Okihiro The Pineapple Culture Summary

Throughout history, there have been different perspective on what is the Pacific Rim. One of these brilliant perspective was presented by Gary Okihiro. In Okihiro’s article, The Pineapple Culture, he argued that the Pacific Rim was this tropical and temperate area which focused heavily on westward expansion. Okihiro emphasized on American Imperialism by categorizing each passage with topics such as tropical fruit, tropical diseases, yellow peril, white man’s burden, and pineapple diaspora. These categories brought significant meaning to how one may perceive the Pacific Rim. Without further ado, let’s begin by elaborating on the Banana Empire.
In the tropical fruit passage, Okihiro argues that the United Fruit Company/ Banana Empire focused heavily on expansion westward or American imperialism. It was said that the United Fruit Company brought the rise of an industrial empire from what was a tropic area. Economic Imperialism and the ideal of monopolizing areas like railroads, consumers, the government, etc... brought great power. Ironically as it may sound, Okihiro emphasized on the westward expansion by using Christopher Columbus as a great example of European manifest destiny and the expansion of European desires. The expansion of American Imperialism would mean trouble with the emergence of different ideals and groups of

Research was then conducted and they had experimented with participants under their consent. As a result, they discovered that the disease was spread by mosquitos. In addition to the spread of diseases like yellow fever, Okihiro presented the White Man’s Burden to elaborate on the supremacy of whites and the emergence of the Anti-Imperialist Party which believed in equality for all, no matter what race/