Imagine waking up one morning to find that you are in a completely unfamiliar place. First, there were a few new neighbors, then more and more foreigners came along and now your whole town seems foreign. All the local shops are bought by corporations and the old ways of life have been altered. This is the well-known matter called colonization, which is the action or process of settling among and establishing control over the indigenous people of an area. Gary Pak does a fantastic job of displaying this subject within his story, “The Watcher of Waipuna.
The story brings up a concern about whether or not colonization is healthy and or necessary, for natives and for foreigners. Works of literature including: “The Watcher of Waipuna” by Gary Pak, Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue” and Haunani-Kay Trask’s “Notes from a Native Daughter” all aid in the comparison of the two different perspectives, one from the locals and one from the outsiders, present when colonization occurs. The natives, in this case, Gilbert and his sisters are ideal in representing the different attitudes towards these outsiders.
Gilbert, the younger brother, is the protagonist who others claim to be crazy in the mind. After his parent’s deaths, he has inherited their real estate. That is when the Hawaiian International Corporation and their Japanese partners had come to make him a three quarters of a million offer for the land to build a luxury resort. This offer leads Gilbert’s two sisters, Lola and Lucy, to attempt to swindle Gilbert into changing the name on the deed to their names. This becomes one of the central issues that revolves the story. This is the ultimate reason why the story is dark and saddening.
One quote that particularly rings true, “Blood is thicker than water, but money makes the blood thin” shows the matter than is bound to come along with colonization, conflicts within the family. Gary Pak utilizes the “haole” identity to serve as a foil for the locals due to the human weakness of greed. Even the most united bond of family is weakened when materialistic benefits become involved. These “haoles” serve to be the corruption that occurs along with colonization and proves to show that the natives do not welcome these outsiders.
Similar yet different, Haunani-Kay Trask’s article “Notes from a Native Daughter” exemplifies how these colonizers are negligent and ignorant when it comes to learning the language or the culture of these natives. The colonizers like the historians did not care for the lost culture or the wounded families, instead, they focused on the potential money they could earn and the business available to them. Trask asks, “… why did scholars, presumably well-trained and thoughtful, neglect our language? The writer goes further to states that language is not only a form of communication but also a passage to learn what the people think and feel. It is a representation of their culture and their identity. The ignorance of the historians to learn the language of the Hawaiians resembles how the Hawaiian International Corporation was trying to get Gilbert to sell the land. However, Gilbert did not even understand what they were saying and thought that they were just people shipping the weekly grocery goods. This failed attempt to convince Gilbert could have been due to the language barrier and indifference to what the locals were thinking.
This is further exemplified through Trask’s “Notes from a Native Daughter” in that it explains how the foreigners or in this case, Westerners, frequently view other cultures as inferior to theirs. Trask states that the, “By a kind of perverted logic [colonialism] turns to the past of the oppressed people, and distorts, disfigures, and destroys it. ” Clearly Trask agrees with Pak in that the outsiders degrade the locals to uplift themselves and to form an excuse for them to take advantage of these innocent people.
Amy Tan would also have to agree with such deas especially when she mentions that, “… restaurants did not take her seriously, did not give her good service, pretended not to understand her, or even acted as if they did not hear her. ” This was based on the reason that Tan’s mother did not speak good English and so people would look down on her. It is the foreigner’s assumption that imperfect English means imperfect ideas. Pak would agree to Tan’s statement, because the businessmen of the Hawaiian International Corporation belittled Gilbert and all the locals due to the belief that they were not as good as them.
In addition, “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan helps to show the matters of language and family while relating to “The Watcher in Waipuna. ” Amy Tan recalls incidents where her mother had received unfair treatment due to her language and her imperfect English. Even though Amy Tan herself knew how to speak “sophisticated” English, whenever she was speaking with her mother she automatically spoke in a way that others would call “broken English. ” However, to Tan it was just simply a way of family-talk that shows intimacy.
To her it is perfect English and the English that had shaped who she was, how she expressed, how she saw things, and how she understood. This is applicable to Gilbert and his sisters and the Hawaiian International Corporation. Gilbert could speak his native language without any issues with his sisters because this was the only way he knew how to speak and it was the language that made them who they were. However, the haole’s that came, spoke in a language that Gilbert did not understand. Resulting in miscommunication and misunderstandings on both sides.
It was also quite evident that Pak portrayed these haoles as looking down on the locals because they were not as “modern” or educated as they were, which made it clear that the natives did not like these so-called “frogmen” or outsiders. On the other side of the coin, it seemed as if the colonizers were coming to the lands to bring about better lives and opportunities for the natives. For example, the businessmen had approached Gilbert and asked him about the weather. Then moved on to talking about how they were “isolated from the rest of the island and that the beach is ideal on the island.
This was their strategy into persuading Gilbert into thinking that this could be a very advantageous opportunity. However, because of the different language, both parties did not come to a common understanding. In particular, in typical writing styles, Pak depicts the businessmen as evil people who used others to reach their goals. For example, the businessmen were persuading Lola and Lucy to move the deed to under their names and so that they could get the wealth. They taught the sisters to use Gilbert’s “mental condition” to argue when at court. The haoles were seen to be people who took advantage of others for their own sakes.
The colonizers or businessmen also probably had another mentality to justify their reasons for coming to Waipuna, and that was because they thought that the place was very unorganized and underdeveloped. They believed that they could bring about new ideas and ways of life to make them more “cultured”. From Trask’s explanation, it is evident that the haoles or Westerners had achieved this by distorting and denying the history and values of the natives. The businessmen who came to Waipuna particularly liked to express a feeling of Western dominance when encountering the people of Waipuna.
One example is that they came to Gilbert’s estate in black limousines which was to purposefully make themselves standout. It showed a sharp contrast to their wealth as opposed to the villager’s wealth. Their dislike was also exhibited when they had arrived at Lola’s house to persuade her to go to the attorney to transfer the land to their names. Lola had offered them coffee and when they drank it, they displayed disgust for the coffee but quickly hid it to not let Lola realize their true feelings. They had to try to retain a good, friendly image to reach their eventual goals.
However, in “Watcher of Waipuna”, Pak incorporated a more hopeful and wishful ending, in which Gilbert and the natives were able to keep their homeland and the businessmen left them without accomplishing their initial goals of colonizing. All in all, many changes in Hawaii have occurred and has left the island and its people in displacement. The “Watcher in Waipuna” by Gary Pak, “Mother Tongue” by Amy Tan and “Notes from a Native Daughter” by Haunani-Kay Trask all come together to explain the story of colonization and the process of Western influence on other cultures.
Whether it be the purposefully picturing the haole’s as evil or the intentional negligence of language, all authors display the dislike of western intervention into their traditional cultures. Mostly because it causes assimilation and many values and ways of life are loss. Families are also torn due to the presence of monetary benefits. The “Watcher of Waipuna” explains the culture of Hawaii while showing readers how it feels to be these people who are threatened by colonization, not only in Hawaii, but people all over the entire continent who have faced similar issues or who are currently still facing these issues.
While describing weaknesses in humanity, Pak and the other writers vividly show that it is hard to unbiasedly state who is wrong in the unavoidable process of colonization as the natives are protecting their homes while the colonizers are trying to earn money. Ultimately, nine times out of ten, the winners are the ones who write the story and history and the different perspectives will always exist until the end of humanity.
