30% OFF SELECT ASIAN STUDIES TITLES
Category: Exhibits
Hawaiʻi Conservation Conference 2021
Virtual AAS2021 Annual Conference
This week, March 21–26, the 2021 Association for Asian Studies (AAS) annual conference is taking place virtually. While most sessions require registration, there is also an open-access element to the conference, with plenary presentations accessible simply by signing up for a basic account. Be inspired by experiencing the opening ceremony and speech by AAS president Christine Yano (a University of Hawai‘i professor and UH Press author/series editor). The exhibit hall is also open to all—check out our virtual booth and explore its variety of offerings, including a conference discount and a jazzy video of our latest titles and books in series.
If you’re registered for the conference, there is much more to discover and absorb. For those who have a book proposal, please contact our acquisitions editors by email, after viewing this page that specifies their focus areas. As always, follow our Facebook and Twitter pages for our #AAS2021 posts. We look forward to the 2022 conference to be held (in-person, we hope) here in Honolulu!
AAAS Virtual Book Fair
We are pleased to participate in the inaugural AAAS Virtual Book Fair (August 10–14, 2020) organized by the Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) to highlight recent titles released by university presses, especially ones by AAAS members. With the cancellation of the in-person annual meeting, this virtual event fills the gap to celebrate the fine works published in Asian American and Pacific Islander studies. Here is a selection of our new and recent titles in the field:
Balancing the Tides: Marine Practices in American Sāmoa
JoAnna Poblete
Also available in open-access editions.
Envisioning Religion, Race, and Asian Americans
Edited by David K. Yoo and Khyati Y. Joshi
Intersections: Asian and Pacific American Transcultural Studies
California Dreaming: Movement and Place in the Asian American Imaginary
Edited by Christine Bacareza Balance and Lucy Mae San Pablo Burns
(Available September 2020)
Intersections: Asian and Pacific American Transcultural Studies
Trans-Pacific Japanese American Studies: Conversations on Race and Racializations
Edited by Yasuko Takezawa and Gary Y. Okihiro
Pacific America: Histories of Transoceanic Crossings
Edited by Lon Kurashige
Beyond Ethnicity: New Politics of Race in Hawai‘i
Edited by Camilla Fojas, Rudy P. Guevarra Jr., and Nitasha Tamar Sharma
The Past before Us: Mo‘okū‘auhau as Methodology
Edited by Nālani Wilson-Hokowhitu
Karen Tei Yamashita: Fictions of Magic and Memory
Edited by A. Robert Lee
2019 Hawaii Book & Music Festival: UH Press Tent and Author Events
The 14th annual Hawai‘i Book and Music Festival happens this weekend, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, and UH Press will once again be there! Come to our tent alongside Honolulu Hale, near the Kristi Yamaguchi Keiki Reading Corner, and be among the first to see our newest titles. Also attend several presentations by UHP authors and follow them to our booth for short booksignings before you head off to the next session. Check out the interactive festival schedule here.
Featured UHP titles and presenters:
SATURDAY
Heiau, ‘Āina, Lani: The Hawaiian Temple System in Ancient Kahikinui and Kaupō, Maui will be discussed by coauthors Patrick Vinton Kirch and Clive Ruggles on Saturday at 10:00 a.m. Although the book is still at the printer, a set of page proofs will be available to browse and preorder at the event discount. Following their talk, 11:15–11:45, Dr. Kirch will sign copies of two of his most recent titles at our tent: Kua‘āina Kahiko: Life and Land in Ancient Kahikinui, Maui and Unearthing the Polynesian Past: Explorations and Adventures of an Island Archaeologist.
Indigenous Literatures from Micronesia, edited by Evelyn Flores and Emelihter Kihleng, is the inaugural title in The New Oceania Literary Series. On Saturday at 1:00 p.m., series editor Craig Santos Perez moderates a session with several volume contributors—Mary Hattori, Josie Howard, Kisha Borja-Quichocho-Calvo, Angela Hoppe-Cruz, and James Viernes. They’ll head over to our tent to sign copies, 2:15–2:45 p.m.
Palapala: A Journal for Hawaiian Language and Literature has just released its second volume as open-access on ScholarSpace, an online institutional repository for University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Journal editor Jeffrey (Kapali) Lyon speaks on a panel at 2:00 p.m. We will have a few copies of the print edition of volume one at our booth and volume two will be available in print later.
