At the turn of the twentieth century, the United States stood on the precipice of becoming a global empire. At least, that's how scholars, lawyers, and journalists framed the issue as they argued over what should be done with the new colonies the United States had acquired. This highly public debate concluded quickly. Once Cuba gained independence and the United States decided to keep the rest of its new island empire, mainstream interest in the colonies faded. But they have not been entirely ignored. Camilla Fojas investigates rare moments of visibility for the Philippines, Cuba, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam in mainstream popular culture. Instead of concentrating on conquest and control, Fojas seeks to understand the cultural aspects of empire. With a particular focus on film, she examines how the islands have been represented in US popular culture and how those representations have helped maintain US imperialism.

Fojas argues that Hollywood perpetuated US imperialism by disseminating imperial stories: stories that depicted Anglo-American heroes in foreign countries where, due to their inherent superiority, they were able to rescue, or at the very least improve the lives of, incompetent but accommodating natives. The intentions behind these stories are most clear in the case of World War II films created within the confines of the censorship of the Office of War Information (OWI). The OWI hoped that by portraying the Philippines as an extension of the home front, mainland audiences would feel that the distant islands were American enough to be worth fighting for. Fojas also convincingly reveals the intentions behind 1960s teen films set in Hawaii. While the travel industry promoted the new state as a tourist paradise, Hollywood was in the unique position to satisfy the curiosity of those unable to travel. Familiar figures like Elvis and Gidget served as tour guides, presenting a distorted image of Hawaii that rendered the islands, their people, and their culture legible and desirable to mainland audiences.

In her chapter on Puerto Rico, Fojas leaves the insular empire to consider depictions of colonial subjects in the mainland. West Side Story's tragic tale first introduced Puerto Ricans to mainland audiences as an urban problem and antagonistic immigrant group. Subsequent films have shown Puerto Rican success, but only through boxing or the entertainment industry. Fojas argues that these films justify the continuation of US rule by portraying Puerto Ricans as successful colonial subjects. Bootstrap narratives do help maintain the status quo by showing that individuals can overcome obstacles despite their current conditions. However, coloniality is not the condition portrayed in these films. Puerto Rican characters overcome urban problems of poverty, criminality, and racial conflict. While formidable, these problems do not speak directly to the issue of imperialism in Puerto Rico.

Many of the narratives that Fojas examines were not unique to the islands of empire. Stories of the kind told about Puerto Ricans in the mainland blended with those about other minority and immigrant groups, and the heroic adventures of Anglo-Americans in the insular possessions were repeated in other settings around the world. In Fame (1980) and Do the Right Thing (1989), Puerto Ricans were not the focus, but instead stood alongside other racial minorities struggling in the mainland United States. Elvis presented the pleasures of the newest US state in Blue Hawaii (1961), Girls! Girls! Girls! (1962), and Paradise, Hawaiian Style (1966), but he shot a similar film, created by the same writer and producer, in another tourist playground: Fun in Acapulco (1963). The films analyzed in Islands of Empire fall into a larger genre of films featuring US heroes in foreign spaces that affirm the need for US global power.

Hollywood continues to produce such stories because they appeal to mainland audiences. Despite growing mainstream acceptance of the idea that the United States is an empire, most mainland citizens remain unaware of the insular possessions. But popular culture could be the vehicle to reverse that trend. Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony's Feel the Noise (2007) featured a small, but important, scene that not only identified Puerto Rico as a colony but also implicitly called for independence. George Clooney starred in The Descendants (2011), which confronted unresolved issues of imperialism in Hawaii. Both films reached broad audiences in the mainland, proving that while Hollywood filmmakers have knowingly or unknowingly been implicit in the project to hide the US colonial empire, they are also in a unique position to end mainstream ignorance – a crucial first step if, like Fojas, we truly seek to “throw a wrench in the imperial machine” (ix).