Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Ad by the US Census BureauThe following is an excerpt from "Quixote in Ramadi" on the ridiculousness regarding combining Asians and Pacific Islanders into one group - and even more so for a celebratory month.  When you see Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI), you only tend to hear about the Asian side and sometimes we're not even in the acronym and Asian American groups continue to focus on their issues and exclude Pacific Islanders.  Pacific Islanders, an underrepresented and marginalized group with social issues akin to Native Americans, are in their own category and should not have to tolerate cultural hijacking and misappropriation by Asian groups.  Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders simply do not belong in the same group, so why keep up the charade any longer?

Combining Asians and Pacific Islanders into one group is drowning out the voice of an already small percentage of not only the U.S. population, but in the world as a whole. Pacific Islanders have a different set of challenges altogether and since we get stuffed into the same box so often, even by so-called Asian-Pacific groups, we get lost in the shuffle.

All the socio-economic problems of Islanders evaporate in the vast sea of Asian progress and achievement when it comes to combining the two statistics. Islanders are several times more likely to drop out of high school than Asians on top of coming up drastically short in comparison on both undergraduate and graduate degrees.

When I see Asian-Pacific, my eyes see imperialism all over again. Combining the two groups only provides more marginalization and invisibility for Pacific Islanders in general, whom are already a grossly underrepresented minority. If there’s anyone shaking their heads right now, let’s clear the air by making the distinction of who’s Asian and who’s Pacific Islander:

ASIAN

Asians, as presented by the US Census Bureau, are from East Asia and the Indian subcontinent, i.e. Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, China, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, etc. On the other hand, Asia isn’t limited to these specific regions. Asia is the largest of the seven continents. Regions included are the Middle East, Asia Minor, Central Asia, Russia, as well as the regions the Census Bureau suggests.


PACIFIC ISLANDER

On the other side, the Pacific Islanders’ Cultural Association’s definition of Pacific Islanders explains that the three following Pacific regions are classified as being Pacific Islander:

POLYNESIA The islands scattered across a triangle covering the east-central region of the Pacific Ocean. The triangle is bounded by the Hawaiian islands in the north, New Zealand in the west, and Easter Island in the east. The rest of Polynesia comprises Samoa (American Samoa and Western Samoa), the Cook Islands, French Polynesia (Tahiti and The Society Islands, Marquesas Islands, Austral Islands, and the Tuamotu Archipelago), Niue Island, Tokelau and Tuvalu, Tonga, Wallis and Futuna, and Pitcairn Island.

MELANESIA The island of New Guinea, the Bismarck and Louisiade Archipelagos, the Admiralty Islands, and Bougainville Island (which make up the independent state of Papua New Guinea), the Solomon Islands, the Santa Cruz Islands (part of the Solomon Islands), New Caledonia and Loyalty Islands, Vanuatu (formerly New Hebrides), Fiji, Norfolk Island, and various smaller islands. 

MICRONESIA The islands of Kiribati, Guam, Nauru, the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas (CNMI), the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia (Yap, Chuuk, Pohnpei, Kosrae, and the Caroline Islands).

If it's not in one of those three boxes, it's not Pacific Islander. Period.


While you may or may not be fascinated with Pacific culture or heritage in general - I don’t expect you to be a professor of Pacific studies - if I’m asked, that’s the real deal. I don’t expect anyone to know the average rainfall of Saipan per year or a detailed list of indigenous flora and fauna, but it shouldn’t my job to be Rand McNally to everyone I meet. Especially when my native land is owned by the United States, it’s a bit embarrassing for an American not to be aware of US land.

If one wants to know more about the Pacific, I have a few good recommendations as to where one can begin their research. But half the time, the pursuit of my ethnicity by others is not so innocent. I usually get a tantrum-like sigh when I explain there is a difference between Asians and Pacific Islanders, followed by, “Well, aren’t you all the same thing?!” No. We’re not.

One my former neighbors in Hawaii, a tall Samoan woman named Tupe once told us a story that illustrated this difference. At a party where a variety of people were attending, possibly a military function, Tupe was introduced to a group of people who were from the mainland US and a Filipino doctor. The doctor then asked what ethnicity Tupe was and she responded that she was originally from American Samoa. Unfortunately, he made the fatal mistake of asking the question that many Islanders have heard that none of us like: Are your people civilized? 