Nā Kahu: Portraits of Native Hawaiian Pastors at Home and Abroad, 1820–1900, by Nancy J. Morris and Robert Benedetto, will be presented on Saturday, 4:00 p.m., by Dr. Morris, Craig Howes, Aaron Mahi, and Kenneth Makuakane. A signing by Dr. Morris is scheduled for Sunday, 2:00–2:30 p.m.
SUNDAY
Nā Inoa Hoku: Hawaiian and Pacific Star Names opens Sunday’s program at 10 a.m. with Clive Ruggles and coauthor John Kaipo Mahelona (coauthor Rubellite Kawena Johnson is unable to attend). They will sign at the UHP tent immediately following their talk.
Tadaima! I Am Home: A Transnational Family History will have a panel at 11:00, with author Tom Coffman, Larry Miwa, and Stephen Miwa; the latter two are members of the family whose story is told in the book. The three will sign at our booth from 12:15–12:45 p.m. on Sunday. (The background image on the book’s cover is a page from Larry Fumio Miwa’s diary kept as a fourteen-year-old at the time of the Hiroshima bombing—view the page here.)
Hawai‘i’s White Tern: Manu-o-Kū, an Urban Seabird is the basis of Susan Scott‘s illustrated talk, “The Wings of Honolulu’s Wild Side.” Hear her speak at noon and then head to our booth for a signing at 1:15.
A Power in the World: The Hawaiian Kingdom in Oceania, by Lorenz Gonschor will publish in June, however, we’ll have an early proofing copy on display and will take preorders. Dr. Gonschor is a presenter on three Sunday panels, including one focused on his book at 2:00 p.m. Joining him as a discussant is Tiffany Lani Ing, whose forthcoming book, Reclaiming Kalākaua: Nineteenth-Century Perspectives on a Hawaiian Sovereign, will be published in October by UH Press.
Nā Wāhine Koa: Hawaiian Women for Sovereignty and Demilitarization, by Moanike‘ala Akaka, Maxine Kahaulelio, Terrilee Keko‘olani-Raymond, and Loretta Ritte is one of the books explored in the 3:00 afternoon session at the Humanities Pavilion, sponsored by Hawai‘i Council for the Humanities. The book’s editor Noelani Goodyear-Ka‘opua joins the panel moderated by HCH’s new executive director (and UHP author) Aiko Yamashiro. Dr. Goodyear-Ka‘opua signs copies at 4:15 p.m.
Other spring releases premiering at our booth:
Wind, Wings, and Waves: A Hawai‘i Nature Guide, by Rick Soehren;
The Past before Us: Moʻokūʻauhau as Methodology, edited by Nālani Wilson-Hokowhitu;
Hawai‘i Regional Cuisine: The Food Movement That Changed the Way Hawai‘i Eats, by Samuel Hideo Yamashita.
A limited number of copies of these and many more will be available and we’ll be taking orders for books not on hand, with free US shipping.
Stay updated with the latest news on the festival Twitter feed and check its Facebook posts. See you there!
2017 Hawaii Book & Music Festival: UH Press Tent & Author Events
University of Hawai‘i Press will be among the local publishers, organizations, booksellers, and other vendors exhibiting at the 12th annual Hawai‘i Book and Music Festival taking place next weekend, May 6 and 7, at the Frank F. Fasi Civic Grounds next to Honolulu Hale. Admission and parking are free. Go to the festival website to download detailed daily schedules and a PDF of the map, as well as links to the latest news on its Facebook and Twitter feeds.
Attend the presentations by these UH Press authors and follow them to our booth, located alongside Honolulu Hale, for informal signings (times given are for the talks, so signings are about an hour later):
SATURDAY, MAY 6
• David Forbes, In Haste with Aloha: Letters and Diaries of Queen Emma, 1881–1885 (11:00 am) and Paintings, Prints, and Drawings of Hawai‘i from the Sam and Mary Cooke Collection (3:00 pm talk with Mary Cooke; the book is distributed for Mānoa Heritage Center).
• Frank Stewart, editor of Yosihiko Sinoto‘s Curve of the Hook: An Archaeologist in Polynesia (12 noon). The panel will also include Eric Komori, Alexander Mawyer, and Hardy Spoehr.
• Robin Baird, The Lives of Hawai‘i’s Dolphins and Whales: Natural History and Conservation (1:00 pm).
