#passage to new caledonia

[fatehbaz]

The archipelago of uplifted coral that is my mother’s homeland surfaced during the earth’s ancient cycles of glaciation. The early people came in sakmans, carried by wind and seas, guided by stars and clouds and bioluminescence, the fragrance of flowers, the flight paths of birds. Settlers lived and fished and farmed in this part of Oceania for thousands of years, but the naming history issues forth at the moment of subjugation. Islas de los Ladrones -- the Islands of Thieves -- they were called by the first Europeans who came. Then Islas de las Velas, the Islands of the Lateen Sails. Then the Mariana Islands, in honor of Spain’s queen regent. Before it was Guam, Guåhan was known, under Japanese rule, as Omiya Jima, the Great Shrine Island. [...] Elsewhere, settlements recall the body of the creation god Puntan: Tiyan, his flat stomach. Hagåtña, his blood. Toto, his resting back. Mongmong, his beating heart. [...]

These small islands have grown crowded with denotations, I try to tell a friend, except it comes out as detonations. [...]

---

I am reading from a passage on CHamoru history and culture. Kåntan Chamorita is an ancestral form of call-and-response, a spontaneous sung dialogue. [...] Thumbing the texts, I brandish our histories: the brutality of Japanese rule; the architectural colonization that drove the CHamoru from los antiguos, their dwelling places in latte houses; the violation of natural resources brought about by American occupation.

She [mother] tsks, waves impatiently. Hekkua’. An expression that means at once “I don’t know” and “Forget it.”  [...]

In 1917, the U.S. Navy banned the CHamoru language in the Mariana Islands. A few years later, by order of U.S. naval captain Adelbert Althouse, all CHamoru dictionaries were burned. The language was said to represent a cognitive deficiency. The adoption of English would ensure, among other things, mental well-being.

The ban has since been lifted, but my mother hid her language for so long, it’s become hard to find.

What is the word for sky? I ask her.

She shakes her head. Nothing word for sky. Only heaven: långet. [...]

---

And so did we sail out. For more than ten years [...]. We moved into other countries where other languages had been suppressed and where other people had been made invisible. There were signs [...]. In New Zealand, where I went to kindergarten, Ma¯ori children were beaten for speaking te reo in schools. Bislama was prohibited in Vanuatu, but I only remember the quietness of the bay, the great banyan trees, the malaria pills. In New Caledonia, where I went to elementary school, the Kanak languages were banned from the education system from 1863 until 1984. Gendarmes in Nouméa stood on street corners with machine guns slung across their chests. [...]

My mother is telling us something exciting. She trips happily over the words, her face laughing. [...] My mother did not want me speaking like her. She wanted me to be better than that, which is to say better than her. [...]

Kao piniten hao? -- Have you been hurt?

Hunggan. Mayulang, yu’ -- Yes. I’m breaking.

My mother corrects me: mayulang only applies to a thing that’s broken, not a person. You can be hurt, she tells me, but not broken. [...]

---

The etymology of translation refers to the removal of a saint’s body to a new location, to bearing bones and words, both sacred, across. As if anything can be moved whole [...].

We never heard the end of my mother’s stories. [...] These days, she is happy to let most of her sentences go unfinished. [...]

She raises her eyebrows, juts her chin.

I tell her, You’re a book of lost endings.

Which one? she asks.

---

It’s too small here, I said. It’s boring, hot. It’s too small. [...] We spent two years sleeping on my auntie’s living room floor. Unrolling futons and lying under the weeping air conditioning unit and peeling paint. We ate Spam and rice with ketchup. [...]

Lately, I have been confusing the CHamoru word for flight, malagu, with the word for flee, falagu. [...]

I dream now of the islands and wake with my head barely above water, my mouth filling with salt. [...]

Mamaolek ha’? -- Are you doing okay?

Maolek. I’m doing okay.

---

Text by: Hannah Dela Cruz Abrams. “Moving the Saints: Passages from a deconstructed homeland.” Orion Magazine. Spring 2023. [Some paragraph breaks and contractions added by me.]

[beardedmrbean]

A man has been detained on suspicion of planning an attack on the Olympic torch relay in Bordeaux, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin has said.

He gave few details but praised police for ensuring security during Thursday's relay.

Prosecutors said the suspect had written a disturbing message that "could correspond to glorifying crime". He also referred to a previous mass killing in the US, they added.

The Olympic flame arrived in Marseille earlier this month, ahead of the Paris Games, which start on 26 July.

Paris 2024 organisers have spoken of an unprecedented security operation, with an opening ceremony involving more than 10,000 athletes being ferried along the River Seine.

The Olympic flame was due to arrive in Bordeaux late on Thursday afternoon, after a day of events marking its passage through the surrounding area.

Bordeaux prosecutor Frédérique Porterie said an investigation had been launched in response to an online message that referred to the killing of six people in their late teens and early 20s exactly 10 years ago in Isla Vista, California.

CNews said a post on the suspect's profile referred to Isla Vista killer Elliot Rodger, who had a deep loathing of women. His attacks inspired people online who identified as being " involuntarily celibate" - or incels.

The prosecutor said police then identified the suspect - named as Alex G - who was arrested on Tuesday. She said he had no criminal record but during a search of his home a rubber pellet revolver was seized along with several mobile phones and a computer.

"Initial investigations revealed the individual's interest in the Incel movement."

The suspect admitted in custody to "having considered an act with no specific location" in mind, and no mention of the Olympic flame relay.

He was also described as "psychologically highly fragile".

The Olympic flame is at the start of a 12,000km (7,500-mile) odyssey around mainland France and its overseas territories. Anti-drone experts have joined police in keeping a close eye on its journey.

The flame had been due to travel as far as the Pacific territory of New Caledonia, but rioting over the past 10 days has prompted organisers to cancel that leg of the route.

[fablecore]

Hi I just wanted you to know that a month ago I read A Gentleman in Moscow since you recommended it and I cannot stop thinking about Bread and Salt. I am reading Anna Karenina now and just reached the passage quoted in it from Levin's perspective and it knocked me straight in the chest. Thank you for this recommendation, if you have more I would love to have them

i'm glad you liked it! if you were ever called a weird and disconcerting child who's grown up to be what your friends say in a knowing voice "quirky" i recommend the absurd, gothic, coming-of-death story o caledonia by elspeth barker. i've also been reading metropolis: a history of the city and braiding sweetgrass, which are nonfictions that have the AGIM-esque ability to tilt the world at an angle i've never seen before and show me something fantastically new. braiding sweetgrass in particular should be a staple in everyone's bookshelf as the seas rise and forests burn etc etc

[appeler-un-chat-un-chat]

2016 : Nouvelle Calédonie J'ai 65 ans Dernière sortie hors de l'hexagone avec un A/R Paris-Osaka-Noumea. Au retour s'en est terminé des correspondances, des salons business d'Air France, Lufthansa etc des fasten your seat belt, dernier appel pour le passager xx, vol retardé... Immigration, etc etc.. !! ras le bol!! ....plus de carte identité, passeport expiré non renouvelé. xxx destinations dans 35 pays différents, 2,4 Millions miles, 60 équivalents tours du monde. Stop!

2016 : New Caledonia. I'm 65 now. Last journey outside the french borders with this a back & return trip Paris-Osaka-Noumea. Back home : flights correspondances- over- business lounges - over, fasten your seat belt annoucement -over, last call for passenger xx - ovze, flight delayed -over, immigration desk over.. I'm fed up! no more ID, passport expired in full an final... xxx destinations in 35 various countries, 2.4 millions miles collected, i.e 60 eq. worls tours. Stop!! bye bye airlines..!!

[pinerbbs]

