After the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints (LDS) in 1830, the church moved westward to spread the faith throughout the western United States and eventually abroad. The United States was seen as a staging ground for the spread of the religion, and spreading the religion in distant lands would establish the power and recognition of the Church. The imperial agenda of the Mormon Church and that of the United States mirrored each other for much of this decade, with the Latter-day Saints moving west in sync with the United States, “latching on to the American nation and supporting its interests,” and appreciating the opportunity to continue “missionary-led expansion… with the legal blessing of national governments.” …show more content…
A century before the establishment of the Polynesian Cultural Center, the Mormons arrived in Hawaii, New Zealand, and Samoa after a missionary’s vision in 1851 lead the Church to believe they had religious destiny in Polynesia and Israel. During this time, church leaders had been stating that the Polynesians might be descended from Lehi, an important religious figure in the Book of Mormon- particularly the Maori people. Upon arriving in Hawaii, the church sent missionaries to Lanai, but after corruption and difficult environmental conditions, the church refocused their efforts. In 1920, the LDS church built a temple in La’ie, a town on the coast of the Oahu island of Hawaii. La’ie, the home of the Polynesian Cultural Center and the Church College of Hawaii, became the main outpost of the Mormons in the Hawaiian Islands, and when the school opened in the 1950s followed by the opening of the Polynesian Cultural Center in 1963, it remained an incredibly important location for the Mormon …show more content…
The Polynesian Cultural Center provides entertainment and a tourist draw to the La’ie town, which makes money for the Church. This center was created for the tourist perspective, and the imperial gaze of tourism as mentioned in Haunani-Kay Trask’s From A Native Daughter applies here. The Polynesian Cultural Center is a “cultural theme park” which showcases seven Polynesian-themed villages representing the Hawaiian, Tahitian, Marquesan, Samoan, Tongan, Maori, and Fiji cultures for the tourists gaze, with the idea that a tourist could go to the Cultural Center and experience the “reality” of these island nations. In fact, the park promises to give three levels of performance: “theme parks and living museums, hotel entertainment, and fictionalized real encounters,” each of which are meant to make the tourist feel that they are experiencing these cultures
113 Encyclopedia Britanica. Chicago, IL. Chicago, 1965. Bitton, Davis & Beecher, Maureen U. New Views of Mormon History. Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 1987.
A small company of thirty-four New England missionaries came to Hawaii between 1820 and 1930, were the first modern immigrants. (Lind p.59) Missionaries were powerful agents of cultural destruction, coming to Hawaii to settle and teach their ways and beliefs. Bloodthirsty priests and despotic chiefs had ruled one reason for missionaries arriving and settling in Hawaii, due to the fact that they believed ancient Hawaiians. (Trask p.14) Bringing along cultural havoc by establishing a western style educational system, which included the first textbook as the Bible. The most critical change was in the use of language as a tool of colonization. Language had once been inseparable from the Hawaiians and their history by communicating their heritage between and among many generations, now came to be used as the very vehicle of alienation from their habits of life.
The Hawaiian culture is known throughout the western world for their extravagant luaus, beautiful islands, and a language that comes nowhere near being pronounceable to anyone but a Hawaiian. Whenever someone wants to “get away” their first thought is to sit on the beach in Hawai’i with a Mai tai in their hand and watch the sun go down. Haunani-Kay Trask is a native Hawaiian educated on the mainland because it was believed to provide a better education. She questioned the stories of her heritage she heard as a child when she began learning of her ancestors in books at school. Confused by which story was correct, she returned to Hawai’i and discovered that the books of the mainland schools had been all wrong and her heritage was correctly told through the language and teachings of her own people. With her use of pathos and connotative language, Trask does a fine job of defending her argument that the western world destroyed her vibrant Hawaiian culture.
...shall, eds. Mormonism: A Historical Encyclopedia. New York, New York: ABC-CLIO, August 10, 2010. Print.
