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Polynesian Cultural Center Analysis

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Primary Sources To best analyze the American understanding of the Polynesian Cultural Center, I will look at primary sources both in the time of its founding, the early 1960s, and over the next few decades through to the 1980s. These sources, including photographs from the first year of operation, newspaper clippings from mainland American newspapers, film clips from the first few years, entries from a blog created to allow former Polynesian Cultural Center employees (referred to as alumni), and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saint’s official history of the center. From these sources, I will be able to gather a few different perceptions and opinions of the center- that of the majority Polynesian employees, the Americans visiting …show more content…

The 1964 director of promotion at the Cultural Center, Ralph Barney, stated that it was difficult to motivate the Polynesian workers to participate for a number of reasons- for one, the low or nonexistent pay. He stated that “some of these people were brought up from Tahiti and other places and given some fairly solid kinds of financial help while others who were already established in La’ie were expected to donate their services.” However, while some Polynesians perceived this free or low-paying labor as exploitation, still others saw it as a family business as Shirley Dela Rosa (see story …show more content…

There would be no Polynesian Cultural Center without these highly racially and ethnically charged performances of culture and race, as the tourists were coming to see the full Polynesian experience. The image of culture the Polynesians were asked to perform was dictated by the Mormon Church itself. In Pouli Magalei’s testimony about his time at the Polynesian Cultural Center after having migrated from American Samoa to work there, he states that “some of the students come from the islands not knowing their own cultures, but they learn it here and gain experience they never had before.” Another Native Hawaiian, Jay Akoi, stated that working there was “not so much as a job as being fun, learning our music.” The fact that these Hawaiian and Samoan workers remember learning their own culture’s music and dances for the cultural center demonstrates the performative aspect of the cultural programming at the Polynesian Cultural Center. The Cultural Center sought to portray an image of native culture which wasn’t native to the performers- a culture they thought that tourists would want to

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