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The Center for Pacific Islands Studies (CPIS) at the University of Hawai'i promotes understanding of the Pacific Islands and Islander lives.

🌈 TODAY IS THE DAY! It’s #4UHGivingDay 2026! Givi 🌈 TODAY IS THE DAY! It’s #4UHGivingDay 2026!

Giving Day is about coming together to support our students, programs and outreach across the state. Every gift made today helps create opportunities, strengthen our communities, and shape the future of Pacific Islands Studies!

Funds raised will go towards supporting student and community events, facilitating faculty and student research, and enhancing programming at the center.

Make your impact today—visit https://go.hawaii.edu/86P or our link in bio to give and learn more!
Congratulations to PACS MA student Alec Weiker on Congratulations to PACS MA student Alec Weiker on his coathored piece with Melvin Jackson, “COFA Citizens Lose Access To Commercial Driver’s Licenses” published by Civil Beat. Read their article here: https://www.civilbeat.org/2026/03/cofa-citizens-could-lose-access-to-commercial-drivers-licenses?utm_source=cpisweekly.beehiiv.com&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=cpis-weekly&_bhlid=0b548dcd75c1602b9ac640c694bb57709a9a8e6c
The Ecotone (an AAPI EHEJ Scholarly Forum Series) The Ecotone (an AAPI EHEJ Scholarly Forum Series) Presents: Between the Pajaro Valley and Ilocandia: Developing a Transnational History of Migrant Agrarian Life with Dr. Meleia Simon-Reynolds and Dr. Kathleen Cruz Gutierrez | Wednesday, 1 April 2026 11:00-12:00 PM in the Center for Korean Studies Auditorium

The 1930 anti-Filipino race riots in Watsonville, California, are often considered a watershed moment in Filipino-American history. The five days of rioting across the Pajaro Valley by hundreds of white vigilantes that culminated in the murder of Fermin Tobera, a Filipino farmworker, have long informed, if not overshadowed, what we know of the historical Filipino enclave that was Watsonville and the number of Filipino communities that called it home.

In 2021, descendants of the first wave of Filipino migrants to settle in the valley partnered with researchers at UC-Santa Cruz to form Watsonville is in the Heart (WIITH), a community-initiated, student-engaged research initiative that aims to document and uplift stories of life, labor, and migration through oral history interviewing, digital archiving, curriculum development, and exhibition curation.

In this sharing, WIITH team leaders discuss the initiative’s core research principles and methods. WIITH operates on a model of co-creation, inspired by oral history practice, and of student-engaged experiential learning. The speakers will highlight two projects: 1) a digital map documenting the 1930 riots and Filipino community formation over the twentieth century; and 2) Saritaan, a recently launched partnership between WIITH and Pangasinan Polytechnic College in Lingayen, Philippines, to investigate the history of migrant-sending communities from the Ilocos region, the top labor-sending region in the Philippines in the early twentieth century. These projects bridge Asian and Asian American studies and intervene in literature long bifurcated by area studies versus diaspora concerns.
Join us for a seminar, Te Parau Mau e Te Parau Ti’ Join us for a seminar, Te Parau Mau e Te Parau Ti’a: French Nuclear Colonialism in Mā’ohi Nui/French Polynesia and Ongoing Environmental Consequences, with Vehia Wheeler TODAY, Wednesday, 25 March 2026 3-4 PM in Moore 258 & on Zoom (Register here: https://go.hawaii.edu/b7D)

