Item Detail
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27194
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4
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0
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English
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Mahana, You Naked! : Modesty, Sexuality, and Race in the Mormon Pacific
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Out of Obscurity : Mormonism Since 1945
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New York, NY
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Oxford University Press
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173-197
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[2017 Mormon Historical Association Winner for Best Article]
This essay explores the tensions that emerged over the portrayal of Polynesians within white Mormon culture in the twentieth century. Native Hawaiian and Polynesian Mormons saw their faith not as a white import but as being firmly grounded in the experiences of their ancestors. In the mid-twentieth century, the emphasis that church leaders like Spencer W. Kimball placed upon the heritage of men and women who could claim to be descended from the people of the Book of Mormon mirrored the understanding that some Native Hawaiians and Polynesians had of their faith. ... At the same time, however, many white Mormons were uneasy about the possibilities of interracial marriage that this emphasis represented. In Hawai'i, the tensions over the position of Polynesians within the Moromon Church became particularly apparent at the Church College of Hawai'i (renamed Brigham Young University-Hawai'i Campus in 1974) and the Polynesian Cultural Center (PCC). [From the text]