Hawaii

Hawaii occupies a unique geographical position, located in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with no large land mass nearby. Consequently, voyagers from all directions have used it as a stopping point to replenish supplies before continuing to their destinations. The Polynesians who first settled on the islands traveled a vast distance to do so because no other nearby location was available. And, though Michener includes the migration story of these early Polynesians to emphasize Hawaii as a land offering opportunity to several peoples throughout history, it should be noted that Hawaiians are indigenous to these islands. When Captain James Cook landed in the islands in 1789, his voyage put Hawaii on the world map. In the later centuries, when merchant ships traveled the globe, it became an oasis to European and American voyagers. Today it remains ethnically and culturally diverse.

Michener’s version of Hawaii is an endorsement for assimilation, an extension of Manifest Destiny, and a microcosm of the American Dream.

Though it takes the different ethnic populations in Hawaii generations to cooperate, when they do, they prosper economically and culturally. Michener shows integration to be inevitable and separatism to be impractical. Immigrant communities isolated far from home find it difficult to maintain the traditions and beliefs that sustained them in their homelands, or else their homelands progress and they cling to older versions of their traditions.