Overview

"Like a human tsunami, World War II brought two million American servicemen to the South Pacific where they left a human legacy of some thousands of children. Mothers' Darlings traces the intimate relationships that existed in the wartime South Pacific between U.S. servicemen and Indigenous women, and considers the fate of the resulting children. The American military command carefully managed intimate relationships in the Pacific Theater, applying U.S. immigration law based on race on Pacific peoples of color to prevent marriage """"across the color line."""" For Indigenous women and their American servicemen sweethearts, legal marriage was impossible, giving rise to a generation of children known as """"G.I. Babies."""" Among these Pacific war children, one thing common to almost all is the longing to know more about their American father. Mothers' Darlings traces these children's stories of loss, emotion, longing, and identity, and of lives lived in the shadow of global war. This book considers the way these relationships developed in the major U.S. bases of the South Pacific Command from Bora Bora in the east across to Solomon Islands in the west, and from the Gilbert Islands in the north to New Zealand, in the southernmost region of the Pacific. Some chapters consider in-depth case studies of the life trajectories of one or two people; others are more of a group portrait. Each discusses the context of the particular island societies and how this often determined the way such intimate relationships developed and were accommodated during the war years and beyond. The writers interviewed many of the children of the Americans and some of the few surviving mothers as well as others who recalled the wartime presence in their islands. Oral histories reveal what the records of colonial governments and the military largely have ignored, providing a perspective on the effects of the U.S. occupation that until now has been disregarded by historians of the Pacific war. The richness of this book should appeal to those interested the Pacific, World War II, as well as intimacy, family, race relations, colonialism, identity, and the legal structures of U.S. immigration. Some of the participants in this rich study also told their stories on film—Born of Conflict: Children of the Pacific War."

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9780824851521

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Reviews

This book is a long overdue and much needed account of stories that have been neglected in the ongoing narrative of World War II.-- MAMA, New Zealand

Mother's Darlings of the South Pacific is a valuable addition to Pacific and American history on many levels, in the scope of its coverage, the poignancy of its findings, and the subtle differences between island groups in the way the offspring were treated. It is also a fine example of how historians can blend oral testimony with documentary sources. The book is a welcome addition to Pacific and American history. It is an exemplar of the difficulties involved in broaching tender family topics.--Clive Moore Australian Journal of Politics and History, Vol. 63, Issue 1, 2017 This book is a long overdue and much needed account of stories that have been neglected in the ongoing narrative of World War II.--Aaron Smale Mana Magazine (New Zealand) Mothers' Darlings is also an original, extraordinary and much-welcome addition to the historiographies of children and Indigenous childhood; race, gender and especially interracial relationships and marriage; the Indigenous 1940s (including social and labour history); and, of course, the Second World War.--Mary Jane McCallum AlterNative, Vol. 13, No. 1, 2017 This important text with its insightful images and maps contextualizes with empathy some of the lived experiences that have not been documented in this way. With its attached resource guide to assist people searching for families, Bennett and Wanhalla's book goes beyond the limits of academia and reaches the hearts of those asking similar questions.--Safua Akeli Journal of Samoan Studies, Vol.7, No. 1, 2017 Mothers' Darlings of the South Pacific is a unique and special account of relationships that have their origins in war. These affiliations involved power and possibility, encounter and exchange, as well as exploitation. Their legacy has persisted long after the soldiers departed. Bennett and Wanhalla's collection shows just how strongly they continue to resonate generations later.--Yorick Smaal Australian Historical Studies, 48:3, 2017 Pacific scholars interested in kinship, the family, and children will appreciate this research. . . . Those interested in existential Pacific personhood will also trace a mix of individualist and relational elements in these life histories . . . [reminding] us that Pacific War relics include both people's bodies and stories.--Lamont Lindstrom The Contemporary Pacific, 30:1 (2018) Mothers' Darlings of the South Pacific targets a scholarly audience, but the writing style and contents are comprehensible and accessible to a general readership. It represents a significant (and overdue) intervention into the history of the Pacific War and interracial intimacy, and it also generates new questions for families of those men who served.--Noah Riseman The Journal of Pacific History, Vol. 51, No. 4 (2016) While not shying away from the sentimentality that pervades their subject, these studies also manage to present a critical perspective on the social institutions that governed race, marriage and immigration in mid twentieth-century America and the Pacific. The result is a highly original set of studies that deserve the attention not only of scholars of the Pacific and the United States but anyone with an interest in problems of familial loss, longing, and intergenerational memory.-- Geoffrey White Journal of New Zealand Studies, No. 23 (2016)

Author Information

Judith A. Bennett is professor emerita of Pacific history at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. Angela Wanhalla is professor in the History Programme at the University of Otago. Judith A. Bennett is professor emerita of Pacific history at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. Jacqueline Leckie is adjunct Research Fellow at Stout Centre for New Zealand Studies, Victoria University of Wellington and Conjoint Associate Professor at School of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Newcastle. Angela Wanhalla is professor in the History Programme at the University of Otago.

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