Without a blink, Tupe grabbed the much shorter doctor by the neck, lifted him in the air, and stated, “You’re from a third world country, stop bullshitting just because you’re in front of white people.” 
When she told us this story, my mom’s family nearly died – of laughter.

In Hawaii in the early 1990s, there was an unarmed Hawaiian man on O’ahu, the third largest but most populous island in the Hawaiian Islands, robbed a convenience store and as a result, was shot to death by local police. Not too long after that incident, a Japanese businessman in the financial district held his office hostage, shot fellow coworkers and was not fired upon once, but ended the standoff by suicide.

Native Hawaiians are a small portion of the population in Hawaii, but if you examine dropout rates and the prison system, you’ll find that Islanders, not just Hawaiians, have socioeconomic issues that need to be addressed. Yet when Pacific Islanders are lumped together with Asians, our problems disappear due to being grouped with an exponentially larger racial category.

One shouldn’t have to be quizzed so much on something that has nothing to do with one’s work ethic or mores. Simple inquiries, if so desired, are fine but please keep them brief. There’s much more to me than the shape of my eyes and body or the color of my skin and hair. I’m sure others out there in my shoes feel the same way. Yet no matter how much other people make a big deal about my facial features, I do my best each and every time to be polite.

Even though I’m getting questioned, I try to make the person full of questions feel comfortable for two main reasons. One, I may not really know the person and whether they’re curious, ignorant, or just plain racist, it’s not wise to judge that right away and if they have any bit of intelligence, they’ll at least deal with the answer to the question like an adult. Two, if I don’t give them the neat answer they like, which is usually the case as Pacific Islander in many people’s eyes is brand new to them and people are typically uncomfortable with the unknown, I want to prevent a pointless and heated discussion where someone completely ignorant to my heritage is trying to convince me that I’m something I’m really not.

Perception is funny like that. Even though I know what I am, people who know little about me perceive that it is fitting to tell me who I am and what I’m allowed to be. Euphemisms, for example, are one of the forms of speech in American culture that affects perception. The word genocide is not a popular word in American History texts because it demands the reader to take a deeper look at history and what it means to really be an American. It calls the reader into guilt and actually doing something about it.

Why are so many people afraid of guilt? The United States is not alone in this. Not too many countries that I’ve seen like to reflect on their mistakes and, in turn, divert their attention to someone else’s problems. The critiques and analyses of another nation’s issues ensue, but the U.S. has been great at publicly airing its dirty laundry while others kick their dirty clothes into the closet. We are not alone, and every country’s media has an agenda.

Some may argue from the guilty, “post-colonial” standpoint that there is enough guilt, but I disagree. There is a lot of talk of guilt and not enough accountability and action, which is something that should be embraced by more of us. Therefore words like genocide are replaced with watered-down sentences of terms like ethnic cleansing - sounds like something my mom used to do working as a housekeeper for white families.

Why are we so afraid to call things as they really are? It’s not the fault of the any one group of people as a whole, as I really believe anyone who resorts to groupthink, no matter what race one is, is at fault. Therefore, anyone who tolerates bigotry agrees with the behavior. As coddling a child too much can lead to a spoiled brat, the same principle applies in race relations. If you are constantly coddled by your own group or any group for that matter, you can become entitled, complacent, and yes, spoiled.

As for me, I don’t really have a single group, amidst Irish or Anglo folks, I’m too dark, too "exotic", and simply not one of them (although, technically, I am). Amongst Chamorros or other Islanders, I’m much more accepted, but still a halfie (although, I’m still one of them). I’m a visitor to both of my groups, which has ultimately formed a different perspective on life. I don’t have the comfort of my own group, so I’m not exactly dependent on any cliquish safe-haven as I have nowhere to run and hide. So I’ve needed to adapt in order to survive in various situations more than some, learn to be grateful for what I have and laugh things off more quickly, even out in the streets of Ramadi. Yet I never imagined getting pushed into survival mode by people wearing the same uniform. Laughing didn’t save me later.

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