Aloha America: Hula Circuits through the U.S. Empire
The bodies of hula performers present a curious problem: they are hypervisible in popular culture while leaving only the faintest traces in archives.
Adria L. Imada • Aloha America: Hula Circuits through the U.S. Empire
Like earlier generations of hula dancers who toured the continental United States during the colonization of the islands, performers inserted their own counter-colonial performances, desires, and tactics into militouristic scripts. They reappropriated militarized time and land according to their own interests.113 Their participation in wartime ente
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As ambassadors of aloha, Hawaiian women have been susceptible to the eroticization of their bodies and the insistent commodification of their aloha.
Adria L. Imada • Aloha America: Hula Circuits through the U.S. Empire
The tourists, however, were now soldiers.
Adria L. Imada • Aloha America: Hula Circuits through the U.S. Empire
Called “hula queens” and “Cinderellas” by the Hawai‘i press, hula dancers joined popular entertainment circuits that routed them between Hawai‘i and American cities.
Adria L. Imada • Aloha America: Hula Circuits through the U.S. Empire
Americans perceived the colonization of Hawai‘i as relatively peaceful.32
Adria L. Imada • Aloha America: Hula Circuits through the U.S. Empire
main port town of Honolulu became an urban slum
Adria L. Imada • Aloha America: Hula Circuits through the U.S. Empire
“Honolulu Hula Sale”
Adria L. Imada • Aloha America: Hula Circuits through the U.S. Empire
the hālau hula system,