Ball arena

Jack, Un Mouton à la mer, 99 (jeu de cartes de paris et de plis), Baby Dinosaur Rescue, Uptown, SteamRollers, MOW, Homeworlds, Cœur de Dragon, Petits Peuples, Insert, K2, Elfenland, Go Fish, Dragon Castle, L'Année du Dragon, Sobek, Skat, Tinners' Trail, Sapiens, Cardiceo, Go, Nicodemus, Kahuna, Expédition : Northwest Passage, La Marche du Crabe, The Boss, Dinosaur Tea Party, Fleet, Origin, Tournay, Battle of LITS, Gear & Piston, Bahama Taxi, Boomerang : Australia, Twin Palms, Zooloretto, Room 25, Tobago, Monster Factory, La Glace et le Ciel, Detective Poker, Cloud City, Niagara, Mercado de Lisboa, Squadro, Rainbow, Dots and Boxes, Farm Club, Stir Fry Eighteen, Polis : Fight for the Hegemony, Blue Skies, Pyramid Poker, Roppyakken, Illustori, Gaïa, Boomerang : Europe, Crime Zoom : Sale objectif, Cinco, Les Inventeurs, Through the Ages, Senet, Kalah, Noir : Killer vs. Hyde, Imhotep, Reversi, Signorie, Not Alone, Quoridor, Celestia, Solar Storm, Éruption, Boss Quest, Steam Works, Art Decko, Seikatsu, P.I., Taluva, Diced Tomatoes, Médina, Dungeon Twister, Sevens, Madeira, Splito, Iwari, Quetzal, Toucan do it, Eminent Domain, Off the Rails, Les Bâtisseurs - Antiquité, Dragonwood, Le Barbu, Quarto, Mr. Voir tout Lucky Numbers, Bärenpark, Res Arcana, Projet Gaia, Les Cités Perdues, Living Forest, BANG!, Railroad Ink, Tarot, Backgammon, Mémoire 44, À la Gloire d'Odin, Puerto Rico, Through the Ages - L'histoire vous appartient, Innovation, Viticulture, Hand and Foot, Next Station: London, L'Île des Chats, Dame de Pique, Pandemic, Solo, Takenoko, Alhambra, Century : La Route des Épices, Just One, Chakra, Dice Forge, Jaipur, Love Letter, Belote, Beyond the Sun, The Crew, Crusaders: Thy Will Be Done, Sushi Go!, Toc, Papayoo, Noé, Roll for the Galaxy, Wizard, The Crew : Mission Sous-Marine, Tigre et Euphrate, Parks, Carnegie, Blood Rage, Chromino, Mille Sabords !, Dice Hospital, Get on Board: New York & London, Rallyman GT, Bubblee Pop, Cribbage, Tichu, Saint Pétersbourg, Nidavellir, Loco Momo, Downforce, Tzolk'in, Jump Drive, Copenhagen, Sea Salt & Paper, Clans of Caledonia, Carcassonne : Chasseurs et Cueilleurs, Ultimate Railroads, Coinche, Martian Dice, L'Ascenseur, Bandido, Régicide, Atout Pique, LAMA, Marco Polo II : Au Service du Khan, Teotihuacan : La Cité des Dieux, Space Station Phoenix, For Sale, Can't Stop Express, Shifting Stones, Sushi Go Party!, Targui, Saboteur, La Fin des Artichauts, Arctic Scavengers, Hardback, Les Voyages de Marco Polo, Stella – Dixit Universe, Koi-koi, Tokaido, Yokohama, Break the Code, Draftosaurus, Marrakech, Abyss, Diamant, Échecs, Railways of the World, Letter Tycoon, Codex Naturalis, Thurn et Taxis : L'Aventure Postale, Conspiracy, Santorini, Hive, Via Magica, Clash of Decks, Desserts parfaits, Sobek : 2 joueurs, Fluxx, Happy City, La Granja, Dice Theme Park, Hugo, Russian Railroads, Les Bâtisseurs - Moyen-Âge, Little Factory, Trek 12, El Grande, Fruit Picking, Luxor, Troyes Dice, Tranquility, Lueur, VektoRace, City of the Big Shoulders, Scopa, L'Île Interdite, Haiclue, Almadi, Machiavelli, Super Fantasy Brawl, Quantum, Troyes, Skull, Similo, Chimera Station, Cacao, Krosmaster Arena, Trekking the World, Red7, Non merci !, Go Nuts for Donuts, Rami de Liverpool, Number Drop, Tash-Kalar, New Frontiers, Oriflamme, Roll'n Bump, Dames chinoises, Président, Puissance Quatre, Color pop, Automobiles, Dungeon Petz, Colt Express, Coloretto, Dungeon Roll, Keyflower, Perudo, Deus, Flaming Pyramids, The King's Guild, Complots, Equinox, Space Empires: 4X, Caylus, Buttons, Lewis & Clark, Pingimus, Ice Cold Ice Hockey, Rage, Schrödinger's Cats, Dobble, Nippon, 13 Indices, Big Monster, Butterfly, Les Loups-Garous de Thiercelieux, Onitama, Star Fluxx, Battle Sheep, Tarot africain, Welcome to New Las Vegas, Chocolate Factory, Reflection, Libertalia, Bataille Navale, 99 (jeu d'addition de cartes), Concept, Lords of Xidit, Jekyll vs.

[uwmspeccoll]

Milestone Monday

On this day, January 10 in 1812, the first steamboat on Western waters in the United States arrived in New Orleans from Pittsburgh after an 82-day maiden voyage down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. In commemoration of this momentous journey, we present a few steamboat images from Mark Twain’s Life on the Mississippi, published in 1944 by Limited Editions Club (LEC) under the direction of George Macy in a limited edition of 1200 copies signed by illustrator, the noted American Regionalist artist Thomas Hart Benton. Benton had already contributed illustrations for LEC’s editions of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, but Life on the Mississippi marked the first occasion Mr. Benton’s illustrations appeared in color. The book was designed by Will Ransom, composed by The Stratford Press and printed by William Edwin Rudge’s Sons in Caledonia type to evoke “the ‘period flavor’ of the nineteenth century.”

The steamboat on the Mississippi was a joint business venture between Robert Fulton, Robert R. Livingston, and Nicholas Roosevelt. Christened the New Orleans, it had an easy voyage down the Ohio River, but the famous New Madrid earthquake, on December 16 of 1811, altered the Mississippi’s topography enough to make the make the remainder of the journey perilous. The New Orleans soldiered on and reached its destination, ushering a new era in Western and mid-Continental commerce. Commercial steamboat navigation would go on to provide fertile creative grounds for a boy named Samuel Clemens born some twenty years later—“mark twain” being the leadsman’s cry indicating a safe depth for passage.

Also tucked safely into our copy of Life on the Mississippi is a program from a 1959 production of American actor Hal Holbrook’s “Mark Twain Tonight!” at Milwaukee’s Riverside Theatre. Holbrook went on to win a Tony Award for his portrayal of Twain, a role that he embodied for over 60 years.

View more posts on the Limited Editions Club here.

View more Milestone Monday posts here.

-Olivia, Special Collections Graduate Intern

[pastiche-comic]

Career Opportunities

Indisclosednia is hiring! The country’s robust economy has weathered through the ups and downs of the world market (somehow). The steady growth coupled with the country’s relative isolation mean that job opportunities abound. 

The country’s immigration offices practice preferential processing for select groups. These include the following:

Honourably discharged former military personnel from countries allied with Indisclosednia

Contract workers due for promotion

Refugees

Workers and investors from neighbouring countries

All immigrants, regardless of origin, are all eligible for citizenship after four years. Documented immigrants to Indisclosednia enjoy not only higher-than-average starting wages but also housing benefits and transportation subsidies. Their arrival to Indisclosednia is also subsidized by the government.

Room for Growth

The industries of Indisclosednia have a growing demand for skilled and unskilled labour. Understaffing is a major problem, exacerbated by its relative isolation. Employee retention is top priority for many large and small companies. Companies and labour unions alike have campaigned to streamline the documented immigration process to ensure that all essential job slots are filled.

The country’s top ten sectors with the most number of career opportunities are as follows:

Tourism and Hospitality

Mining

Food Processing

Oil

Small and Medium Private Enterprises (SMEs)

Construction

Agriculture

Entertainment

Financial Services

Technology

Passporting

Indisclosednia shares its prosperity with its neighbours. It has signed trade agreements with nearby nations that grant their passport holders the automatic privileges of permanent residents. People from these countries do not require the same documentation requirements as those from other countries.

This policy was drawn from a similar system employed within the European Economic Area. In fact, one of the countries that enjoys this privilege is France, albeit with extra stipulations favouring companies and citizens based in French Polynesia and New Caledonia. 

Starting Young

To meet the demands of unskilled labour in the country, adolescent students are allowed to take part-time jobs. This is widely considered a rite of passage for most young residents. A few of the jobs open to teenagers include retail, translation, and social media management.

To prevent abuses, adolescent labour is heavily regulated. Adolescents are not allowed to work in hazardous situations. Industrial businesses that employ minors must not allow them to stray into hazardous areas without adult supervision. No business is allowed to employ teenagers full-time or in jobs outside those permitted by the labour code.

Only during summer break are students allowed to take more than one shift. Teenagers must receive permission from their school principal to work shifts that don’t conflict with their school schedules. They are not allowed to work if their grades are slipping.

All internships in Indisclosednia are paid. Adolescent interns must not be paid significantly lower than their young adult counterparts.

Housing Benefits

One of the key benefits of following the formal emigration and recruitment programs is the ability to seek housing benefits. Indisclosednia’s government works in concert with local developers to supply new arrivals with affordable housing to meet their basic needs. Documented immigration guarantees a residence upon arrival to the country.

Immigrants also have the option to receive a short-term housing stipend that allows them to select their own homes or apartments elsewhere.

Companies registered with the Indisclosednean government are obligated to provide decent lodging to contract workers for the duration of their stay in Indisclosednia.

Legal Immigration Policy

Although Indisclosednia does not follow the same punitive measures for undocumented migrant workers, it does encourage documented immigration to ensure the disbursement of benefits. Most immigration privileges are only available to those who have completed proper procedure. People with no or incomplete documents can still apply for legal immigration while within the country. 

Make sure that the company you apply for is registered with the Indisclosednean government before accepting any offers. Companies not registered with the government often provide substandard housing and employment conditions. Report any suspicious company policies to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Chamber of Commerce, or the Labour Union Network.

[ucflibrary]

May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month!

 Asian Pacific American as a topic covers vast oceans of identity and information. By definition, an Asian Pacific American is an American (whether born, naturalized, or other) who was born on or has heritage from anywhere on the Asian continent and the Pacific islands of Melanesia (New Guinea, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji and the Solomon Islands), Micronesia (Marianas, Guam, Wake Island, Palau, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, Nauru and the Federated States of Micronesia) and Polynesia (New Zealand, Hawaiian Islands, Rotuma, Midway Islands, Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, Tuvalu, Cook Islands, French Polynesia and Easter Island). These areas cover a wide array of languages, cultures, religions, and ethnicities that have brought countless skills, hopes and dreams to the United States.

