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UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Emergent Voices of (Neo)colonial Resistance: The Contemporary Literatures, Cultures, and Histories of “Micronesia” Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2gd447sm Author Yamamoto, Caitlin Yuri Publication Date 2016 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Emergent Voices of (Neo)colonial Resistance: The Contemporary Literatures, Cultures, and Histories of “Micronesia” A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Literature by Caitlin Y. Yamamoto Committee in charge: Professor Rosaura Sánchez, Chair Professor Yen Le Espiritu Professor Sara E. Johnson Professor Shelley S. Streeby Professor Erin Suzuki Professor Don E. Wayne 2016 Copyright Caitlin Y. Yamamoto, 2016 All rights reserved. The Dissertation of Caitlin Y. Yamamoto is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ Chair University of California, San Diego 2016 iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page……………………………………………………………………….iii Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………….iv Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………..v Vita…………………………………………………………………………………..vii Abstract of the Dissertation…………………………………………………………viii Chapter One: Introduction: Emergent Voices of (Neo)colonial Resistance: The Contemporary Literatures, Cultures, and Histories of “Micronesia”……………1 Chapter Two: The Compact and “Insidious” Forms of U.S. Neocolonialism in Robert Barclay’s Meļaļ……………………………………………………………45 Chapter Three: Tropes of “Colonial Addiction”: Compact II, U.S. Aid, and the Politics of Food in Emelihter Kihleng’s My Urohs………………………...137 Chapter Four: Reading “Against the Grain” of Guam’s “Unincorporation” in Craig Santos Perez’s From Unincorporated Territory…………………………...236 Afterword……………………………………………………………………………336 Works Cited…………………………………………………………………………340 iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank the chair of my committee, Rosaura Sánchez, for her feedback and unflagging support over the years, without which, this dissertation would not have been possible. It hasn’t always been easy researching and writing so far from San Diego, but you never gave up and saw me through to the end. I’d like to thank Yen Espiritu, Sara Johnson, Rosaura Sánchez, Shelley Streeby, and Don Wayne, not only for their willingness to serve on my committee, but for all that they taught me during my time at the University of California, San Diego. Your work and teaching have influenced my own approach to writing about literature a great deal, and I hope that it shows in my dissertation. Thank you, too, to Erin Suzuki for joining my committee late in the process, and for your helpful feedback. I would also like to thank my professors at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa for their support and encouragement, especially Ruth Hsu, Cynthia Franklin, Candace Fujikane, and John Zuern. Your passion for teaching and commitment to social justice inspired me to apply for grad schools and pursue a doctorate in the first place. This project is also indebted to the wonderful librarians and staff at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, Hawaiian and Pacific Collections, where I conducted research and wrote much of the manuscript. Special thanks to Jodie Mattos, Dore Minatodani, and Eleanor Kleiber, for assisting in ways big and small, from helping me gain access to materials to cheering me on as I completed the final pages. I’d also like to acknowledge the University of California Pacific Rim Research Program, for v providing me with a fellowship that allowed me to travel to Hawai‘i and New Zealand to conduct research. Thanks to my family and friends for their support through the many years it to took to finish the Ph.D., especially my mom, May Yamamoto, and dear friend, Stephanie Darrow, who read and commented on early drafts, and always listened patiently. Lastly, thank you to Justin Wyble, my husband and co-conspirator, for being there from the beginning, and to our bright, beautiful son, Noah Kai, for your love and for asking each day, “How many pages, Mommy?” I love you both and couldn’t have done it without you. vi VITA May 2002 Bachelor of Arts with Highest Honors. University of Hawai‘i, Mānoa. Department of English. December 2005 Master of Arts. University of California, San Diego. Department of Literature. December 2005 Candidate in Philosophy. University of California, San Diego. Department of Literature. December 2016 Doctor of Philosophy. University of California, San Diego. Department of Literature. PUBLICATIONS “Understanding a Contentious ‘Local’ Literary Community: The Controversy over Lois Ann Yamanaka’s Blu’s Hanging.” Honors thesis, Department of English, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, 2002. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: Literature Specializations: Pacific Island Literatures and Cultures; U.S. Literatures; Ethnic American Literatures; Indigenous Literatures vii ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Emergent Voices of (Neo)colonial Resistance: The Contemporary Literatures, Cultures, and Histories of “Micronesia” by Caitlin Y. Yamamoto Doctor of Philosophy in Literature University of California, San Diego, 2016 Professor Rosaura Sánchez, Chair Up until recently, Micronesia has occupied an “absent” place within Oceanic studies. This absence has been characterized in part by a dearth of published literature produced by and about Micronesia’s indigenous peoples. It is only within the last ten to fifteen years that a handful of authors have emerged to depict Micronesian culture from within. This dissertation focuses on the works of three writers who have made viii important contributions to this expanding body of literature: Robert Barclay (Meļaļ), Craig Santos Perez (from unincorporated territory series), and Emelihter Kihleng (My Urohs). As I argue, the emergence of these authors is closely connected to Micronesia’s complex colonial histories. The prominence of U.S. strategic military interests, in particular, has postponed processes of decolonization in the region, resulting in a similar delay in the formation of Micronesians’ literary traditions. This project seeks to amplify Micronesia’s new voices of resistance, as well as to explore the interrelationships between culture and the political-economic transformations undergirding them. Another objective of this dissertation is to reveal the newest mechanisms of colonial control underway in Oceania. While hailing from different parts of Micronesia, the texts examined share much in common in their representation of themes of militarization, colonialism, and neocolonialism. Reading literature as “symptoms” of the political-economic realities that produced them, I argue that Meļaļ, from unincorporated territory, and My Urohs foreground the increasingly insidious, economic as well as environmental forms assumed by 21st century colonialism. Since this project is ultimately concerned with how culture reflects (and responds to) political and economic realities, each chapter tends to privilege these realities as fundamental. While chapter one discusses the historical causes for Micronesia’s delayed literary renaissance, chapter two examines Barclay’s novel, Meļaļ, to uncover the Compact of Free Association as a vital tool of U.S. neocolonialism. Turning to Kihleng’s poetry, chapter three shows how U.S. “colonial” food has perpetuated economic dependency between Micronesia and the ix U.S. Finally, chapter four, which focuses on Perez’s “long poetry,” argues that the from unincorporated territory series contributes to the radical revision of Guahån’s histories of colonialism and militarization from below. x Chapter One: Introduction Emergent Voices of (Neo)colonial Resistance: the Contemporary Literatures, Cultures, and Histories of “Micronesia” Micronesian lacks concrete definition An Inadequate Insufficient Identity Misplaced Bestowed Wrongly Upon a large and diverse Pacific Island Population Who are not under one flag Who do not speak one tongue Who do not eat the same food And most of all who Do not want to be recognized as one. --Emelihter Kihleng, “The Micronesian Question” This dissertation takes as its primary focus the contemporary literatures, cultures, and histories of the region known as Micronesia. More specifically, I examine the works of three contemporary authors who have each made significant 1 2 contributions to a growing body of literature emerging out of 21st century Micronesia. These authors (and works) include: Robert Barclay (Meļaļ), Craig Santos Perez (from unincorporated territory series), and Emelihter Kihleng (My Urohs). As I will demonstrate, each of these authors writes about (as well as hails from) widely divergent parts of Micronesia; they each come from very different racial and cultural backgrounds, as well. The son of a white American engineer who relocated his family to the Marshall Islands, Robert Barclay writes partly from his personal experiences growing up on Kwajalein, one of the largest and most militarized islands comprising the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI).1 Interestingly,