Item Detail
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14733
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3
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0
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English
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Race, Religion, and Colonialism in the Mormon Pacific
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Revealing the Sacred in Asian and Pacific America
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New York
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Routledge
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107-124
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'This chapter examines how race is constructed and used by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the islands of the Pacific. Race and religion are bound up in colonial and anti-colonial expressions on the part of several groups of Mormons who encounter one another in the Pacific. The Church has been a force for colonialism and has expressed White American values and institutional positions that can fairly be judged to be racist. A premium has been put on encouraging Pacific Islander Mormons to shun their cultures and the needs of their communities and to seek after normative Whiteness. Nonetheless, many faithful Pacific Islander Mormons have used their connections with the Church, its resources, and even its colonial language to make a space for the empowerment of Pacific Island peoples. It is possible that some readers may take my remarks in this chapter as critical of the LDS Church or of individaual Mormon leaders. That is not my purpose. The people involved here on all sides are my friends and I respect them. I intend this chapter to offer observation and reflection based on knowledge and friendship. Still, my observations are inevitably shaped by my perspectives as a non-Mormon and a scholar of ethnic studies.' (taken from author's introduction)