Mothers' darlings of the South Pacific : the children of indigenous women and U.S. servicemen, World War II
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Mothers' darlings of the South Pacific : the children of indigenous women and U.S. servicemen, World War II
University of Hawaiʻi Press, c2016
Available at 3 libraries
  Aomori
  Iwate
  Miyagi
  Akita
  Yamagata
  Fukushima
  Ibaraki
  Tochigi
  Gunma
  Saitama
  Chiba
  Tokyo
  Kanagawa
  Niigata
  Toyama
  Ishikawa
  Fukui
  Yamanashi
  Nagano
  Gifu
  Shizuoka
  Aichi
  Mie
  Shiga
  Kyoto
  Osaka
  Hyogo
  Nara
  Wakayama
  Tottori
  Shimane
  Okayama
  Hiroshima
  Yamaguchi
  Tokushima
  Kagawa
  Ehime
  Kochi
  Fukuoka
  Saga
  Nagasaki
  Kumamoto
  Oita
  Miyazaki
  Kagoshima
  Okinawa
  Korea
  China
  Thailand
  United Kingdom
  Germany
  Switzerland
  France
  Belgium
  Netherlands
  Sweden
  Norway
  United States of America
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Prefectural University of Hiroshima Library and Academic Information Center
316.87||B35110072051
Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 347-364) and index
Contents of Works
- Bora Bora : like a dream / Judith A. Bennett
- There are no commoners in Samoa / Saui'a Louise Mataia-Milo
- New Caledonia : the experiences of a war bride and her children / Kathryn Creely
- No Bali Ha'i : New Hebrides / Judith A. Bennett
- Wallis (Uvea) Island : a different kind of love story / Judith A. Bennett
- Tonga in the time of the Americans / Judith A. Bennett
- Kai Merika! Fijian children of American servicemen / Jacqueline Leckie and Alumita Durutalo
- I don't like Maori girls going out with Yanks : Maori-American encounters in New Zealand / Angela Wanhalla and Kate Stevens
- The Solomon Islands : off the radar / Judith A. Bennett
- Marike koe : the American children of the Cook Islands / Rosemary Anderson
- On the atolls : Gilbert Islands / Judith A. Bennett
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Like a human tsunami, World War II brought two million American servicemen to the South Pacific where they left a human legacy of some thousands of children. Mothers' Darlings traces the intimate relationships that existed in the wartime South Pacific between U.S. servicemen and Indigenous women, and considers the fate of the resulting children. The American military command carefully managed intimate relationships in the Pacific Theater, applying U.S. immigration law based on race on Pacific peoples of color to prevent marriage ""across the color line."" For Indigenous women and their American servicemen sweethearts, legal marriage was impossible, giving rise to a generation of children known as ""G.I. Babies."" Among these Pacific war children, one thing common to almost all is the longing to know more about their American father. Mothers' Darlings traces these children's stories of loss, emotion, longing, and identity, and of lives lived in the shadow of global war.
This book considers the way these relationships developed in the major U.S. bases of the South Pacific Command from Bora Bora in the east across to Solomon Islands in the west, and from the Gilbert Islands in the north to New Zealand, in the southernmost region of the Pacific. Some chapters consider in-depth case studies of the life trajectories of one or two people; others are more of a group portrait. Each discusses the context of the particular island societies and how this often determined the way such intimate relationships developed and were accommodated during the war years and beyond.
The writers interviewed many of the children of the Americans and some of the few surviving mothers as well as others who recalled the wartime presence in their islands. Oral histories reveal what the records of colonial governments and the military largely have ignored, providing a perspective on the effects of the U.S. occupation that until now has been disregarded by historians of the Pacific war. The richness of this book should appeal to those interested the Pacific, World War II, as well as intimacy, family, race relations, colonialism, identity, and the legal structures of U.S. immigration. Some of the participants in this rich study also told their stories on film-Born of Conflict: Children of the Pacific War.
by "Nielsen BookData"