• Michael Tsai, The People’s Race Inc.: Behind the Scenes at the Honolulu Marathon (3:00 pm).• Tom Coffman, The Island Edge of America: A Political History of Hawai‘i (3:00 pm; no signing at UHP booth).• John Rosa, Local Story: The Massie-Kahahawai Case and the Culture of History (3:00 pm)
SUNDAY, MAY 7
• Rodney Morales, For a Song (1:00 pm).• Kapali Lyon will moderate a panel on PALAPALA: A Journal for Hawaiian Language and Literature = Palapala: he puke pai no ka ʻōlelo me ka moʻolelo Hawaiʻi (1:00 pm). No signing is possible but come by for information on this open-access journal.• Dr. Billy Bergin, The Hawaiian Horse (2:00 pm).• Winona K. Mesiona Lee and Mele A. Look, the editors of Ho‘i Hou Ka Mauli Ola: Pathways to Native Hawaiian Health, the latest in the Hawai‘inuiākea series (3:00 pm).• Lillian Howan, The Charm Buyers (4:00 pm). Due to the late hour, buy the book ahead of time to sign at her talk and/or come to her reading on Saturday, May 13, 2:00 to 4:00 pm at Aupuni Place in Ward Warehouse.
At our tent we’ll have event discounts on the above titles and many others, and will offer free shipping on orders taken onsite. Slightly damaged (“hurt”) stock and a few titles in new condition will have special bargain prices.
We look forward to seeing everyone at this outside celebration of story and song!
March–April 2017 UHP Author Events
When it comes to listing events, we can’t miss first mentioning our exhibit booth at the Association for Asian Studies annual conference taking place March 16–19 in Toronto. Acquisitions editors Pamela Kelley and Stephanie Chun, and marketing managers Royden Muranaka and Steven Hirashima make up our staffing contingent at this important meeting, which is attended by numerous UHP authors (and prospective authors) of Asian studies titles.
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Below is the current lineup of author appearances scheduled for the coming weeks—including a couple already past—mostly for our Hawai‘i-related titles. Unless otherwise noted, these events are free and the public is invited to attend; books will be available for sale and signing.
Wednesday, March 15, 3:30 to 5:30 pm, at the Faculty Center, Chaminade University, 201 Eiben Hall
Chapter contributors Jonathan Dial, Bianca Isaki, and Brian Richardson will speak on the issues addressed in Tourism Impacts West Maui, the latest book from North Beach-West Maui Benefit Fund Inc., distributed by UH Press.
Wednesday, March 15, 6:00 to 7:30 pm, at Waianae Public Library (85-625 Farrington Hwy)Former investigative reporter Jim Dooley will give an illustrated talk about the lively behind-the-headlines stories in his book, Sunny Skies, Shady Characters. See more details on the Hawaiʻi State Public Library System site.
Thursday, March 16, 7:00 to 9:00 pm, Volcano Art Center, Volcano Village, Island of Hawai‘i
Hawai‘i’s Kōlea coauthors Oscar “Wally” Johnson and Susan Scott will give a slideshow presentation on the amazing migratory bird at the Volcano Art Center Niaulani campus. While the event is free, a $5 donation would be appreciated. See more details on the VAC website. Wally leaves the next day to return to Montana, while Susan will stay on to do a signing on Saturday at Basically Books, before heading home to O‘ahu.
Saturday, April 22, 12 noon to 4:oo pm, Santa Rosa City Hall (100 Santa Rosa Avenue)
23rd Annual
Hawai‘i’s Kōlea coauthors Oscar “Wally” Johnson and Susan Scott will give a slideshow presentation on the amazing migratory bird at the Volcano Art Center Niaulani campus. While the event is free, a $5 donation would be appreciated. See more details on the VAC website. Wally leaves the next day to return to Montana, while Susan will stay on to do a signing on Saturday at Basically Books, before heading home to O‘ahu.
Saturday, March 18, 1:00 to 2:00 pm, Basically Books, Hilo
Susan Scott will sign copies of Hawai‘i’s Kōlea: The Amazing Transpacific Life of the Pacific Golden-Plover, as well as her sailing memoir, Call Me Captain. For future events with Susan, check out her website.
Thursday, March 23, 2017, 7:00 pm, Ciné in Athens, Georgia (234 W Hancock Avenue)
UH Mānoa creative writing professor Rodney Morales heads to the Deep South to do a reading of his latest novel, For A Song. His visit is hosted by the University of Georgia Creative Writing Program and books will be sold by Avid Bookshop.
