Securing Paradise: Tourism and Militarism in Hawai'i and the Philippines

Next Wave: New Directions in Women's Studies

by Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez

In Securing Paradise, Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez shows how tourism and militarism have worked together in Hawaii and the Philippines, jointly enabling the United States to assert its geostrategic and economic interests in the Pacific. She does so by interpreting fiction, closely examining colonial and military construction projects and delving into present-day tourist practices, spaces, and narratives. For instance, in both Hawaii and the Philippines, U.S. military modes of mobility, control, and surveillance also enable scenic tourist byways. Past and present U.S. military posts, such as the Clark and Subic Bases and the Pearl Harbor complex, have been reincarnated as sites of Second World War history. Military personnel and technology are repurposed for tourism and back again. Through these and other phenomena, tourism and militarism have produced gendered structures of feeling and forms of knowledge that are routinized into everyday life in Hawaii and the Philippines, inculcating U.S. imperialism in the Pacific.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

293 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 3, 2013

Reviews

[C.S. Malerich · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a highly academic and theoretical reading of tourist texts, for their connections with U.S. militarism and imperial interests, and the way that playing "good host" supports and occludes political and economic dispossession. I went for it because Detours: A Decolonial Guide to Hawaii, co-edited by Vicuna Gonzalez, had so much breadth and depth.

The "texts" that the author is working with here are only literal in the first chapter; she swiftly moves on to scenic roads, war monuments and memorials, helicopter tours and the "Jungle Experience Survival Techniques" taught at one of the Philippines freeport zones by indigenous Aeta guides. Although this is not a history, I gleaned a number of interesting (and maddening) nuggets, like the U.S. military using the island of Kauai as a testing ground for Agent Orange and other defoliants during the Vietnam War.

I can't recommend this one for a general audience, but if you are versed in the colonial history of the Philippines and Hawaii, go for it! (You might read How to Hide an Empire first if you want a foundation.)

[Kimberlyyyreads · Rating 5 out of 5]

This takes one’s experience as a tourist and does a complete 360 analysis on the meaning.

Militourism isn’t even a term I would’ve encountered if not for this book.

The multi-media disciplinary approach is absolutely essential for this book. The author literally visit popular tourist sights within the Philippines & Hawaii and ties their ties to the U.S. Military.

This is a book that will pick your brain apart and redefine the experience of a tourist.

Gentrification within the islands is one of the most heartbreaking things to read about. One must simply educate themselves as to the damage that these islands have suffered via the U.S. and ask themselves how we can stop this from occurring again.

[Mills College Library]

338.47915 G6439 2013