Local Geography: Essays on Multicultural Hawai'i takes the reader on a journey through Hawai'i's multiethnic society during the second half of the twentieth century. In eight autobiographical essays, the author looks back at his colonial upbringing and education and his attempt to find a center from which to develop beliefs and values that fit the land, sea, community, and cultures in which he grew up. He examines the tensions among descendants of natives, immigrants, and colonials and the roles that place, race, class, culture, and nation have played in shaping his identity.