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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.

Still looking for summer classes? Consider knockin Still looking for summer classes? Consider knocking out your HAP & DS General Education requirement this summer with our PACS 108: Introduction to Pacific Worlds for an online synchronous course in Summer Session 2!

Interested in ocean resources and management? Register for PACS 655: Community-Based Fisheries Management in Oceania for an online asynchronous course in Summer Session 2!
We are excited to share the program for the 6th An We are excited to share the program for the 6th Annual Pacific Graduation. We are excited to celebrate our students' academic accomplishments at 5:30pm today!

If you are unable to join us physically, and would love to watch the celebration, please tune into the livestream on the Center for Pacific Islands Studies Facebook page to follow along.

Congratulations to all graduates!
Please join us at the opening of the Ocean of Peac Please join us at the opening of the Ocean of Peace exhibition at Honolulu Hale with the Mayor’s Office of Culture and the Arts and the East-West Center Arts Program. The opening will be this Friday, 8 May 2026, from 4–6 PM at Honolulu Hale with registration required and tickets available here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/ocean-of-peace-exhibition-at-honolulu-hale-tickets-1988581953153?aff=oddtdtcreator

The exhibition features the works of seven artists of Micronesian heritage and will be open from 8 May to 11 June 2026. It showcases painting, sculpture, weaving, and multimedia works in conversation with the Ocean of Peace declaration, a political and cultural framework that was officially endorsed at the Pacific Islands Forum Leaders’ Summit held in the Solomon Islands in September 2025. Featured artists include James Bamba (Guåhan [Guam]/Northern Mariana Islands), Carol Ann Carl (Pohnpei, CPIS Alumna), Gillian Dueñas (Guåhan [Guam], CPIS Student), Kalany Omengkar (Belau/Northern Mariana Islands), Anthony Watson (Belau), Lissette Yamase (Chuuk), and Manny Crisostomo (Guåhan [Guam]). 

The exhibition is also supported by Bess Press, CPIS, and the Medical Legal Partnership for Children in Hawaiʻi. Learn more about the exhibition: https://honolulusistercity.org/may-8-june-11-2026-ocean-of-peace-exhibition-opens-at-honolulu-hale-featuring-micronesian-artists/

We are proud to see the wonderful work of our CPIS graduates, students, and broader communities on display at city hall--come celebrate and enjoy their work!
Join us TODAYfor an exciting even featuring schola Join us TODAYfor an exciting even featuring scholar and leader Dr. Hōkūlani K. Aikau and CPIS MA Student Vicky Lukan in conversation on Navigating Responsibility, Identity & Thriving as Pasifika Women in the Academy! Register in advance to join us at our reception featuring a fully catered spread by Highway Inn!

The event is tonight, 29 April 2026 from 5:30-7:30 PM in Hālau ‘o Haumea at the Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies.

About the event: 
In this conversation, we invite students and the community into Dr. Aikau’s journey, from studying Polynesian-Mormon identity to working alongside Indigenous land and water stewards. We will discuss how purpose, responsibility, and community have shaped her path, as well as her understanding of the academy as both a site of struggle and of profound possibility.  The events are organized by a student and faculty committee under the Women in Pacific Studies Program, see attached for more information. Catered reception to follow. 

Registration required: https://go.hawaii.edu/ioG
Join us next week for an exciting even featuring s Join us next week for an exciting even featuring scholar and leader Dr. Hōkūlani K. Aikau and CPIS MA Student Vicky Lukan in conversation on Navigating Responsibility, Identity & Thriving as Pasifika Women in the Academy! Register in advance to join us at our reception featuring a fully-catered spread by Highway Inn!

The event is on Wednesday, 29 April 2026 from 5:30-7:30 PM in Hālau ‘o Haumea at the Kamakakūokalani Center for Hawaiian Studies.

About the event: 
In this conversation, we invite students and the broader community into Dr. Aikau’s journey, from studying Polynesian-Mormon identity to working alongside Indigenous land and water stewards. We will discuss how purpose, responsibility, and community have shaped her path, as well as her understanding of the academy as both a site of struggle and of profound possibility.  The events are organized by a student and faculty committee under the Women in Pacific Studies Program, see attached for more information. Catered reception to follow. 

Registration required: https://go.hawaii.edu/ioG
🌈 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/
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School of Pacific & Asian Studies
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