Saturday, March 25, three separate events in 
Kamuela and Hilo on the Big Island of Hawai‘i
Dr. Billy Bergin and his son Dr. Brady Bergin, both respected equine veterinarians, will do a marathon book launch and signings for their new book, The Hawaiian Horse. The schedule and locations include:
• 9:00 am to 12 noon, Parker Ranch Store, 67-1185 Mamalahoa Hwy., Kamuela (phone 808-885-5669).
• 1:00 to 2:45 pm, Basically Books, 160 Kamehameha Avenue, Hilo (phone 808-961-0144). Includes a short talk.
• 3:00 to 4:30 pm, Lyman Museum, 276 Haili Street, Hilo (phone 808-935-5021). The authors will do a talk as part of the museum’s Patricia E. Saigo series of public programs. The cost is free for museum members and $3.00 for nonmembers. Read more on the event here.
• 1:00 to 2:45 pm, Basically Books, 160 Kamehameha Avenue, Hilo (phone 808-961-0144). Includes a short talk.
• 3:00 to 4:30 pm, Lyman Museum, 276 Haili Street, Hilo (phone 808-935-5021). The authors will do a talk as part of the museum’s Patricia E. Saigo series of public programs. The cost is free for museum members and $3.00 for nonmembers. Read more on the event here.
Wednesday, March 29, 10 to noon, at the Waimea Midweek Farmers Market , Paniolo Heritage Center at Pukalani Stables, Parker Ranch, 67-139 Pukalani Road, Kamuela (phone 808-854-1541).
Drs. Bergin will be available to sign books at this outdoor market hosted by the Paniolo Preservation Society.
Saturday, April 1, starting at 2:00 pm, Hawaii Japanese Center, Hilo (751 Kanoelehua Avenue)
Hawaii Japanese Center, in partnership with the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i, presents a program based around author Barbara Kawakami and her recent book, Picture Bride Stories, which was recently announced as the winner of the Asian/Pacific American Librarians (APALA) Literature Award for adult nonfiction (the award will be presented in June) . The HJC program will include a dance performance of holehole bushi and a screening of excerpts from the Rice & Roses television series that previously aired on PBS Hawai‘i. See complete details on the HJC flyer.
Ms. Kawakami has scheduled additional presentations on Picture Bride Stories, including one on Thursday, April 13, 12:00 to 1:45 pm, at Kaua‘i Community College’s International Education Center (Office of Continuing Education and Training Bldg., Room 106 C/D). On Saturday, April 29, she will be at Temari‘s annual “BOLTS of Fabric & Fun” sale to participate in the 11:00 am Textile Talk Stories with Ann Asakura, and will sign books before and after her presentation. The BOLTS event is being held at Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i (which has its own Things Japanese annual sale the same day).
Thursday, April 13, 12 noon to 1:15 pm, Kuykendall Hall 410, UH Mānoa
At this Brown Bag series sponsored by the Center for Biographical Research, David Hanlon‘s talk, “‘You Did What, Mr. President?!?!’ Writing a Biography of the Federated States of Micronesia’s Tosiwa Nakayama” explores his work behind Making Micronesia.
Saturday, April 22, 12 noon to 4:oo pm, Santa Rosa City Hall (100 Santa Rosa Avenue)Copperfield’s Books will have a booth with a mini stage for its “Women Writers Talk Environment” event at the Earth Day festival in Santa Rosa. The Charm Buyers author Lillian Howan will join Rebecca Lawton, Farnaz Fatemi, and others to read, discuss, and sign books. For insight into Lillian’s writing, read the Writer in Residence interview with her on Rebecca Lawton’s blog.
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UH Press and MĀNOA at AWP 2017, February 8 to 11
MANOA editor and UH Manoa faculty member Frank Stewart.
At the 50th annual Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) Conference & Book Fair, held this week in Washington, DC, stop by booth 791 and say aloha to the editors of MĀNOA: A Pacific Journal of International Writing as you browse University of Hawai‘i Press publications. Among the UH Press books and journals on display will be MĀNOA‘s latest issues: Curve of the Hook, The Color of Dawn, and Story Is a Vagabond; information on the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa English Department creative writing program will be distributed as well.