This mass enterprise is reviewed through five traditions in the early nineteenth century: the Christian movement, the Methodists, the Baptists, the black churches, and the Mormons. Hatch explains that these major American movements were led by young men who shared “an ethic of unrelenting toil, a passion for expansion, a hostility to orthodox belief and style, a zeal for religious reconstruction, and a systematic plan to realize their ideals” (4). These leaders changed the scope of American Christianity by orientating toward democratic or populist ideals. Their movements offered both individual potential and collective aspiration, which were ideas ready to be grasped by the young and booming population. These early leaders had a vision of a faith that disregarded social standing, and taught all to think, interpret, and organize their faith for themselves. It was a faith of “religious populism, reflecting the passions of ordinary people and the charisma of democratic movement-builders” (5).
“Joseph Smith, the founding prophet and president of the new church organized on 6 April, 1830, had unquestionably participated in treasure seeking and seer stone divination and had apparently also used diving rods, talismans, and implements of ritual magic.”
The book, Jerry Falwell and the Rise of the Religious Right by Matthew Avery Sutton portrays the historical background behind Jerry Falwell and traditional Christian beliefs. Some of the issues and events that drove Falwell and other conservative Christians to new forms of political activism in the second half of the twentieth century are: sex education, abortion and homosexuality.
Hawaii is a top vacation destination by many tourists all over the world. When Hawaii comes to mind many people and different cultures imagine sandy beaches, warm, blue waters, lush green backdrops, Hula dancers in grass skirts with flowers in their hair and leis around their necks. These visual representations are iconic symbols of Hawaii and of what many have come to define as Hawaiian. These images and ideas painted by the visitor industry most often take place at the expense of the Hawaiians historic culture. These stereotypes conjured up by the tourist indus...
"Growth of the Church - LDS Newsroom." LDS News | Mormon News - Official Newsroom of the Church. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Nov. 2011. .
The Polynesian peoples have a lifestyle quite different than that of any other culture, as living on an island requires a level of flexible adaptability in order to cope with such a different, sometimes difficult environment. We see the way diverse cultures build their lives around their circumstances and how they respect them in their cultural myths and stories. The Polynesian legends emphasize the physical environment that they live in. They are quite different than any other region in the world, but the beauty and individuality of the Polynesian culture is prominent as seen in their mythology.
“History of Fundamentalist Mormons.” Wheat & Tares. Wheat and Tares, 2011. Web. 19 Dec. 2011. .
The Mormon population holds true to their unique religious beliefs. Most Mormons are similar to those who practice Christianity, however there are some differences. Over the past two centuries that Mormonism has been founded by Joseph Smith, this faith has expanded across the United States. Even though the faith has been powerful to many believers it is becoming less frequently practiced. This religion not only practices God and Jesus as separate people but also believes that God is seen in everyone. Since, Mormons are very religious and godlike we have to be competent to these differences when working with this population. There is very little information about how to perform Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) with a child that is practicing
...e" (Trask xix). This incident beautifully illustrates and signifies tourism's impact in American society. Like most Americans, this woman uses a discourse that has been shaped by tourist advertisements and souvenirs. The woman's statement implies that Trask resembles what the tourist industry projects, as if this image created Hawaiian culture. As Trask asserts, Hawaiian culture existed long before tourism and has been exploited by tourism in the form of advertisements and items such as postcards. Along with the violence, endangered environment, and poverty, this exploitation is what the tourist industry does not want to show. However, this is the Hawai'i Haunani-Kay Trask lives in everyday. "This is Hawai'i, once the most fragile and precious of sacred places, now transformed by the American behemoth into a dying land. Only a whispering spirit remains" (Trask 19).
...Hawai`i’s economy is very dependent on tourism, however many locals are possessive of their land, and as they stereotype tourists, many do not accept others as they have a unity for their own. Numerous individuals feel the desideratum to fit the local stereotype because they prefer not to be labeled as a “haole”. It becomes tough and rather intense for an individual, because becoming haole betokens that you forgot and disregarded the local or Hawaiian quality values and ways of routes, as well as the flowing stream of life in the islands. We need to remind ourselves that regardless of where we emanate from, our skin tone, race, physical characteristics, and so forth, everybody ought to acknowledge just for who we/they are and treat one another like 'ohana and show "aloha", and subsequently, we can determinately verbally express "This is it. This is Paradise" (33).