 UCF Libraries faculty and staff have (very enthusiastically) suggested 24 books and movies within the library’s collection by or about Asian Pacific Americans. Click the link below to see the full list, descriptions, and catalog links. These, and additional titles, are also on the Featured Bookshelf display on the second (main) floor next to the bank of two elevators.

A Concise History of China by J. A. G. Roberts

In this overarching book, J. A. G. Roberts refers to recent archeological finds--the caches of bronze vessels found at Sanxingdui--and to new documentary reevaluations--the reassessment of Manchu documentation. The first half of the book provides an up-to-date interpretation of China's early and imperial history, while the second half concentrates on the modern period and provides an interpretive account of major developments--the impact of Western imperialism, the rise of Chinese Communism, and the record of the People's Republic of China since 1949.

Suggested by Richard Harrison, Research & Information Services

 A Tragedy of Democracy: Japanese confinement in North America by Greg Robinson

Most remarkably, A Tragedy of Democracy is the first book to analyze official policy toward West Coast Japanese Americans within a North American context. Robinson studies confinement on the mainland alongside events in wartime Hawaii, where fears of Japanese Americans justified Army dictatorship, suspension of the Constitution, and the imposition of military tribunals. He similarly reads the treatment of Japanese Americans against Canada's confinement of 22,000 citizens and residents of Japanese ancestry from British Columbia. A Tragedy of Democracy recounts the expulsion of almost 5,000 Japanese from Mexico's Pacific Coast and the poignant story of the Japanese Latin Americans who were kidnapped from their homes and interned in the United States

Suggested by Richard Harrison, Research & Information Services

 An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro

In the face of the misery in his homeland, the artist Masuji Ono was unwilling to devote his art solely to the celebration of physical beauty. Instead, he put his work in the service of the imperialist movement that led Japan into World War II. Now, as the mature Ono struggles through the aftermath of that war, his memories of his youth and of the "floating world"—the nocturnal world of pleasure, entertainment, and drink—offer him both escape and redemption, even as they punish him for betraying his early promise. Indicted by society for its defeat and reviled for his past aesthetics, he relives the passage through his personal history that makes him both a hero and a coward but, above all, a human being.

Suggested by Rachel Edford, Teaching & Engagement

 Born Confused by Tanuja Desair Hidier

Seventeen-year-old Dimple, whose family is from India, discovers that she is not Indian enough for the Indians and not American enough for the Americans, as she sees her hypnotically beautiful, manipulative best friend taking possession of both her heritage and the boy she likes.

Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

 Cora Cooks Pancit written by Dorina Lazo Gilmore and illustrated by Kristi Valiant

When all her older siblings are away, Cora's mother finally lets her help make pancit, a Filipino noodle dish. Includes recipe for pancit.

Suggested by Cindy Dancel, Research & Information Services

 Dance Dance Revolution by Cathy Park Hong

Named one of the Los Angeles Times's Best Science Fiction Books in 2007, Dance Dance Revolution is a genre-bending tour de force told from the perspective of the Guide, a former dissident and tour guide of an imagined desert city.

Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

 Darius the Great is Not Okay by Adib Khorram

Darius Kellner speaks better Klingon than Farsi, and he knows more about Hobbit social cues than Persian ones. He’s a Fractional Persian—half, his mom’s side—and his first-ever trip to Iran is about to change his life. Darius has never really fit in at home, and he’s sure things are going to be the same in Iran. His clinical depression doesn’t exactly help matters, and trying to explain his medication to his grandparents only makes things harder. Then Darius meets Sohrab, the boy next door, and everything changes. Soon, they’re spending their days together, playing soccer, eating faludeh, and talking for hours on a secret rooftop overlooking the city’s skyline. Sohrab calls him Darioush—the original Persian version of his name—and Darius has never felt more like himself than he does now that he’s Darioush to Sohrab.

Suggested by Peter Spyers-Duran, Cataloging

 Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

“Lydia is dead. But they don’t know this yet.” So begins this exquisite novel about a Chinese American family living in 1970s small-town Ohio. Lydia is the favorite child of Marilyn and James Lee, and her parents are determined that she will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. But when Lydia’s body is found in the local lake, the delicate balancing act that has been keeping the Lee family together is destroyed, tumbling them into chaos. A profoundly moving story of family, secrets, and longing, Everything I Never Told You is both a gripping page-turner and a sensitive family portrait, uncovering the ways in which mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, and husbands and wives struggle, all their lives, to understand one another.

Suggested by Rachel Edford, Teaching & Engagement

 Fa Mulan: the story of a woman warrior by Robert D. San Souci

A retelling of the original Chinese poem in which a brave young girl masquerades as a boy and fights the Tartars in the Khan's army.

Suggested by Peggy Nuhn, Connect Libraries

Front Desk by Kelly Yang

Mia Tang has a lot of secrets. Number 1: She lives in a motel, not a big house. Every day, while her immigrant parents clean the rooms, ten-year-old Mia manages the front desk of the Calivista Motel and tends to its guests. Number 2: Her parents hide immigrants. And if the mean motel owner, Mr. Yao, finds out they've been letting them stay in the empty rooms for free, the Tangs will be doomed. Number 3: She wants to be a writer. But how can she when her mom thinks she should stick to math because English is not her first language? It will take all of Mia's courage, kindness, and hard work to get through this year. Will she be able to hold on to her job, help the immigrants and guests, escape Mr. Yao, and go for her dreams?

Suggested by Peter Spyers-Duran, Cataloging

 Impounded: Dorothea Lange and the censored images of Japanese American internment by Dorothea Lange

Censored by the U.S. Army, Dorothea Lange's unseen photographs are the extraordinary photographic record of the Japanese American internment saga. This indelible work of visual and social history confirms Dorothea Lange's stature as one of the twentieth century's greatest American photographers. Presenting 119 images originally censored by the U.S. Army―the majority of which have never been published―Impounded evokes the horror of a community uprooted in the early 1940s and the stark reality of the internment camps. With poignancy and sage insight, nationally known historians Linda Gordon and Gary Okihiro illuminate the saga of Japanese American internment: from life before Executive Order 9066 to the abrupt roundups and the marginal existence in the bleak, sandswept camps.

Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services

 John Okada: the life & rediscovered work of the author of No-no boy edited by Frank Abe, Greg Robinson, and Floyd Cheung

No-No Boy, John Okada's only published novel, centers on a Japanese American who refuses to fight for the country that incarcerated him and his people in World War II and is cast out by his divided community. The novel faced a similar rejection until it was rediscovered and reissued in 1976, becoming a classic of American literature. As a result of Okada's untimely death at age forty-seven, the author's life and other works have remained obscure. This collection offers the first full-length examination of Okada's development as an artist, placing recently discovered writing by Okada alongside essays that reassess his legacy. Meticulously researched biographical details, insight from friends and relatives, and a trove of photographs illuminate Okada's life in Seattle, military service, and careers as a public librarian, technical writer, and ad man. This volume is an essential companion to No-No Boy.

Suggested by Missy Murphey, Research & Information Services

 Little Fires Everywhere: a novel by Celeste Ng

In Shaker Heights, a placid, progressive suburb of Cleveland, everything is planned -- from the layout of the winding roads, to the colors of the houses, to the successful lives its residents will go on to lead. And no one embodies this spirit more than Elena Richardson, whose guiding principle is playing by the rules. Enter Mia Warren -- an enigmatic artist and single mother -- who arrives in this idyllic bubble with her teenaged daughter Pearl, and rents a house from the Richardsons. Soon Mia and Pearl become more than tenants: all four Richardson children are drawn to the mother-daughter pair. But Mia carries with her a mysterious past and a disregard for the status quo that threatens to upend this carefully ordered community. When old family friends of the Richardsons attempt to adopt a Chinese-American baby, a custody battle erupts that dramatically divides the town -- and puts Mia and Elena on opposing sides.

Suggested by Sandy Avila, Research & Information Services

 Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

In Memoirs of a Geisha, we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion. It is a unique and triumphant work of fiction—at once romantic, erotic, suspenseful—and completely unforgettable.

Suggested by Peggy Nuhn, Connect Libraries

 Music for Alice by Allen Say

As a girl, Alice loved to dance, but the rhythms of her life offered little opportunity for a foxtrot, let alone a waltz. World War II erupted soon after she was married. Alice and her husband, along with many other Japanese Americans, were forced to leave their homes and report to assembly centers around the country. Undaunted, Alice and her husband learned to make the most of every circumstance, from their stall in the old stockyard in Portland to the decrepit farm in the Oregon desert, with its field of stones. Like a pair of skilled dancers, they sidestepped adversity to land gracefully amid golden opportunity. Together they turned a barren wasteland into a field of endless flowers. Such achievements did not come without effort and sacrifice, though, and Alice often thought her dancing days were long behind her.