From 1966 - 1996, France conducted 193 nuclear explosions in their South Pacific colony known as French Polynesia, on the atolls of Moruroa and Fangataufa. The nuclear explosions were apart of France’s nuclear weapons expansion at a time of Cold War geopolitical tensions and when the US and the UK were equally testing nuclear weapons in the Pacific. Despite decades of local, regional and worldwide protest, such as the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific (NFIP) movement, France continued to impose their nuclear testing agenda in French Polynesia until 1996. While France claimed that these were “clean bombs,” and used this as their official narrative until 2016, there have been numerous and continual environmental issues due to the radiation exposure of the 193 nuclear bombs. These consequences continue today, but are largely unknown, as there are a lack of studies and transparency of these impacts. In the ongoing spirit of the NFIP movement, Mā’ohi activists today continue to seek “Te Parau Mau e Te Parau Ti’a” or Truth and Justice to these ongoing issues, and seek accountability from France for better environmental clean-up in the territory and an end to French colonialism in the Pacific. This talk will go over French nuclear colonialism in Mā’ohi Nui, the ongoing environmental impacts and Mā’ohi actions towards nuclear justice.
Join us for the Ecotone (an AAPI EHEJ Scholarly Fo Join us for the Ecotone (an AAPI EHEJ Scholarly Forum Series) Presents: Tapa Revival: Ancestral Knowledge, Living Practices, and Contemporary Futures in Tahiti with Hinatea Colombani & Moeava Meder | Wednesday, 11 March 2026 12:00-1:30 PM in the Tokioka Room

This talk explores the contemporary revitalization of tapa (barkcloth) in the Society Islands, weaving together ancestral knowledge, material practices, genealogy, and cosmology. Hinatea Colombani and Moeava Meder are Tahitian artist-researchers and cultural entrepreneurs working as a duo at the intersection of artistic creation, academic research, and cultural transmission.

Together, they cofounded the ʻArioi Cultural Center and present their work internationally through exhibitions, workshops, and collaborations with museums, universities, and Pacific communities.

Lunch included! Register here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeBq5dK6VIwAiLNVQZl4DK3lsTuRdpF9vnGc41ht5k-mOXEBQ/viewform
Missed last week's episode? Check out the new epis Missed last week's episode? Check out the new episode on the Hawaiʻi Triennial 2025: “Aloha Nō”!

The Hawaiʻi Triennial is Hawaiʻi’s largest, thematic exhibition of contemporary art from Hawai‘i, the Pacific, and beyond. Last year’s Hawaiʻi Triennial 2025 (HT25) shared the work of 49 artists and artist collectives around the theme: Aloha Nō.
In this episode, we hear from one of the three co-curators of HT25, Noelle Kahanu, as well as three HT25 artists:
- Gisela McDaniel, a diasporic, Indigenous CHamoru artist who explores the effects of trauma, displacement, and colonization through portraiture and oral histories;
- John Pule, the celebrated Niuean painter and poet based in Aotearoa New Zealand; and
- Brandy Nālani McDougall, the Kanaka ʻŌiwi poet and educator who served as Hawaiʻi State Poet Laureate 2023-2025.

Listen to Oceania Currents wherever you access podcasts, or on our feed: https://rss.com/podcasts/oceaniacurrents/2144103/
CPIS Welcomes Fulbright-Creative New Zealand Pacif CPIS Welcomes Fulbright-Creative New Zealand Pacific Writer in Residence: Simone Kaho!

Simone Kaho is a Fulbright-Creative New Zealand Pacific Writer in Residence hosted by CPIS during her 2026 residency. She is a Tōngan and Pākehā writer, multimedia journalist, and poet whose work emerges at the intersection of politics and storytelling. Simone holds a Master’s in Creative Writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters. She is the author of two books of discontinuous narrative poetry, and her documentary and written journalism have featured in E-Tangata and Tagata Pasifika. Simone's Fulbright project is a hybrid narrative work that engages Pacific histories, political realities, and diasporic experience. She says, “I’ll be exploring threads of commonality between contemporary Pacific people, in particular those who are neurodiverse, and the traits of celestial navigators; deep attunement with nature, recognising patterns in vast, unstructured data, and finding new ways to move forward.”

For more information or to apply to the fellowship, visit here: https://fulbright.org.nz/study-in-the-united-states/awards-for-nz-academics-artists-and-professionals/fulbright-creative-new-zealand-pacific-writers-residency/
Save the Date: Celebrate Micronesia on Saturday, 2 Save the Date: Celebrate Micronesia on Saturday, 25 April 2026!

