101 East – The Fight for Rapa Nui
Can the Easter Island’s indigenous Rapa Nui win the battle for independence from Chile to protect their land and culture?
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)
Tag: Colonialism
Haunani Kay Trask – Island Issues, 1990
White caller: “—you blame it on the white man on how we took your land, I don’t understand when the Japanese are coming over and now buying it,and that’s okay? …I-I-I don’t see how this is about the haoles are coming over. You come over to our country and buy our land too, ya know it works both ways, I don’t see how you can have these rallies against the white man, this is America ya know.”
Kumu Haunani-Kay Trask: “Let me just say something to this caller, this is not America, this is Polynesia, our country was stolen. That’s one of your problems—you’re ignorant, woefully ignorant. I do! I am very active against Japanese ownership of our land, I have testified repeatedly at various commissions and legislature at opposition to any foreigner owning Hawaiian land. But you, caller, need to learn about Hawaiian history and about where you are. And that attitude is the same attitude that you have, is the same Joey Carter has. You think you are in America, you are not in America, you are in a colony that is in Polynesia that was forcibly taken, just as, I might add, all of Eastern Europe was forcibly taken by the Soviet Union – which Americans think is a “very very bad” place. “The bad bad Soviet Union.” Well the “bad bad” United States of America took Puerto Rico, it took Alaska, it stole Indian land, it took Hawaii, it took Guam, it took Micronesia, Palau, and you better learn that history because you are the recipient of an imperialist tradition.”
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“You, caller, need to learn about Hawaiian history and about where you are.”
Throwback Thursday: In 1990, Kumu Haunani-Kay Trask was featured on an episode of Island Issues discussing racism in Hawai’i. Here she responds to one of many “woefully ignorant” callers.
Haunani-Kay Trask (born October 3, 1949) is an American-born academic, activist, documentarist and writer. Of Native Hawaiian descent, Trask is a professor of Hawaiian Studies with the Kamakakuokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and has represented Native Hawaiians in the United Nations and various other global forums. She is the author of several books of poetry and nonfiction.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haunani…There is the virtually unknown story of Hawaii and the hidden genocide being committed by the American government with the use of ‘blood quantum’ for the purpose of eliminating the Hawaiian national; and the reason America does this? Because according to their own laws, America never lawfully annexed Hawaii*, therefore according to law Hawaii never became a state, and if the Hawaiian land was never lawfully annexed, the only true claimant to the land, is the Hawaiian national.
“Nichols O’Keefe”The people of the United States find themselves in such a position right now, forced to choose between a moral and ethical position that carries with it the potential for “inconvenience,” or supporting the status quo and having to admit to themselves that they are not the champions of justice they imagine themselves to be. By the end of this article, you will know for yourself which one you are.
Most folks have heard that Hawaii is a state, one of the United States of America. Most people, including those who live in Hawaii, accept that statement as a fact.
But the reality is that in a world in which nations are as bound by the rule of laws as are the citizens of nations (if not more so), the truth is quite different!
The truth is that each and every step along Hawaii’s path from sovereign and independent nation, to annexed territory, to state, was done in violation of laws and treaties then in effect, without regard to the wishes of the Hawaiian people. Many people, including President Grover Cleveland, opposed the annexation of Hawaii.
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTI…
(Source: http://jessehimself.tumblr.com/)
Now that I’m officially on spring break, I’ll be updating my Pacific Reading dropbox with more links. Aside from that I highly recommened watching this video, We Are Rebels: New Caledonia. It’s a 26 minute documentary on the indigenous people of New Caledonia, the Kanak, and their fight for self-determination under French rule. I will be providing a reading I did for one of my classes that goes along nicely with this video as it outlines the history of French colonialism over the indigenous people of New Caledonia.
(Source: https://www.youtube.com/)
Is there a particular reason why mixed white and Asian folks have a hard time (in my experience talking about this as a mixed Asian) understanding that it’s problematic to use the term Hapa? Is it just internalised racism? Tbh I have only ever seen half white people who are half Asian use Hapa…
I think it has to with the fact that the people who are usually co-opting the word are not just mixed people in general, but mixed Asian people. At a point which I can’t pinpoint, I think hapa entered the Asian American lexicon, it probably has to do with Asian immigration to Hawaii and the period of time in which Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders were encouraged to group themselves together under racial and ethnic categorizations (regardless of the truth to this statement).
The use of hapa by mixed Asians has a very particular history, and like most histories of colonization, it has been done great disservice by the education system which leads many mixed Asians into believing that hapa is a word that carries no connotations and no baggage (unlike many of the words used to describe mixed Asians in our home countries, which are usually slurs). I also think the colonization of the word hapa by mixed Asians has a lot to do with the fragmentation of the Asian American movement, which despite is name is made up of many different groups with many different goals and beliefs which makes coalition among Asian Americans difficult to say the least and thus co-option of hapa by mixed Asians may also constitute a wish for greater solidarity and connection in the Asian diasporic community.
Regardless of the reasoning, it is important that we as mixed (and often diasporic) Asians unlearn behaviours and attitudes that directly affect Indigenous people and remember that we too are culpable in Western settler colonial violence.
– Melody
Thoughts from others with more knowledge on the matter?
It did indeed happen during the time Japanese people were brought to work on the plantations. However, that’s not the only word in Hawaiian history that has lost its agency because of Asian settler colonialism. Before I go on, I do want to highlight the concept of “agency”. Agency is when an individual or group of people have choices that can affect the outcome of a situation. Bearing that in mind, many indigenous people have lost both agency and autonomy with their own language, culture, and identity.
Hapa is a word where agency was taken from us. It does absolutely only apply when a person is part Hawaiian (not just half). If people want to argue that it explicitly means “half” when referring to heritage, they don’t know our language as well as they think they do – and unless they are Hawaiian it is not their place to debate it.
Colonialism is not satisfied merely with holding a people in its grip and emptying the native’s brain of all form and content. By a kind of perverted logic, it turns to the past of the oppressed people, and distorts, disfigures, and destroys it.
The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon
Beauty of Oceania 