Suggested by Peggy Nuhn, Connect Libraries

 No-no Boy by John Okada

No-No Boy tells the story of Ichiro Yamada, a fictional version of the real-life "no-no boys." Yamada answered "no" twice in a compulsory government questionnaire as to whether he would serve in the armed forces and swear loyalty to the United States. Unwilling to pledge himself to the country that interned him and his family, Ichiro earns two years in prison and the hostility of his family and community when he returns home to Seattle. As Ozeki writes, Ichiro’s "obsessive, tormented" voice subverts Japanese postwar "model-minority" stereotypes, showing a fractured community and one man’s "threnody of guilt, rage, and blame as he tries to negotiate his reentry into a shattered world."

Suggested by Missy Murphey, Research & Information Services

 Severance by Ling Ma

Candace Chen, a millennial drone self-sequestered in a Manhattan office tower, is devoted to routine. With the recent passing of her Chinese immigrant parents, she's had her fill of uncertainty. She's content just to carry on: She goes to work, troubleshoots the teen-targeted Gemstone Bible, watches movies in a Greenpoint basement with her boyfriend. So Candace barely notices when a plague of biblical proportions sweeps New York. Then Shen Fever spreads. Families flee. Companies cease operations. The subways screech to a halt. Her bosses enlist her as part of a dwindling skeleton crew with a big end-date payoff. Soon entirely alone, still unfevered, she photographs the eerie, abandoned city as the anonymous blogger NY Ghost. Candace won't be able to make it on her own forever, though. Enter a group of survivors, led by the power-hungry IT tech Bob. They're traveling to a place called the Facility, where, Bob promises, they will have everything they need to start society anew. But Candace is carrying a secret she knows Bob will exploit. Should she escape from her rescuers?

Suggested by Sara Duff, Acquisitions & Collections

 The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X. R. Pan

Leigh Chen Sanders is absolutely certain about one thing: When her mother died by suicide, she turned into a bird. Leigh, who is half Asian and half white, travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time. There, she is determined to find her mother, the bird. In her search, she winds up chasing after ghosts, uncovering family secrets, and forging a new relationship with her grandparents. And as she grieves, she must try to reconcile the fact that on the same day she kissed her best friend and longtime secret crush, Axel, her mother was taking her own life.

Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services

 The Chinese Exclusion Act by directed by Ric Burns and Li-Shin Yu

Examine the origin, history and impact of the 1882 law that made it illegal for Chinese workers to come to America and for Chinese nationals already here ever to become U.S. citizens. The first in a long line of acts targeting the Chinese for exclusion, it remained in force for more than 60 years.

Suggested by Richard Harrison, Research & Information Services

 The Making of Asian America: a history by Erika Lee

The definitive history of Asian Americans by one of the nation's preeminent scholars on the subject. In the past fifty years, Asian Americans have helped change the face of America and are now the fastest growing group in the United States. But as award-winning historian Erika Lee reminds us, Asian Americans also have deep roots in the country. The Making of Asian America tells the little-known history of Asian Americans and their role in American life, from the arrival of the first Asians in the Americas to the present-day. An epic history of global journeys and new beginnings, this book shows how generations of Asian immigrants and their American-born descendants have made and remade Asian American life in the United States: sailors who came on the first trans-Pacific ships in the 1500s; indentured "coolies" who worked alongside African slaves in the Caribbean; and Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Korean, and South Asian immigrants who were recruited to work in the United States only to face massive racial discrimination, Asian exclusion laws, and for Japanese Americans, incarceration during World War II. No longer a "despised minority," Asian Americans are now held up as America's "model minorities" in ways that reveal the complicated role that race still plays in the United States.

Suggested by Missy Murphey, Research & Information Services

 The Night Tiger by Yangsze Choo

Quick-witted, ambitious Ji Lin is stuck as an apprentice dressmaker, moonlighting as a dance-hall girl to help pay off her mother's mahjong debts. But when one of her dance partners accidentally leaves behind a gruesome souvenir, Ji Lin plunges into a dark adventure: a mirror world of secrets and superstitions. Eleven-year-old Chinese houseboy Ren also has a secret, a promise he must fulfill to his dead master; to find his master's severed finger and bury it with his body. Ren has forty-nine days to do so, or his master's soul will wander the earth forever. Dazzling and propulsive, The Night Tiger is the coming-of-age of a child and a young woman, each searching for their place in a society that would rather they stay invisible.

Suggested by Sandy Avila, Research & Information Services

 The Way You Make Me Feel by Maurene Goo

Clara Shin lives for pranks and disruption. When she takes one joke too far, her dad sentences her to a summer working on his food truck, the KoBra, alongside her uptight classmate Rose Carver. Not the carefree summer Clara had imagined. But maybe Rose isn't so bad. Maybe the boy named Hamlet (yes, Hamlet) crushing on her is pretty cute. Maybe Clara actually feels invested in her dad’s business. What if taking this summer seriously means that Clara has to leave her old self behind?

Suggested by Megan Haught, Teaching & Engagement/Research & Information Services

 Thich Nhat Hanh: essential writings by Thicht Than

Zen master, poet, monk and peace advocate, Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who has lived in exile in France for 30 years. Through his writings and retreats he has helped countless people of all religious backgrounds to live mindfully in the present moment, to uproot sources of anger and distrust, and to achieve relationships of love and understanding.

Suggested by Cindy Dancel, Research & Information Services

To the Stars: the autobiography of George Takei, Star Trek's Mr. Sulu by George Takei

This is the autobiography of one of Star Trek's most popular stars, George Takei. It tells of his triumph over adversity and of his huge success, despite an inauspicious start in a wartime US Asian relocation camp. In his lifetime, he has become an actor, a successful businessman, a writer, and a man deeply involved in politics and the democratic process. His story also includes his early days as an actor when he had brushes with greats like Alec Guinness, Burt Lancaster and Bruce Lee, as well as his first meeting with a writer/producer named Gene Roddenberry.

Suggested by Tim Walker, Information Technology & Digital Initiatives

[sailingsvsarean]

OCEAN PASSAGE Australia TO NEW CALEDONIA - Following Our Gypsea Hearts (...

[channelguest]

Fresh Faces: Tahiti Tourisme CEO Jean-Marc Mocellin | Traveltalk

Where was the last place you travelled and where would you like to travel to next?

Besides my business trips, I have explored Asia quite extensively - and the last place I discovered there was Myanmar.

My other continent of predilection is South America, and after visiting Peru, Chile, Argentina and Brazil several times, I am planning to visit Colombia.

Besides your passport, what’s one thing you never travel without?

Unfortunately - but like most people - I never go anywhere without my smartphone to keep in touch with my office.

Why did you take up the role at Tahiti Tourisme?

Tahiti is home for me. I have lived and worked in Tahiti for 23 years - far more time than in all the other 11 countries I have worked in, including my native island New Caledonia, which I left after college.

While French Polynesia’s tourism performances were booming before COVID-19, working for a destination where tourism is the main economic driver is rewarding as the government policies and orientations take our industry parameters into account.

It is a unique opportunity for me to contribute to developing a sustainable tourism sector, which is respectful of the environment and people.

Tell us something people might not know about Tahiti?

When you arrive in Tahiti, you will be struck by the spontaneity and authenticity of the population, where the culture has remained very strong and alive.

The warm interactions you will have with the locals are not the result of efficient tourism industry training; it is in the nature of the Polynesians, which makes your vacation experiences very genuine and memorable.

Also, people don’t realise the size and the diversity of the islands of Tahiti. Most travellers are familiar with the famous islands of Tahiti, Moorea, Raiatea, Huahine and Bora Bora that are indeed the most popular, but there is so much more to discover. 

There are 118 islands that make up French Polynesia, which is spread over a territory as large as Europe, and where remoteness has enabled each archipelago to keep its own identity.

In the center, the Tuamotu group of atolls is a diverse paradise, with Rangiroa, the second largest atoll in the world, and Fakarava, where a multitude of marine species interact in their passages (manta ray, dolphin hammerhead sharks...).

In the extreme south, we have the Australes archipelagos, whose climate is very cool, and which has one of the best spots in the world for whale watching - Rurutu. 

And last but not least, in the far north, you have the Marquesas Islands, which are rich in culture and renowned for their Art of Tatau dance. Each of these archipelagos deserves to be discovered.

Tell us one thing that’s coming up for Tahiti that’s got you excited. 

Like everyone in tourism, we are eager to see this crisis end.

Our islands have been relatively spared from the pandemic and the government is taking all measures to keep Tahiti safe for its population and its visitors; we are therefore on the starting block to take action with all stakeholders locally and in each of our markets such as Australia and NZ to bring colours back to Tahiti Tourism… Sunnier days Ahead!

In the meantime, we invite people to keep dreaming about The Islands of Tahiti with our new series video, Tahiti Comes To You. Visit our website www.TahitiTourisme.org to discover more.

What’s your top travel tip?

Regardless of your style of travel, remain a humble and respectful traveller towards the local population. You will be amazed by how you will benefit in return and the experiences that will open up to you.

[sy-maya]

Passage to New Zealand and next steps

Stats until now: sailing for 3.5 years, 18′130 nautical miles (33′580 km)

Family and friends ask us about our next steps. What next? Where do we go? What will we do? How long still? The short and the long answer is: We don’t know yet. But we’ll let you know as soon as we figure it out. In the next days, we have to do some repairs on Maya, haul her out, organize all that. Herbert has to catch up with work (Shortcut). Then, we’d like to do some sight seeing with the kiddos (Christmas?), etc. After that, we will see… Stay tuned! ;-)

In the meantime, here is our passage to NZ day by day. Thanks to our dear friend Grégoire Meylan for posting these in out FB page and thank you all for your motivating comments!