Join us for an unforgettable day of cultural exchange and celebration at the 2026 Celebrate Micronesia Festival! Now an annual tradition, this vibrant festival brings together Micronesian voices and communities from across the Pacific for a day of music, dance, art, food, and storytelling.
The Ecotone (an AAPI EHEJ Scholarly Forum Series) The Ecotone (an AAPI EHEJ Scholarly Forum Series) Presents: Just and Fair Adaptation Governance Across Plural Oceanic Worlds with Claudia Fry | Wednesday, 4 March 2026 12:30-2:00 PM in the Tokioka Room

This research explores contestations around what constitutes just and fair governance of climate adaptation in iTaukei coastal communities in Fiji, particularly among communities resisting relocation or drawing on alternative, non–State-centric forms of relocation. The talk features stories from two village sites inTailevu and Nadroga-Navosa that highlight the complex, place-based governance systems that intersect with postcolonial struggles for Indigenous marine rights amid tourism, development, and climate change.

Claudia will also reflect more broadly on her journey as a PhD researcher, untangling issues of positionality conducting research in Fijian Indigenous communities and engaging in her own journey to decolonise her research through learning from the Vanua.

Lunch included, register here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfoouzrHeM6AqMO86P_uYRFnvM3JLIjLvIVjvFvL4R6wiT9Gg/viewform?_bhlid=bf1561e2759e0cbb951fe7eccb40e499132ddb57
New Episode of Oceania Currents out now! Learn mor New Episode of Oceania Currents out now! Learn more about the Hawaiʻi Triennial 2025: “Aloha Nō”!

The Hawaiʻi Triennial is Hawaiʻi’s largest, thematic exhibition of contemporary art from Hawai‘i, the Pacific, and beyond. Last year’s Hawaiʻi Triennial 2025 (HT25) shared the work of 49 artists and artist collectives around the theme: Aloha Nō.

In this episode, we hear from one of the three co-curators of HT25, Noelle Kahanu, as well as three HT25 artists:
- Gisela McDaniel, a diasporic, Indigenous CHamoru artist who explores the effects of trauma, displacement, and colonization through portraiture and oral histories;
- John Pule, the celebrated Niuean painter and poet based in Aotearoa New Zealand; and
- Brandy Nālani McDougall, the Kanaka ʻŌiwi poet and educator who served as Hawaiʻi State Poet Laureate 2023-2025.

Listen to Oceania Currents wherever you access podcasts, or on our feed: https://rss.com/podcasts/oceaniacurrents/2144103/
We are excited to share that we will be hosting Dr We are excited to share that we will be hosting Dr. Katerina Teaiwa from Australian National University next week for a joint Ecotone and Conference Keynote on February 12, from 4-5:30pm. Please join us for the talk and enjoy some pupus at a reception following the event. 

Dr Katerina Teaiwa is an interdisciplinary scholar, artist, and award-winning teacher of Banaban, I-Kiribati, and African American heritage from Fiji. She is Professor of Pacific Studies in the School of Culture, History and Language at the Australian National University’s College of Asia and the Pacific, a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities, and a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She is Vice President of the Australian Association for Pacific Studies and Editor of The Contemporary Pacific: an interdisciplinary journal.

The event is free and open to the public! Please register here or via QR code: https://go.hawaii.edu/DRp
🌊 The Inaugural Oceania Pacific Studies Associatio 🌊 The Inaugural Oceania Pacific Studies Association (OPSA) Conference Program is here! Join online for day two of critical talanoa (conversation) and community building.

⚠️ IMPORTANT: All times/days listed below and on the program are in FIJI STANDARD TIME. Please remember to convert these times to your local time zone so you don’t miss a session!

