Introduction : the American Pacific : an errand into Oceania -- The "superlative and poetry of commerce" : scattered origins of an American Pacific frontier -- An American Pacific Jeremiad : Frank Norris's The octopus and U.S. imperialism -- The American Asiatic association and the imperialist imaginary of the American Pacific -- Becoming Hawaiian : Jack London, cultural tourism, and the myth of Hawaiian exceptionalism -- Maxine Hong Kingston's China men : frontiers of the Chinese American Pacific -- Memories of a forgotten war : a Filipino/American ghost story -- Conclusion : outside in the American Pacific.