large Japanese American population in Hawai‘i as well as the cultural hybridity of their state in order to make the Japanese audience—potential tourists and investors—feel welcome. The main “spectacle” of the Hawai‘i pavilion featured a group of hostesses—primarily of Japanese American ancestry—who daily danced the hula. While the hostesses graciously performed the femininity and aloha that were expected of them, they also articulated their ethnic identities by educating the Japanese about the Japanese diaspora and its contributions to the fiftieth state of the United States. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas Brill

Staging Democracy and Multiculturalism

Loading next page...
 
/lp/brill/staging-democracy-and-multiculturalism-V97qkSuHSv

References (6)

Publisher
Brill
Copyright
© 2015 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands
Subject
Articles
ISSN
2352-3077
eISSN
2352-3085
DOI
10.1163/23523085-00101003
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

This article examines the critical role Hawai‘i’s Japanese American diaspora played at the 1970 Osaka Exposition in facilitating a Hawai‘i-Japan economic partnership and disseminating messages of Hawai‘i’s multiculturalism and democracy to local and international audiences. White and Japanese American male government officials and members of the Governor’s Citizen Advisory Committee for the Expo emphasized the large Japanese American population in Hawai‘i as well as the cultural hybridity of their state in order to make the Japanese audience—potential tourists and investors—feel welcome. The main “spectacle” of the Hawai‘i pavilion featured a group of hostesses—primarily of Japanese American ancestry—who daily danced the hula. While the hostesses graciously performed the femininity and aloha that were expected of them, they also articulated their ethnic identities by educating the Japanese about the Japanese diaspora and its contributions to the fiftieth state of the United States.

Journal

Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the AmericasBrill

Published: Feb 24, 2015

Keywords: Japanese American diaspora; Hawai‘i; World’s Fairs; Osaka Expo 1970

There are no references for this article.