🗓️ DAY TWO: Friday, January 30
Welcome Address by Dr. Apolonia Tamata
 * Session 1: Indigenous Data Sovereignty
 * Session 2: Safeguarding Kava / ʻAwa
 * Session 3: Exploring Health: Public Health, Disease and Media
 * Session 4: Pacific Research
 * Session 5: Militarism / Demilitarization
 * Session 6: AI and Indigenous Knowledges
 * Closing Plenary

We look forward to seeing you online as we navigate the future of Pacific Studies together. Here is the link to the conference website: https://sites.google.com/hawaii.edu/opsa/home

#OPSA2026 #PacificStudies #Oceania
🌊 The Inaugural Oceania Pacific Studies Associatio 🌊 The Inaugural Oceania Pacific Studies Association (OPSA) Conference Program is here! We are honored to share the schedule for the very first OPSA conference this January 2026. Join online for two days of critical talanoa (conversation) and community building.

⚠️ IMPORTANT: All times/days listed below and on the program are in FIJI STANDARD TIME. Please remember to convert these times to your local time zone so you don’t miss a session!

🗓️ DAY ONE: Thursday, January 29
Welcome Address by Dr. Tēvita Kaʻili
 * Session 1: Empire, Politics, and Identity
 * Session 2: Sounding Oceania
 * Session 3: The Future of the Oceania Pacific Studies Association
 * Session 4: Pasifika Engagement at the Australian Museum
 * Session 5: Opposing Seabed Mining in Moana Oceania
 * Session 6: Undercurrents of Creativity 

We look forward to seeing you online as we navigate the future of Pacific Studies together. Here is the link to the conference website:
https://sites.google.com/hawaii.edu/opsa/day-1

#OPSA2026 #PacificStudies #Oceania
Congratulations to Dr. Tara on his selection as a Congratulations to Dr. Tara on his selection as a Transpacific and Asian Dialogue on China Fellow!

The fellowship brings together scholars from the U.S., Asia and the Pacific, to examine changing geopolitical dynamics due to growing Chinese influence. Associate Professor Tara said he hopes the initiative will lead to actionable policies for governments and other stakeholders to understand the challenges and opportunities presented by China.

“A lot of our discussions take place in academia but never make it into the policy space,” Kabutaulaka said. “This project is about creating mechanisms through which scholarly work can inform decisions made by governments and other institutions as well.”

He added that UH Mānoa’s unique role as an Asia-Pacific–facing institution strengthens the university’s relevance and importance in global conversations.

“My involvement in the project reflects not just my individual participation, it is the involvement of UH Mānoa, which gives the university and the islands we live in more prominence on the global stage,” Kabutaulaka said.

Check out the UH News piece: https://www.hawaii.edu/news/2026/01/16/uh-manoa-professor-china-cohort/
🌊 The Inaugural Oceania Pacific Studies Associatio 🌊 The Inaugural Oceania Pacific Studies Association (OPSA) Conference Program is here! We are honored to share the schedule for the very first OPSA conference this January 2026. Join online for two days of critical talanoa (conversation) and community building.

⚠️ IMPORTANT: All times/days listed below and on the program are in FIJI STANDARD TIME. Please remember to convert these times to your local time zone so you don’t miss a session!

🗓️ DAY ONE: Thursday, January 29
Welcome Address by Dr. Tēvita Kaʻili
 * Session 1: Empire, Politics, and Identity
 * Session 2: Sounding Oceania
 * Session 3: The Future of the Oceania Pacific Studies Association
 * Session 4: Pasifika Engagement at the Australian Museum
 * Session 5: Opposing Seabed Mining in Moana Oceania
 * Session 6: Undercurrents of Creativity 

🗓️ DAY TWO: Friday, January 30
Welcome Address by Dr. Apolonia Tamata
 * Session 1: Indigenous Data Sovereignty
 * Session 2: Safeguarding Kava / ʻAwa
 * Session 3: Exploring Health: Public Health, Disease and Media
 * Session 4: Pacific Research
 * Session 5: Militarism / Demilitarization
 * Session 6: AI and Indigenous Knowledges
 * Closing Plenary

We look forward to seeing you online as we navigate the future of Pacific Studies together. Here is the link to register to this FREE conference:
https://forms.gle/PQqbadz1XPZiGwts9

#OPSA2026 #PacificStudies #Oceania
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