Other featured titles include:
The Charm Buyers by Lillian Howan
For a Song by Rodney Morales
The Healers by Kimo Armitage
Five Faces of Japanese Feminism: Crimson and Other Works by Ineko Sata, translated by Samuel Perry
Murder Frames the Scene by Victoria Kneubuhl
The Blind Writer: Stories and a Novella by Sameer Pandya
The Confessions of a Number One Son: The Great Chinese American Novel by Frank Chin, edited by Calvin McMillin
The book fair opens on the morning of Thursday, February 9 and closes the afternoon of Saturday, February 11.
Click here to see more about AWP, now the largest literary conference in North America.
2016 Hawaii Book & Music Festival: UH Press Tent & Author Events
University of Hawai‘i Press will once again be among the publishers, booksellers, and nonprofits exhibiting at the 11th annual Hawai‘i Book and Music Festival this weekend, April 30-May 1, on the Frank F. Fasi Civic Grounds between Honolulu Hale and the City Municipal Building. Admission and parking are FREE. Go to the festival website to download a detailed schedule of events and PDF of the program.
Come by the UH Press tent, located on the ‘ewa-mauka side of the grounds, alongside Honolulu Hale (left side of the map). This year we are cosponsors with the Institute for Astronomy for their neighboring booth as well as presentations by IfA director Günther Hasinger for Astronomy’s Limitless Journey and by Roy Gal for Michael West’s A Sky Wonderful with Stars. Also new this year is the O‘ahu Nursery Growers Association plant sale, so several of our gardening books have been added to our display. As always, we’ll have our latest Hawai‘i titles available at a discount and will offer free US shipping on orders taken onsite.
Other UH Press authors participating this year include: Patrick Kirch (Unearthing the Polynesian Past), Kathleen Kawelu (Kuleana and Commitment), Marie Alohalani Brown (Facing the Spears of Change), Victoria Kneubuhl (Murder Frames the Scene), Kimo Armitage (The Healers), James Dooley (Sunny Skies, Shady Characters), Adrienne Kaeppler and Christina Hellmich (Royal Hawaiian Featherwork), Kapa Oliveira and Kahunawai Wright (Kanaka ‘Oiwi Methodologies), George and Willa Tanabe (Japanese Buddhist Temples in Hawai‘i), and more.
Authors will stop by the UHP booth throughout both days following their presentations for signings, so please visit us often!
UHP in Hilo | Hawaiʻi Conservation Conference
23rd Annual
Hawaiʻi Conservation Conference
Hilo, Hawaiʻi | August 3-6, 2015
Contact acquisitions editor Nadine Little, available August 5 for meetings: nlittle@hawaii.edu
Thinking Like an Island: Navigating a Sustainable Future in Hawaiʻi
Edited by Jennifer Chirico and Gregory S. Farley
Cloth | 978-0-8248-4761-6 | $45.00
“Blending outstanding scholarship with practical application, this book presents a portfolio of innovative, creative, and tangible projects that integrate cultural, ecological, and economic approaches. Most importantly, it uses Hawaiian indigenous knowledge and history as the basis for ecological sustainability, incorporating the best practices of the past and present with a vision for the future. Every Hawaiʻi resident and visitor who is interested in a sustainable future should read this book. ”
—Mitchell Thomashow, author of The Nine Elements of a Sustainable Campus
From King Cane to the Last Sugar Mill: Agricultural Technology and the Making of Hawaiʻi’s Premier Crop
C. Allan Jones and Robert V. Osgood
Cloth | 978-0-8248-4000-6 | $45.00
From King Cane to the Last Sugar Mill focuses on the technological and scientific advances that allowed Hawai`i’s sugar industry to become a world leader and Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Company (HC&S) to survive into the twenty-first century. The authors, both agricultural scientists, offer a detailed history of the industry and its contributions, balanced with discussion of the enormous societal and environmental changes due to its aggressive search for labor, land, and water.
Coming Soon!
Plants for the Tropical Xeriscape: A Gardener’s Guide
Fred D. Rauch and Paul R. Weissich
Cloth | 978-0-8248-4005-1 | $55.00
In this extensive and lavishly illustrated guide to the selection of tropical landscape materials for xeriscape gardens, Rauch and Weissich provide landscape architects, garden designers, and home gardeners with the ultimate guide to the “less thirsty” landscape plant species that form the tropical xeriscape.
1,312 illustrations
A Sky Wonderful with Stars Debuts at the IAU XXIX General Assembly
NEW RELEASE | EXHIBIT NEWS
A Sky Wonderful with Stars: 50 Years of Modern Astronomy on Maunakea
by Michael J. West
August 2015 | 216 pages | 155 color, 9 b&w illus.