Some impressions can be found here: FB Album NZ Passage 

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Day 1: Between Storm and Hurricane November 16-17, 2017

We left Tongatapu yesterday at noon and had a smooth start. Our friends Peter and Renate from the German boat SY Mardos left 2 hours ahead. Cool to have a sailing buddy. Even if we don’t see them, it’s good to know that there is somebody close by. We were analyzing the weather together for weeks, making Excel sheets and weighting different options (the good old German/Swiss way). A bit of background information. This passage is probably the most tricky/dangerous one we ever made. Until now we were stable trade-wind sailors, but down here, the weather changes from one hour to the other. Predictions are very unreliable e.g. now we should have 10 knots wind. In fact we have 20 knots. This is a 100% error :-/. At least the direction is correct. Also, there are weekly spring storms raging on the north coast of New Zealand (up to 30S). There is one right now with wind speeds of a predicted 50 knots. This means gusts up to 60-70 knots in reality. Not good. In comparison, you can imagine holding your head out of the car window at 140km/h. Now imagine it is your entire home that is looking out of that car window and on top of the street rushes 8-9m waves. We don’t want that and that’s the reason why we did not leave last time we planned to. We might have just passed before that storm, but any problem with the engine at the wrong moment could happen and boooom. We are so happy though, that our friends from SY Carapitanga and SY MeliMela just made it on time this morning! The weather window we are taking right now looks much better, at least for now. Weather might still change and will change. Second reason why this is a tricky passage are the hurricanes in the South Pacific. The season started November 1st. Even if there are no reported hurricanes before December 1st in Tonga, we do not want to risk to stay too long. Hurricanes are also very unpredictable constructs. There are outliers in every season. We checked before leaving and there is no hurricane in sight down here. We are right between storm and hurricane. Good that we get weather on board and have daily radio rounds with our friends here. Thanks HAM radio.

Due to the tricky weather here, some of our friend sailors (actually most of them) rely on the help of some weather guru. We don’t. He sent about 16 boats to New Zealand at the wrong time. They were all stuck at Minerva, a reef in the middle of the ocean, for almost 2 weeks in order to take a very risky weather window (the one we decided to avoid). We hope they all arrived safe and sound in New Zealand. But of course, at the end, everyone is free to do what they want, but we prefer to listen to our guts and blame only ourselves if something goes wrong.

Initially, we wanted to see Minerva, a reef about 2 days SW from Tonga in the middle of the ocean. However, the current wind direction below 30S does not allow for a visit (reminds us when we wanted to see Coco Island from Costa Rica to Galapagos and the wind was blowing from the wrong direction. History is repeating). We never made it there. Most ‘experts’ say to go west and then south to catch the west winds after 30S. Currently, the wind blows from E down there and this already since weeks. A change in the wind pattern cannot be seen. Therefore, we go South, until the SE wind comes in. Completely against all sailing literature. (BTW, there are tens of boats waiting in Fiji and New Caledonia already for weeks to cross, but they have the wind right against, and Hurricanes in the back).

Hope our guts will be right and we will make it safe and sound. So far so good.

Fun fact: By going south, we crossed the political time zone again to yesterday and will cross it once more in a couple of days to tomorrow. Don’t ask what day it is here :-)

We had Chili con Carne for lunch&dinner.

position at 9pm UTC+/-??? https://waypoint.li/map?q=-24.872,-175.0814

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Day 2: Active volcanos and pitted dates. November 17-18, 2017

We’re still heading straight south to catch the wind. The night was calm and nice. This morning, we started the engine to keep up the speed. At least, we listen to one of the sailor golden rules for the NZ crossing: DO NOT SPARE THE FUEL, KEEP UP THE SPEED WITH OR WITHOUT WIND! ;-) But still, we fly reef III on the main sail, safety first! We’ve sailed 360 NM, and there are 7xx NM more to go. Our average speed is 6.3kn. It was a lovely day, with smooth (motor)sailing. Even the sun decided to show up at the late afternoon, just in time to give us a wonderful sunset. So far so good.

The boys are fine, very energetic and challenging :-) They are quite excited by the surrounding sea trenches (more than 10km deep) and volcanic activities. We showed them on the map how we are crossing a geologically interesting (and scaring) active underwater area. So, instead of watching for dolphins or whales, they are fantasizing about eventual volcanos “Did you see that? I spotted some smoke, it is definitely a volcano!”.

We had yummy butternut Tortelloni for lunch and a chocolate-banana-dates-sesame cake for dessert. We’re trying to use all the “forbidden” items before coming to NZ. No fresh food, no dairy, no seeds, no lentils, etc. They have a very strict list in order to preserve their beautiful islands. The main question among sailors before leaving Tonga was “Do you need by any chance some lentils?”. It became a running gag ;-) For the story, our friends Meri&Manu from SY Carapitanga/Paprika, gave us a big bag of dates before heading to NZ. Asma was very happy and proud to find out that they were actually from Tunisia! Yeaaaah! The bag is almost empty now ;-) Position at 9pm UTC+/-??? https://waypoint.li/map?q=-26.732,-175.21

—————————————–

Day 3: South, More South, Most South November 18-19, 2017

Again nice sailing, smooth conditions. The weather forecast seems to be reliable and stable. We are very grateful, so far so good. After sailing straight south since we left Tonga, today we switched to bearing Whangarei, NZ. 480NM behind us, and still 655 NM to go. We crossed this afternoon the 28S longitude, we have never been so far South. The most South we got was Pitcairn Islands (25S) in September 2016, when we first crossed the Pacific from Galapagos. We are all excited about it :-) Small things in sailing life. The air temperature is still nice here, and we are enjoying every bit of it, because our friends on the radio are complaining about the ice cold NZ! Brrrrr. We had a butternut soup for lunch. Soup leftovers and pop corn for dinner ;-). Yummy.

Position at 9pm UTC-11 (we figured it out, officially, it’s Sat 18th here until we cross the date line again.) https://waypoint.li/map?q=-28.603,-176.418

—————————————–

Day 4: Half distance November 19-20, 2017

While writing these lines, we are only a few miles away from half the distance to Whangarei - New Zealand. Today, nothing spectacular but the sunrise, the sunset, the starry sky, and a splendid day of sailing. We read a lot to the kids. Adam is in Harry Potter fever and Herbert got addicted too (again). So he finished the remaining three chapters of the second book. Adam was so impressed that Asma had to tell him a lot of bedtime stories to get his mind off the scary passages. Samy didn’t understand all the details - better for his sleep quality. ;-)

Position: https://waypoint.li/map?q=-30.00,-177.04

—————————————–

Day 5: Wind of Change ;-) November 20-21, 2017

After a quiet night, the wind is turning to the right side (From S to SE). Exactly as forecasted. The bearing is 230, straight to Whangarei NZ. Still 440NM to go. We’re passing the Kermadec Ridge right at this moment. Quite rough seas with gusts up to 30 knots (“Dream conditions” for Herbert, “Not So” for Asma but OK, the boys are sleeping). Quite impressive to be in these surroundings. Volcanos -new and old-, marine reserves, birds everywhere. We even spotted our first Albatross, which was following us for more than an hour. Amazing beast! Herbert somehow managed to injure his left hand. It got infected and quite swollen, which led to fever and weakness. Trying to fix him with antibiotic ointment. Last green lentils, carrots and potatoes stew for lunch&dinner.

Position: https://waypoint.li/map?q=-31.072,-178.917

—————————————–

Day 6: 180 West or 180 East? November 21-22, 2017

The day started with a celebration: we crossed the 180W/E longitude line (and therefore the date line once again)! We have officially circumnavigated half the globe. Our last watermelon has been opened for the occasion ;-). The sailing has been quite bumpy, according to Asma, who is more than looking forward to its direction changing easterly so that we have the wind more from the stern! Herbert and the boys, of course, find it very cool. Maya is rocking, and after all it’s much more fun to play with toy cars when the floor of the living room is inclined by 30 degrees. There are not many houses like this out there. Adam had the ingenious idea to build a sleigh with our IKEA plates. It worked fine and it didn’t take long until the first plate broke… Because of these conditions, only leftovers for lunch (lentils yet again) and some crackers and pop corn for dinner. No way to cook! Even washing the dishes or moving from A to B reveals to be very sporty and to be carefully planned for. The good thing is that we could spot our buddy SV MARDOS since yesterday night and still now, we are about 3NM apart and could talk on the VHF radio! Funny! Herbert’s injury is not getting better, therefore we switched to antibiotics. The wound looks like a volcano by now! He feels a little better, though. Some readers might wonder what we are doing during our night watches when outside it’s freezing and the waves transform Maya into a roller coaster. Asma is watching Big Bang Theory and Herbert - officially on holiday - is (as a hobby) helping a Swiss startup implementing some features for their iPhone app. What a nerdy family ;o) Still 294NM to go. Good night! Position: https://waypoint.li/map?q=-32.60,178.73

—————————————–

Day 7: Last night? November 22-23, 2017

After a rocky night, we had a very nice and smooth sailing day. Sun, no waves, perfect wind (Herbert: boring ;-) ). Well, the temperature is getting lower and lower (air at 20 and water at 18 degrees), and we adapt our layers of clothing, so it goes from 0 (only underwear) to 1 (t-shirt for Herbert) or 2 layers (fleece jacket and thick socks for Asma). The boys start with more layers after waking up, but end up with underwear after a few hours. Maya is well isolated, so we only notice the cold when we go outside, which happens less and less by the way… Bye bye tropics :-(

Still, we are all excited for the next chapter of our family journey. We have been sailing one week from Tonga, and it is - most probably - our last night at sea for a long time. Asma was very busy emptying the provisions, so there was much more cooking than yesterday: a bread with (last) whole grain flour and (last) seeds for breakfast, Gnocchis with (last) fresh tomatoes for lunch, a cake with (last) eggs, and (last) hazelnuts and (last) dates for the snack; and finally (last) sausages for dinner. For the New Zealand immigration, we have to get rid of all food items before arriving, and give a list of all “risk goods”. Herbert has been filling these forms. He could even call the officials on the maritime radio via SSB, to inform them of our soon arrival. His hand is getting better, but still a bit weak. The antibiotics are doing their job.

