\u27A Pageant of the Pacific\u27: The Representation of the Pacific Cultures at the Golden Gate International Exposition 1939

In 1939, the United States was the site of two major expositions: one was the famous New York Fair, while the other was the Golden Gate International Exposition, held on the West Coast. The latter fair was originally designed as a celebration of modern development of transportation and communication, but later the founding fathers of it chose to shift their attention towards the Pacific. Thus they employed a slogan \u27A Pageant of the Pacific\u27and, as a result, the representation of the Pacific cultures (the cultures of the Asia-Pacific region in their understanding) became the crucial feature of the fair. In this paper, I focus on this rather \u27minor\u27fair and explore how the Pacific region cultures were perceived and interpreted in the context of the slogan \u27A Pageant of the Pacific.\u27Firstly I examine the philosophy behind this slogan and reveal how it advocated cross-cultural communication between American fairgoers and Pacific peoples. Secondly, I describe the form taken by these exhibitions of the Pacific cultures and point out how deeply they were influenced by a scientific perspective. By focusing on the fair\u27s framework in this way, I will ultimately reveal how and why these exhibits ed to a distorted view of the Pacific region