ASIAN SETTLER COLONIALISM FORUM

ASIAN SETTLER COLONIALISM FORUM

Guest speakers Haunani-Kay Trask, Momiala Kamahele, Healani Sonoda, Eiko Kosasa, Ida Yoshinaga, Kyle Kajihiro, Candace Fujikane and Jonathan Y. Okamura

Saturday, May 23, 2009
1:00 p.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i

Come and join us for a public forum on a groundbreaking and controversial book that examines the impact that Japanese and other Asian communities in Hawai‘i have on Hawaiians struggling for self-determination. Released by the University of Hawai‘i Press last fall, Asian Settler Colonialism: From Local Governance to the Habits of Everyday Life in Hawai‘i (University of Hawai‘i Press, 2008) examines issues ranging from Japanese, Korean, and Filipino settlement of Hawai‘i to accounts of Asian settler practices in the legislature, the prison industrial complex, and the U.S. military to critiques of Asian settlers’ claims to Hawai‘i in literature and the visual arts.

The Japanese in Hawai‘i have fought long and hard for civil rights, but at this time, we need to rethink who we are and where we are going. Hawaiians have a unique political status as the indigenous peoples of Hawai‘i, and at this critical moment in history, they are fighting for their lands and nation. As settlers, Japanese and other Asian communities need to discuss what our responsibilities to Hawaiians are. The speakers will open up the discussion by addressing the past and present roles of Japanese and other Asian peoples in Hawai‘i as settlers who have both obstructed justice and spoken out for justice. In what ways have Asian settler political administrators engaged in colonial practices that seek to take Hawaiians’ indigenous rights from them? How do our everyday habits maintain the U.S. occupation of Hawai‘i? What can we do as Asian settlers to support Hawaiians in their struggle for justice? Please join us for a thought-provoking and transformative discussion of these issues.

Free admission.

This event is sponsored by the Japanese Cultural Center of Hawai‘i. Supported in part by a generous grant from the Hawai‘i People’s Fund and the generosity of the Japanese American Citizen’s League and the American Friends Service Committee.

For more information, please call the Japanese Cultural Center at (808) 945-7633, ext. 32.