1042 NM behind us and less than 140NM to go until the customs berth in Marsden Cove marina, Whangarei NZ.

Position: https://waypoint.li/map?q=-34.268,176.459

—————————————–

Day 8: Arrival November 23-24, 2017

At midnight, Herbert woke Asma up for her shift with a “We have a problem, the wind is gone, and the temporary autopilot doesn’t want to work, argh!”. Asma put on 5 layers of clothes and went outside to steer by hand. Herbert tried and tried to fix the problem without success, so he eventually went to sleep until his next shift. Asma was actually very happy to be steering outside despite the cold. It was our last night sailing (well at least for a while ;-)), so we fully enjoyed the starry sky and the peacefulness of the night. It gave us the opportunity to think about all this amazing journey.

At 6:30am, the kids woke up, put warm clothes on and went outside with Asma. Adam could steer, while she prepared their breakfast. He was so proud to help :-) At 10am, Herbert woke up and started to fix the autopilot again. Debugging. At 11am, it was working! Yesss, now, no time to sleep or rest, we have to clean the boat for clearance because we want to arrive today!! And we will. We could have slowed the pace and spent another night on sea but no, we want to arrive on Friday, as planned ;-)

Maya was grateful to be cared of and to be clean and neat. Even the boys were like “Ah wow, Maya looks nice like this!”. And both of us thought ”THAT’S THE WAY SHE WOULD BE IF YOU KIDS WOULDN’T MAKE A MESS ALL THE TIME”, but we didn’t say it. We’ve just asked them to keep her like this at least until the customs come in next day, otherwise they wouldn’t let us stay in New Zealand. Hihihi develish parents, but it worked :-) For lunch, we had some precooked French delicatessen: Boeuf Bourguignon and Ratatouille :-)

At 5pm, the boys were screaming “Land in Sight! We see New Zealand!”. So cool. We will make it. They went to bed to sleep a little bit in order to be fit when we arrive late. That’s what Samy did, except that he never woke up until next morning ;-) Adam was so excited, he couldn’t stay still for 1s, so we let him stay awake with us, and enjoy the breathtaking scenery outside. For dinner, Herbert, who was still in the mood of French cuisine, and who didn’t want to throw away all onions and garlic, cooked a wonderful onion soup. Yummy!

By 8:30pm, Adam was getting tired and overexcited. He could only calm down and sleep when Herbert laid with him in bed and promised to wake him up when we arrive. Which we actually did, but he was so tired, he just fell back asleep ;-) Herbert took radio contact with the NZ harbor to announce our arrival. It was getting dark, we were tired but also excited, that instead of taking shifts to rest, we just sat together outside to steer and enjoy our last miles under a new moon, clear sky, shooting stars, flat sea, and welcoming land lights. It was very emotional. We are really here. We did it. Amazing.

The harbor entry was quite tricky at night, we were so happy to have the navigation charts. It all went well with a huge amount of Adrenalin. At 11:15pm, we were safely docked at the customs’ berth at Marsden Cove Marina. Exhausted but overwhelmed by gratefulness.

Good night from New Zealand!

Position: https://waypoint.li/map?q=-35.8367,174.4686

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Day 9: Ship capsized and sank November 24-25, 2017

At 6:30am, the boys woke up and cheered “WE ARE IN NEW ZEALAND!!!”. No way to sleep any longer :-). We woke up, took our breakfast, and cleared up. At 8:20am, the immigration officer arrived, followed later by the quarantine one. This latter was Mike Barker, the guy we met in Vava’u during the “Blue Water Festival” (Corresponding blogpost still to come), and who we asked all about food clearance in NZ. Nice to see a familiar face at arrival. It went all well, and at 9:20am, we were officially cleared in! We learned from the custom officials that two ships didn’t make the trip. One ship has to be abandoned, the other sank. The crew, however, could be saved in both cases. We were shocked. This happened exactly in the weather window we wanted to take first, but finally didn’t take (see one of the FB posts). Lesson learned: wait, wait, wait, until weather is stable.

It’s amazing how the clearance procedure in New Zealand is dramatized. Adjectives such as difficult, expensive, impossible, tedious, long, etc. are often used to describe it. People start preparing already months before arrival. The truth is: It is very easy to clear in to New Zealand. The assistance of the officials is unbelievable and it takes no longer than 15 minutes to get cleared. This is about 4 times faster than Tonga for example. Not to mention the countries in Latin America. There is not much paper work to be done and it doesn’t cost a cent. Well, that is OUR experience, may be, we were indeed very well prepared ;-)

After clearance, we moved straight to our berth B52 (what a great berth name ;-) ). At 10am, we left the boat and went exploring the marina.

The Marsden Cove Marina is outside of Whangarei, the main city here. There is not much. Therefore, it took us quite some time to get decent Internet to write these posts.

By the way, Herbert’s hand is getting better. He hasn’t been to a doctor yet (everything is closed), but first thing on Monday.

The little we saw so far - the meadows, the woods, the cows, etc. - reminds us of Switzerland. Well, there are some palm trees, but otherwise, really similar. On top of that, everything is so clean. What also hit us was that everybody is so white. Really white skin. Or pale? ;-) The ‘small’ supermarket has everything one can imagine (well, at least for us) we bought fresh vegetables (Broccoli, which we missed most during our trip), fruits (KIWIS ;-), strawberries and blueberries), some meat, CHEESE :-))) to prepare a nice dinner. On Maya, the meat already marinated, and the veggies chopped, we fired up the stove. At least, we wanted to fire it up. However, it didn’t work. Gas was empty. Wow, how lucky are we. If this would have happened some days or hours earlier… Anyway, what now? It’s late Saturday afternoon. When do the stores close here? Let’s ask our neighbors form SY Tregoning if they can help somehow. Luckily, they had a spare gas bottle. We hooked it up and were able to start cooking. While Herbert prepared dinner, Asma went to check whether the shop was still open and had some gas. Yeah, it did. We were saved.

After dinner, we watched a movie with the kids and went all early to bed. Good night!

Position: https://waypoint.li/map?q=-35.8373,174.4685

[linuswilson]

Ep. 59: Sailing offshore from Vava'u, Tonga to Fiji, Vanuatu, & New Caledonia with Linus Wilson, Season 4 of Slow Boat Sailing's Part-Time Around the World Trip

Ep. 59: Sailing offshore from Vava’u, Tonga to Fiji, Vanuatu, & New Caledonia with Linus Wilson, Season 4 of Slow Boat Sailing’s Part-Time Around the World Trip

Linus Wilson talks about season 4 of his part-time around the world trip where he sails his 31-foot Island Packet from Vava’u, Tonga to Suva, Viti Levu, Fiji. Then he and his volunteer crew member sail to the home of the active volcano Mt. Yasur, Port Resolution, Tanna. Finally, the Slow Boat arrives in Noumea, New Caledonia after the third offshore passage in less than a month. That is the 15th…

[sa-waai]

Interesting read.

Here's Why African History is being suppressed and ignored by white scholars. RACISM, HISTORY AND LIES

Max Dashu

Some doctrines of racial supremacy as classically taught in Euro/American institutions, textbooks and media:

PHYSICAL CALIBRATION DOCTRINE: In which white anthropologists treat people as racial specimens, measuring "cephalic indices" and attempting to prove superiority of the "white" brain. Ugly racist terminology: "prognathism," "platyrhiny," "steatopygous," "sub-Egyptian." Mug-shot lineups of "the Veddan female," "Arapaho male, "Negroid type," "Mongoloid specimen" characterize this approach. Out of favor in the mid-20th-century, it has enjoyed a revisionist comeback with sociobiology and works claiming racial differentials in intelligence, such as "The Bell Curve."

TECHNOLOGICAL CALIBRATION DOCTRINE: Insists on forcing archaeological finds as well as living cultures into a grid of "development" based on whether tools, materials and techniques valued by "Western" scholars were in use. Example: "They were a stone age civilization who never discovered the wheel!" This model forces cultures into a progressional paradigm: Old and New Stone Ages, Bronze Age, Iron Age, Industrial Revolution, Space Age. This classification ignores the complexity of culture, and the fact that metallurgic technology and military might are not the ultimate measure of advanced culture.

STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT DOCTRINE: The assumption that "primitive" cultures represent lower "stages" in historical evolution, and have yet to attain advanced forms of culture. One English scholar referred to "the child-races of Africa." Usually, social hierarchy, militarization and industrialization are taken as prime measures of "advanced" civilization. In the 19th century, scholars openly used the terms "savage," "barbarian," "civilized." Though these offensive words have (mostly) been dropped, the underlying assumptions are still quite influential. (For a good discussion of how the insistence on talking about "tribes" distorts African history, see http://www.africaaction.org/bp/ethall.htm. )

SPREAD OF CIVILIZATION DOCTRINE: Credits all achievements to conquering empires, assuming their superiority in science, technology, and government. Adherents are usually incapable of perceiving advanced earth-friendly systems of land management, agronomy, medicine, collective social welfare networks, healing, astronomical knowledge, or profound philosophical traditions among peoples considered "primitive" by dominant "Western" standards.

PASSING OF THE TORCH DOCTRINE: Claims a chain of cultural transmission from Mesopotamia and Egypt to Greece to Rome to western Europe to the USA, leaving vast gaps where the history of the rest of the world should be. (And the discussion never returns to Egypt or Iraq to consider what happened there after the fall of their ancient empires.) Most of the planet's cultures are discussed only in relation to the European conquest, if mentioned at all. As a result, few people have any idea of the history of Sumatra, Honduras, Niger, Ecuador, Mozambique, Ohio, Hokkaido, Samoa, or even European countries such as Lithuania or Bosnia.

IF IT WAS GREAT, IT MUST HAVE BEEN WHITE: If advanced science, art, or architecture is found in Africa or South America, then Phoenecians, Greeks, Celts, Vikings (or, in the extreme case, space aliens) must be invoked to explain their presence. (Here, whiteness often functions as a relative concept, as "lighter than.") This bias gives rise to a pronounced tendency to date American or African cultures later than warranted, and as a result dating for these regions is constantly having to be revised further back into the past as evidence of greater antiquity piles up.

Corollary: IF IT WAS WHITE, IT MUST HAVE BEEN GREAT. Thus, the conqueror Charlemagne was a great man, in spite of his genocidal campaign against the Saxons, but the Asian conquerors Attila the Hun and Genghis Khan were simply evil. Stereotypes of head-hunters picture Africans (in the absence of any evidence for such a practice there) but never Celtic head-hunters in France and Britain -- much less Lord Kitchener making off with the Mahdi's skull in Sudan, or U.S. settlers taking scalps and body parts of Indian people. This doctrine also underlies the common assumption that European conquest must have improved life for subject peoples.

A 19th century French engraving imagines the conquest of Algeria as a showering of the benefits of superior civilization on abject, genuflecting North Africans.

IF IT WAS NOT WHITE, AND ITS GREATNESS IS UNDENIABLE, THEN IT MUST BE DEPRECATED IN SOME WAY: Example:The Epic of Man, published in the '60s by Time/Life Books, says of the advanced civilization of ancient Pakistan: "It is known that a static and sterile quality pervaded Indus society." It used to be the academic fashion to call ancient Egypt a "moribund" civilization which "stifled creativity." Similar writings dismissed the "Incas" (Quechua) as "totalitarian," or the Chinese as "isolated" and "resistant to change," ignoring their interchange with steppe societies as well as Southeast Asian cultures.

The AFRICAN GAP DOCTRINE: After examining the first humans hundreds of thousands of years ago, this historical approach completely skips over most of the African archaeological record. It discusses ancient Egypt but ascribes its civilization to "the Middle East," denying its African identity and archaeological connections with Saharan and southern Nilotic civilizations. Saharan civilization, Ile-Ife or Mwanamutapa are not discussed at all. Africa is simply dropped from historical consideration until the era of European slaving and colonization, when it is portrayed as culturally and technologically deficient. The existence of female spheres of power in Africa is ignored.

The BERING STRAIT DOCTRINE insists that all indigenous American peoples came across a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska, filtering down through Central America into South America. Problem: numerous archaeological sites in the Americas predate any possible Bering Strait migration by many thousands of years. Access from Alaska to the rest of North America was blocked for millennia by two great ice sheets that covered Canada. An narrow opening that might have allowed passage appeared much too late (about 13,500 years ago) to explain the growing evidence that people were living in both North and South America much earlier than these "first" migrations.

By 1997-98, the tide of opinion began to turn: several scientific conclaves declared that a majority of attending scholars rejected the Bering Strait theory as a full explanation of how the Americas were peopled.The long-doctrinal hypothesis of Clovis hunters as the first immigrants is crumbling before the new dating, as hundreds of pre-Clovis sites pile up: Cactus Hill, Virginia (13,500 BP); Meadowcroft Rock Shelter in Pennsylvania (14,000 - 17,000 Before Present); Monte Verde (13,500 BP); Pedra-Furada, Brazil (15,000 BP, and possibly as old as 32,000 BP).

Bering Strait diehards discount the oral histories of indigenous Americans. In spite of the huge diversity among the American peoples and differences between most Americans and east Asians, all are declared to be of "Mongoloid racial origin." After the initial press stampede declaring "Kennewick Man" to be "white," study of the genetic evidence shows something entirely different. Instead, it appears that there have been several waves of migration: from central China, from the ancient Jomon culture of Japan, from south Asia or the Pacific islands. And "Luzia," an 11,500-year-old female skeleton in Brazil "appeared to be more Negroid in its cranial features than Mongoloid," in the stodgy anthropological terminology of the New York Times (Nov 9, 1999). (Actually she most closely resembles aborignal Australians.) But there is also a uniquely North American X-haploid group of mitochondrial DNA, which has yet to be explained.

THE POWER OF NAMING

STEREOTYPING entire peoples as mad, uncontrollable threats: "Wild Indians," "Yellow Hordes" or "the Yellow Peril." As inferior nonhumans: "primitives," "savages," "gooks," "niggers" -- this last term used not only against African-Americans, but also by 18th-century English colonizers of Egypt and India. Even the word "natives," which originally meant simply the people born in a country and by extension the aboriginal inhabitants, took on heavy racist coloration as an inferior Other.

POLARIZATION: "Scientific thought" vs. "primitive belief"; "undeveloped" vs "civilized"; or "the world's great religions" vs. "tribal superstitions," "cults," "idolatry" or "devil-worship." Depending on where it was created, a sculpture could either be a "masterpiece of religious art" or an "idol," "fetish," or "devil." Few people realize that "Western" scientists did not match the accuracy of ancient Maya calculations of the length of the solar year until the mid-20th century.

Indians who resist colonization and land theft are commonly portrayed as evil in popular media, which applies negative labels such as "Renegades." Here indigenous people are Other; the intruders in their country are The Good Guys. The white hero is named after the Texas Rangers, systematic killers of Indian families. His Indian sidekick's name, Tonto, means "fool, stupid person" in Spanish. RENAMING: Dutch colonists called the Khoi-khoi people "Hottentots" (stutterers). Russians called the northwest Siberian Nentsy "Samoyed" (cannibals). These are blatant examples, but many nationalities are still called by unflattering names given by their enemies: "Sioux" (Lakota); "Miao" (Hmong); "Lapps" (Saami); "Basques" (Euskadi); "Eskimos" (Inuit). European names have replaced the originals in many places: Nigeria, Australia, New Caledonia, New Britain, etc. (But "Rhodesia" bit the dust, after a revolution.)

DEGRADATION OF MEANINGS: "Mumbo jumbo" has become a cliché signifying meaningless superstitions, but it comes from a Mandinke word -- mama dyambo -- for a ritual staff bearing the image of a female ancestor. (Look it up in any good dictionary.) "Fetish" now connotes an obsessive sexual fixation, but originated as a Portuguese interpretation of sacred West African images as "sorcery" (feitição). The holy city of Islam is often appropriated in phrases like "a Mecca for shoppers."

DOUBLE-THINK: Conquest becomes "unification," "pacification,""opening up," and conquered regions are dubbed "protectorates." The convention is to use Europe as the standard, writing texts from the viewpoint of the conquerors / colonizers. Thus, a Rajasthani rebellion against English rule was termed the "Indian Mutiny." A peculiarity of this thinking is the tendency to refer to times of bloody invasions and enslavement with respectful nostalgia, as in "The Golden Age of Greece" and "The Glory That Was Rome," or "How the West Was Won." British subjugation of southern Nigeria is recast as The Pacification of the Primitive Tribes of the Lower Niger.

A contributor to Men Become Civilized, edited by Trevor Cairns, explains it all to children:

"When the king of one city conquered others, he would have to make sure that all the people in all the cities knew what to do. He would have to see that they all had rules to follow, so that they would live peacefully together."

Double-think finds ways to recast genocide as regrettable but necessary, due to failings of the people being killed, who are somehow unable to "adapt." Distancing the agent is key here, obscuring the violence with the idea that some kind of natural process is at work: "vanishing races," "by that time the Indians had disappeared."

THE POWER OF IMAGES

Hollywood tomtoms beat as fake Indians jump up and down, uttering brainless cries and grunts. There's the "squaw" complex in literature and cinema, the faithful Indian sidekick, and Robinson Crusoe's "Man Friday." John Wayne as the Western movie hero, saying: "There's humans and then there's Comanches." Or in real life, the actor tried to justify the settler theft of Indian countries: "There were great numbers of people who needed new land, and the Indians were selfishly trying to keep it for themselves."

