{"product_id":"voices-from-the-canefields-folksongs-from-japanese-immigrant-workers-in-hawaii-9780199813032","title":"Voices from the Canefields: Folksongs from Japanese Immigrant Workers in Hawai'i","description":"Folk songs are short stories from the souls of common people. Some, like Mexican corridos or Scottish ballads, reworked in the Appalachias, are stories of tragic or heroic episodes. Others, like the African American blues, reach from a difficult present back into slavery and forward into a\u003cbr\u003etroubled future. Japanese workers in Hawaii's plantations created their own versions, in form more akin to their traditional tanka or haiku poetry. These \u003cem\u003eholehole bushi \u003c\/em\u003edescribe the experiences of one particular group caught in the global movements of capital, empire, and labor during the late\u003cbr\u003enineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In \u003cem\u003eVoices from the Canefields\u003c\/em\u003e author Franklin Odo situates over two hundred of these songs, in translation, in a hitherto largely unexplored historical context. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eJapanese laborers quickly comprised the majority of Hawaiian sugar plantation workers after their large-scale importation as contract workers in 1885. Their folk songs provide good examples of the intersection between local work\/life and the global connection which the workers clearly perceived\u003cbr\u003eafter arriving. While many are songs of lamentation, others reflect a rapid adaptation to a new society in which other ethnic groups were arranged in untidy hierarchical order - the origins of a unique multicultural social order dominated by an oligarchy of white planters. Odo also recognizes the\u003cbr\u003einfluence of the immigrants' rapidly modernizing homeland societies through his exploration of the cultural baggage brought by immigrants and some of their dangerous notions of cultural superiority. Japanese immigrants were thus simultaneously the targets of intense racial and class vitriol even\u003cbr\u003eas they took comfort in the expanding Japanese empire. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eEngagingly written and drawing on a multitude of sources including family histories, newspapers, oral histories, the expressed perspectives of women in this immigrant society, and accounts from the prolific Japanese language press into the narrative, \u003cem\u003eVoices from the Canefields\u003c\/em\u003e will speak not only to\u003cbr\u003escholars of ethnomusicology, migration history, and ethnic\/racial movements, but also to a general audience of Japanese Americans seeking connections to their cultural past and the experiences of their most recently past generations.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Franklin Odo\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Oxford University Press, USA\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 10\/25\/2013\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 272\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eBinding Type:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 1.14lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 9.30h x 6.30w x 1.00d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780199813032\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e 06\/01\/2014\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFranklin Odo\u003c\/strong\u003e was founding director of the Smithsonian Institution's Asian Pacific American Program and Acting Chief of the Asian Division at the Library of Congress. He was among the pioneering faculty involved in Asian American Studies at UCLA and taught Asian American history at the University of Hawai`i, UPenn, Hunter, Princeton, and Columbia.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThis title is not returnable\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Oxford University Press, USA","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":40143906832499,"sku":"9.7802E+12","price":71.95,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0555\/9255\/0515\/products\/img_1cc92ec3-f25d-4a25-b68c-f1217a4c08bf.jpg?v=1654608370","url":"https:\/\/bookstorenmore.com\/en-de\/products\/voices-from-the-canefields-folksongs-from-japanese-immigrant-workers-in-hawaii-9780199813032","provider":"Bookstore N More","version":"1.0","type":"link"}