John P. Rosa

John P. Rosa Associate Professor
Hawaiʻi, Pacific Islands, U.S. Social and Cultural

Office: Sakamaki B405
Phone: (808) 956-8098
Email: rosajohn@hawaii.edu

BA Northwestern University, 1990; MA, PhD University of California, Irvine, 1992, 1999

 


Background

John Rosa is Associate Professor of History at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa with a primary focus on the history of modern Hawaiʻi. He also teaches U.S. history and the senior thesis writing seminar. Before teaching at UH, Dr. Rosa served as Assistant Professor of Asian Pacific American Studies (2000-2006) at Arizona State University in Tempe and as Visiting Assistant Professor of Asian Pacific American Studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles (1998-1999). He also taught at Kamehameha Schools, Kapālama where he taught Advanced Placement U.S. History to 11th graders from 2006 to 2008. Dr. Rosa’s research focuses mostly on the social and cultural history of twentieth-century Hawaiʻi and the histories of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in the United States. He has published articles on teaching about the history of Hawaiʻi, about “local” identity in Hawaiʻi, and the history of “mixed-race” studies. His book, Local Story: The Massie/Kahahawai Case and the Culture of History, has been published by University of Hawaiʻi Press. In 2005, the Associated Students of Arizona State University recognized his teaching and community service by awarding him a fellowship and the title of 2005-2006 ASASU Centennial Professor. He earned his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in History at the University of California, Irvine (1992, 1999) and his B.A., also in History (1990), from Northwestern University. If you really must know, he graduated in 1986 from Damien Memorial High School in Kalihi-Pālama.

Representative Publications

  • Local Story: The Massie/Kahahawai Case and the Culture of History (University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2014).
  • “Local Story: The Massie Case Narrative and the Cultural Production of Local Identity in Hawaiʻi,” Amerasia Journal 26:2 (2000).
  • “Beyond the Plantation: Teaching about Hawaiʻi before 1900,” Journal of Asian American Studies 7:3 (2004).
  • “Small Numbers / Big City: Innovative Presentations of Pacific Islander Art and Culture in Phoenix, Arizona,” AAPI Nexus: Asian Americans & Pacific Islanders: Policy, Practice and Community. Vol. 5, No. 1 (2007).
  • “‘The Coming of the Neo-Hawaiian American Race’: Nationalism and Metaphors of the Melting Pot in Popular Accounts of Mixed Race Individuals,” in Teresa Kay Williams-León and Cynthia Nakashima, eds., The Sum of Our Parts: Mixed Heritage Asian Americans, (2001).
  • East of West: A Bibliography of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Arizona and the West. (co-edited with Melody M. Miyamoto), Tempe, AZ: Arizona State University, Asian Pacific American Studies Program, College of Public Programs, (2003).

Local Story