This picture appeared in an insurance ad.

Advertising is an important transmitter of historical misrepresentation. It draws on colonial mythologies such as the notion that the Dutch "bought" Manhattan for the equivalent of $24 in trade goods --in spite of the fact that the Indians did not think of land as something that could be sold. The role of violence is completely obliterated. Even history books do not go into the massacres of Native people. On Staten Island settlers slaughtered the people they called "Wappingers," and afterward played football with their severed heads. Tarzan goes up against witch doctors and eye-rolling African chiefs. The Caribbean is shown as full of fearful, superstitious natives and zombies, Arabs who have nothing to do all day but loll around in harems, or cheat the white hero. Seductive Suzie Wongs, thieving Mexicans, and shiftless and sexually insatiable African-Americans. Movies commonly depict the Chinese as obsequious and deceitful, Arabs as treacherous, Africans as ignorant and barbaric.

COUNTERPOINT

The Mande were farming millet and other crops in West Africa in 6500-5000 BCE.

Temples in Peru and Sudan are much older than the Parthenon.

People in Mississippi, Illinois and Mexico traded with each other and exchanged ideas and symbols, as the the sea-faring Ecuadorians did with Costa Rica and western Mexico.

A small-statured Black people built the oldest civilization in southeast Asia, leaving megalithic temples and statuary in south India, Cambodia, Sumatra and other Indonesian islands.

Archaeology shows that the earliest formative influences on ancient Egypt came from Sudan and the Sahara, not the "Middle East."

The oldest megalithic calendar in the world has recently been discovered in the Egyptian Sahara, dating back to 7000 years ago. European megaliths may have an African origin.

Polynesian mariners had begun navigating by the stars and settling the vast ocean expanses of the Pacific islands before the time of Moses.

WHAT GETS DEFINED AS HISTORY?

In the last half century, the boundaries of "acceptable" history have been expanded by a multidisciplinary approach, including sources previously dismissed: orature (oral tradition), linguistics, anthropology, social history, art, music and other cultural sources. More recently, the social locations of historians have come under consideration as a factor shaping their perspectives, along with a sense that there is no absolutely "objective" view of history. Past claims of objectivity have biases clearly visible today, notably in siding with European settlers and slavers against non-christian cultures, and the almost total eclipse of female acts and experience from historical accounts.

A reader who might react negatively to a blatant expression of racism often misses perceiving one cloaked in scholarly language, in assumptions, judgments and misinformation most people have not been educated to catch. It does not occur to many people to question a pronounced overemphasis on Europe, the smallest continent (actually, a subcontinent of Asia.) If a chapter or two on African and Asian history is inserted in a textbook, publishers go ahead and call it a world history. Typically, media depictions of history have not caught up with information now available in specialized academic sources, and continue to present the old stereotypes and distortions as fact.

More on Racism, History and Lies

BARBARIANS AT THE GATES

In the early '90s a hue and cry was raised in the national media against "multiculturalism." It threatened the very foundations of Western Civilization, explained an outpouring of magazine articles and newspaper columns which shed much heat but little light. A Newsweek cover blared: "THOUGHT POLICE: There's a 'Politically Correct' Way to Talk About Race, Sex and Ideas. Is This the New Enlightenment -- Or the New McCarthyism?" As if this wasn't heavy-handed enough, it adds a warning, "Watch What You Say." (December 24, 1990)

"In U.S. classrooms, battles are flaring over values that are almost a reverse image of the American mainstream. As a result, a new intolerance is on the rise." William A. Henry III, "Upside Down in the Groves of Academe", Time Magazine, April 1, 1991

"'It used to be thought that ideas transcend race, gender and class, that there are such things as truth, reason, morality and artistic excellence, which can be understood and aspired to by everyone, of whatever race, gender or class.' Now we have democracy in the syllabus, affirmative action in the classroom. 'No one believes in greatness.' Bate says mournfully. 'That's gone.'" Gertrude Himmelfarb, Op-Ed in New York Times Magazine, June 5, 1991

"If there is insufficient authentic African culture to meet the demands of self-esteem, then culture must be borrowed from ancient Egypt. No black pharaohs? A few must be invented. Not enough first-rate women poets? Let second-raters be taught instead." --James Kilpatrick, "Poisoning the Groves of Academe," San Francisco Chronicle, April 15, 1991

The assumption that were are no great women poets, no black pharaohs, no other greatness than the usual diet of "Western Civilization" is so ingrained that it is regarded as incontrovertible. Protesting the monochrome, all-male landscape of classic pedagogy becomes "intolerance." But what then are we to call the refusal to open up media and educational horizons to the full spectrum of human achievement?

A response to John Baines' review (August 11, 1991) of Cheikh Anta Diop's Civilization or Barbarism and Martin Bernal's Black Athena:

To the Editor, New York Times Book Review:

Mr. Baines' review of Diop and Bernal express alarm that their books "attack modern conceptions of the origins of Western Civilization" by showing the anteriority of African (especially Egyptian) achievements. It seems to me that he would like to deny the context of the whole discussion, which has been centuries of exalting the Greeks as the fount of Western Civilization and denying the role of Africa in the ancient world. Egypt is treated as part of the "Middle East," and her relations with the rest of Africa ignored. In this context, to demand an "intellectual contribution that will stand without reference to issues of race" is to perpetuate an injurious status quo.

This denial is especially ludicrous in the frequently-heard claim that because Egyptians were "ethnically mixed," they were not black. Southern African peoples are ethnically mixed, yet it would occur to no one that they are other than black. More to the point, if an ancient Egyptian were to find herself in the United States, she would fall within the range of colors we describe as "black." This business of reddish-brown-skinned men and golden-skinned women was a convention in Egyptian art (and one adopted by the Cretans, Greek vases, and Etruscans, bearing out the hypothesis of Egyptian influence). If Mr. Baine wants to take the golden women as a racial marker for light-skinned Egyptians, is he also willing to concede dark-brown-skinned Etruscan men? His claim that considering the race of the Egyptians is "unhelpful"--and the many others who declare it irrelevant--is coy and evasive.

Max Dashu, Suppressed Histories Archives

[The Times did not publish this letter.]

See Ibrahim Sundiata's excellent article, Afrocentrism: The Argument We're Really Having, for more discussion of the African-ness of the Egyptians and racialist agendas of denial.

Here is a recent example of how the pernicious ideas described in this article percolate into popular consciousness. An October 18, 2005 post to an Illinois Museum site reacted to the one of the greatest sculptures in Indian America (known as the "Birger figurine") falls back on the Technological Calibration model:

"The Cahokia Indians never made it out of the stone age, not even to the primitive level of metal working found in the Mayan, Toltec, and Inca societies further south... [If they had left a written record, we would know more] but since they never made it that far, we have to rely on their works." [from the site Indian History: Unearthed artifacts from Cahokia]

More food for thought from Peggy McIntosh, who wrote White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack (1988)

“I have met very few men who were truly distressed about systemic, unearned male advantage and conferred dominance. And so one question for me and others like me [meaning white feminists concerned with male domination] is whether we will be like them, or whether we will get truly distressed, even outraged, about unearned race advantage and conferred dominance, and, if so, what we will do to lessen them. In any case, we need to do more work in identifying how they actually affect our daily lives. Many, perhaps most, of our white students in the United States think that racism doesn’t affect them because they are not people of color; they do not see “whiteness” as a racial identity. In addition, since race and sex are not the only advantaging systems at work, we need similarly to examine the daily experience of having age advantage, or ethnic advantage, or physical ability, or advantage related to nationality, religion, or sexual orientation….

“Disapproving of the system won’t be enough to change them. I was taught to think that racism could end if white individuals changed their attitude. But a 'white skin in the United States opens many doors for whites whether or not we approve of the way dominance has been conferred on us. Individual acts can palliate but cannot end, these problems.”

Peggy McIntosh, Ph.D. from the Winter 1990 issue of Independent School

© 2000 Max Dashu ... Updated 2008

Suppressed Histories Archives

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🇩🇿 🇫🇷 Exiled Algerians in New Caledonia by Al Jazeera English Almost 150 years ago, after troops led by Sheikhs Al Mokrani and Al Haddad failed in their year-long resistance to French colonial rule in Algeria, France sent hundreds of Algerians to what was then a penal colony – the island of New Caledonia. More than an estimated 2,000 Algerians who were considered "rebels" by the French were deported to the Pacific island in the last quarter of the 19th century. Journeying by sea – some dying after refusing to eat pork when their dates ran out – they were imprisoned in jails in New Caledonia. First colonised by France in 1853, New Caledonia today remains in French possession and about 10 percent of its 270,000 population is of Algerian origin. Three generations later, this exile has had a lasting legacy for the deportees' descendants still living on the island. Some feel a deep resentment about their ancestors' exile and treatment on the voyage and during their subsequent imprisonment in the island's prisons. When the inmates were released, they weren't allowed to return home. Many descendants feel a strong affinity with what they consider their homeland and travelling to Algeria to discover their roots is considered an important rite of passage. Now, citizens will vote on the independence of the Pacific island. Full film: http://aje.io/24pf8

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