Aloha Betrayed

Native Hawaiian Resistance to American Colonialism

By: Noenoe K. Silva

Narrated by: Kaipo Schwab

Length: 8 hrs and 58 mins

Publisher's summary

In 1897, as a White oligarchy made plans to allow the United States to annex Hawai'i, native Hawaiians organized a massive petition drive to protest. Ninety-five percent of the native population signed the petition, causing the annexation treaty to fail in the US Senate.

This event was unknown to many contemporary Hawaiians until Noenoe K. Silva rediscovered the petition in the process of researching this book. With few exceptions, histories of Hawai'i have been based exclusively on English-language sources. They have not taken into account the thousands of pages of newspapers, books, and letters written in the mother tongue of native Hawaiians. By rigorously analyzing many of these documents, Silva fills a crucial gap in the historical record. In so doing, she refutes the long-held idea that native Hawaiians passively accepted the erosion of their culture and loss of their nation, showing that they actively resisted political, economic, linguistic, and cultural domination. Drawing on Hawaiian-language texts, primarily newspapers produced in the 19th century and early 20th, Silva demonstrates that print media was central to social communication, political organizing, and the perpetuation of Hawaiian language and culture.

©2004 Duke University Press (P)2021 Tantor

maika’i no

very well done, enjoyed the book, narrator was well versed and pronunciations are done well, please maintain native people narrators, mahalo

Great scholarship

A great account of a black spot on U,S history. The author does a grest job of naration. All the reading in Hawaian was nerve racking at first, but I grew to appreciate it and the reason the author gave for using his native tounge were correct. He told the story of the cultural genacide that the colonizers conducted on the Hawaiian people.

Same story again and again

As if it weren't bad enough to overthrow a legitimate government for avaricious and militaristic ends. Or erase native mythology and legend with more "civilized" superstitions. The effort to whitewash the history of resistance may be the most egregious act of imperialism, as it seeks to demean the soul of a people. And the uncritical masses of the colonizing agent eat it up, and believe they're doing god's work. Again and again and again, and refuse to see the truth. A pitiful shame. Excellent book, very informative and enlightening.

An Eye Opening History Told Through the Lens of a Hawaiian

Wow, what a truly moving book! This is definitely a must read for anyone from Hawaii or planning on visiting Hawaii. Noenoe has brought to light a side of Hawaiian History that is not widely known. I highly recommend the audio book version because the narrator does an excellent job speaking in both Hawaiian and English.