Engaging Indigeneity in Pacific Islander and Asian American Studies

After a lecture about Native Hawaiian sovereignty in one of the classes we co-taught as part of the UCLA Hawai’i Travel Study Program, sponsored by the Asian American Studies Department, a student asked us: “What do Native Hawaiian political struggles have to do with Asian Americans? Why should we care?” Another student posed a similar question: “How does what's happening out her in the Pacific affect us back home, those of us living on the mainland?” The students were not only questioning the content of our and the structure of the summer program, but also our positionalities as Native Hawaiian and Filipino American educators. In effect, they were asking what a Native Hawaiian was doing teaching in Asian American Studies and why a Filipino American would actually care about the Pacific Islanders belonged under that rubric, the similarities and differences in the histories and experiences of indigenous people and racialized immigrant populations, the legacies of U.S. colonialism, and the politics of repre...