Performing identity and belonging at Pearl Harbor

Prior to 7 December 1941, Pearl Harbor was perhaps best known for its associations with the Hawaiian Shark Goddess, its pearl-producing oysters and as a strategically important US naval base. It was not until 1962, some twenty years after its attack during World War II, that it emerged as a place of heritage, when the USS Arizona Memorial was first opened to the public. Transformed from a place of war to a place of heritage and finally into a prepared touristic experience, Pearl Harbor today transmits, absorbs and constructs a range of personal and nationally based meanings about the past. It thus provides a vivid case study through which to interrogate the construction of heritage in a politically charged, contested and institutionally mediated environment. Drawing on the reflexive responses of 73 visitors, collected through in-depth, onsite interviews with domestic tourists, the paper unfolds around two key themes: (1) the varied ways in which visitors come to terms with a 'dark' national past; and (2) the affective entanglements that emerge from such efforts and concomitant attempts to understand their visit as a performance of national identity.