Journal 12

Queen Lili'uokalani

 "I used to climb up on the knees of Paki, put my arms around his neck, kiss him, and he caressed me as a father would his child; while on the contrary, when I met my own parents, it was with perhaps more of interest, yet always with the demeanor I would have shown to any strangers who noticed me" (Lili'uokalani).

I choose this sentence from the Queen's autobiography, because it is so strikingly different from my own life. I consider Hawai'i a state of the United States of America, and I didn't think about how completely different the two histories are, how the customs of Hawai'i are alien to those of America. It is my "favorite" sentence because it gives, I believe, insight into the queen's personality, a kind of detached demeanor to those Americans would have her love, but she cares little for. 

Lili'uokalani uses very specific language in her writing, and describes her actions very carefully. She describes a child-like, almost universal action, "I used to climb up on the knees of Paki..."One imagine a little girl doing just this, climbing up on the knees of her father for attention. She uses the phrase, "and he caressed me as a father would his child" the use of the word "caress" is a bit strange in our twenty-first century lives, but it is used to express the love between foster-father and daughter. She then contrasts this reception to the involvement with her "own" parents. By calling them hers, she is recognizing the fact that even though it is in accordance with Hawaiian tradition, she was still aware of the fact that her foster-parents weren't her real parents. This turn of phrase signals that she had to have suffered some of the same feelings adopted children worldwide feel. She claims to have responded, "with the demeanor I would have shown to strangers who noticed me." She calls her birth parents "strangers",  but the fact that she mentions them at all makes one think that perhaps she didn't feel like they were strangers, but they gave her away, and for that reason she was a stranger to them.

I didn't know very much about the history of Hawaii's monarchy, but after this assignment I have realized a lot about American Imperialism, and how power/land hungry the forefathers were. As an American I tend to think that America has always been about freedom, and doing the right thing, but the more history I learn the more I wonder about what America really stood for.