The People in the Trees: Hanya Yanagihara’s Novel on the Colonization Narrative
When climate change rears its ugly teeth through flooding in Indonesia and bushfires in Australia, we are reminded that the planet doesn’t differentiate between the rich and poor, the West and the East, the colonizer and colonized. In light of this, it is important for us to reflect on the legacy of colonization, its effects on indigenous communities, and how it spreads its malaise in insidious and harmful ways. Author Hanya Yanagihara explores these complex topics in in her 2013 novel The People in the Trees.
Hanya is a fourth generation Hawaiian. Born in LA, she has lived in multiple cities across the continental USA, including New York City, Baltimore, Texas and Hawaii. Her relationship with Hawaii is extremely strong and her identity as an Asian-American is strongly influenced by this. She once said in an interview, “[...] for Asian-Americans, Hawaii is the imaginary homeland. It’s the closest thing that Asian-Americans have to Harlem, the place where everything about the culture at large feels familiar or invented by you. It’s where I consider home even after all these years in New York.” Hanya’s mother was born in Seoul but both her parents grew up in Hawaii.
The People in the Trees charts the rise and fall of the esteemed anthropologist Dr. Norton Perina. Dr. Perina is part of an anthropological endeavour to a remote Micronesian Island called Ivu’ivu in an attempt to find a rumoured lost tribe. They find the tribe but also another group of inhabitants who seem to outlive the average human. Dr. Perina has a hunch that the source of this longevity is an elusive turtle who is indigenous to the island. After he smuggles one of them back to the US, academic institutions, pharmaceutical companies and other western stakeholders batter the island with visits, changing the social fabric of the island and upending the customs of the indigenous population. Dr. Perina adopts many children from Ivu’ivu but their inability to integrate into western society is further damaged by the rape of one of the young boys he has adopted.
The grotesque ending of the book is symbolic of the looting and pillaging of indigenous civilizations by colonization and the militant capitalism that it brought with it. The kids from the island, just like their home, are frightened and beaten down by a system which they had no intention of joining, and which has only taken them further away from their culture.
Hanya’s portrayal of Dr. Perina is based on the real-life story of Dr. Daniel Carleton Gajdusek. He won the Nobel Prize in 1976 for his work on kuru disease in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and was an anthropologist with a brilliant mind. He was also known for adopting children from PNG and raising them in the US. In the 1990s he was the subject of an FBI investigation for child molestation which led to his imprisonment and subsequent move to Northern Europe. While Dr. Perina’s character is strongly related to Dr. Gajdusek’s real-life story, it was the morality behind the tale that fascinated Hanya. “Here was an indisputably brilliant mind who also did terrible things,” she said. “It’s so easy to affix a one-word description to someone and it’s so easy for that description to change: if we call someone a genius, and then they become a monster, are they still a genius? How do we assess someone’s greatness? Is it what they contribute to society, and is that contribution negated if they also inflict horrible pain on another? Or—as I have often wondered—is it not so binary?” Could this very well be the narrative of colonialism itself?
The People in the Trees is a gripping book from start to finish and a chilling reminder of the need for a strong reflective lens on colonization, militant capitalism and their lingering effects in contemporary society. Only once we digest and come to terms with the effect it has had on indigenous cultures can we treat the planet in a way that is harmonious and inclusive for all.
How has your TCK experience helped you reflect on colonization and cultural appropriation across the diversity of cultures you have lived in?
Learn more:
A conversation with Hanya Yanagihara on The People in the Trees.
How Hanya Yanagihara’s unconventional background has helped her publish her novels.
Details of Hanya Yanagihara’s family background.