Cloth | ISBN 978-0-8248-5268-9 | $39.99
Released to coincide with the 2015 International Astronomical Union (IAU) General Assembly to be held August 3-14 in Honolulu, A Sky Wonderful with Stars is a spectacular collection of photographs accompanied by short essays by Michael J. West, soon-to-be deputy director for science at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. (West, a former UH Hilo professor and most recently director at the Maria Mitchell Observatory, starts his new position on August 1 and is unable to attend the IAU gathering.) Through more than 160 photo-essays, the book shows the special beauty of Maunakea’s sky and landscape, its mythical beginnings, and glacial past; tells the story of how the human dream to create the village of the Maunakea observatories endured and became reality; and showcases some of the stunning images and scientific discoveries that have been revealed by the telescopes, which are among the most powerful on Earth.
UH Press will be an exhibitor at the IAU meeting, sharing a booth with University of Arizona Press and Princeton University Press, and copies of the book will be available for sale. As usual, the exhibit hall as well as the program sessions are open only to registered attendees. There are public events scheduled, however, including an evening talk on August 11 by Günther Hasinger, director of the Institute for Astronomy at UH Mānoa, whose book, Astronomy’s Limitless Journey, will be published by UHP in October. Dr. Hasinger’s talk, “The Development of Modern Astronomy in Hawai‘i,” will start at 7:30 p.m., following the Exoworld opening ceremony. While the event is free, tickets are required and can be booked here. In a related link, listen to the ByteMark Cafe interview with Dr. Hasinger and assistant astronomer Roy Gal about the IAU.
From Michael West’s preface to A Sky Wonderful with Stars:
Astronomy isn’t just the study of distant planets, stars, and galaxies. It’s also the study of something much closer to home—us. One of astronomy’s most profound discoveries is that we humans are made from the ashes of stars whose fires burned out long ago. . . . Perhaps that’s why we feel compelled to explore the starry skies, as if driven by an innate yearning to know our true ancestral home and ourselves. “You are that vast thing that you see far, far off with the great telescopes,” wrote the philosopher Alan Watts.
Celebrating the “Wonderfully Subversive Power of Libraries and Librarians” as Robert Ji-Song Ku’s Dubious Gastronomy Wins APALA Literature Award for Adult Nonfiction
In conjunction with the American Library Association annual conference in San Francisco, the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA) literary awards were presented at a lively dinner ceremony on Saturday, June 27. Dubious Gastronomy: The Cultural Politics of Eating Asian in the USA by Robert Ji-Song Ku, associate professor of Asian American studies at Binghamton University–SUNY, received the top honor in the adult nonfiction category. While Professor Ku regrettably was unable to attend the event, his prepared remarks were read by UH Press development director Colins Kawai, who accepted the award on his behalf. The speech is worth sharing here:
“It is a privilege and an honor to win the 2014-15 Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature in the adult non-fiction category. I am especially honored to receive this award from an association of librarians because, you see, I was practically raised by librarians since I was eight years old when my family immigrated to Hawaii from Korea in the early 1970s.
Having to work several jobs between them from before sunrise to long after sunset, my parents could not afford any sort of childcare, after-school programs, or summer camps for their three children. My mother’s solution was to drop us off at the public library for hours on end. And this is how I fell in love with books, which plunged me into the world of dinosaurs, great white sharks, and faraway galaxies. It also led me to C.S. Lewis’s Narnia, JRR Tolkien’s Middle-earth, Thomas Hardy’s Wessex, and Maxine Hong Kingston’s girlhood among ghosts, white tigers, and shamans.
I believe it was the filmmaker Michael Moore who said of librarians: “They are subversive. You think they’re just sitting there at the desk, all quiet and everything. They’re like plotting the revolution, man. I wouldn’t mess with them.”
I couldn’t agree more. The fact that I went on to earn a PhD in English literature, become a professor of Asian American studies, and author books about Asian Americans is a testament to the wonderfully subversive and revolutionary power of libraries and librarians. No, I don’t mess with librarians; I give them props!
I thank the University of Hawai‘i Press for publishing my book, and especially my editor, Masako Ikeda, for believing in my book from the very get-go. I thank my family—my wife Nancy and twin boys Eliot and Oliver—for everything under and above the sun. But most of all, on this day, I thank the members of APALA for bestowing upon me this incredible honor.”
All of us at UHP join him in giving props to librarians everywhere!
