Racial Entanglements: Tracing the Transpacific Impacts of Pu‘uloa, ‘Iliahi, and Hawaiian Anticolonial Struggle

This essay addresses the need for relational transpacific approaches to race and empire across groups, species, and sites. Pacific Islander knowledge is crucial for such approaches, but Asian American-ists must avoid extracting it. We should develop distinct frameworks accountable to Native Pacific knowledge. Juxtaposing Kanaka Maoli concepts with Asian American scholarship and Ruth Ozeki’s novel A Tale for the Time Being , I assemble a racial entanglement theory for the range of agencies in empire. I show how Hawai‘i’s colonization, the militarization of Pu‘uloa, whaling, and sandalwood extraction impacted iconic Asian American history, making Hawaiian struggles central to Asian American studies.