I know CB did their series on it, which I thought was handled fairly well, but there needs to be a serious contending with how a lot of social scientific data doesnʻt leave a lot of room for both critical analysis and, at a practical level, a framework to welcome folks back. https://twitter.com/prxncesa_/status/1322695759574126592

I know KS has been studying the diaspora in a quantiative sense for a while now, and I know there is a lot of panic around the growing diaspora numbers. But what would shift if we started citing Kēhaulani Vaughn, who writes about transindigenous collaboration in the diaspora?

What would we understand if we started citing Lani Tevesʻs work on queerness, diaspora, and disidentification? What possibilities open up when we read David Changʻs historical study of Hawaiian mobility?

What would shift in the data if the work of Trask, Teaiwa, and other Pacific feminists who repeatedly remind us that militarism, tourism, and the inability of Native Pacific peoples to self determine are all connected?

What would shift if, following the thinking of Vaughn, we started to think about the ethics, the connections, the complicity of being pushed out of Hawaiʻi?

Iʻll tell you something powerful that I learned living out here. I was at a Hawaiian event in San Diego, and after doing protocol, the kumu hula leading ceremony had us chant oli mahalo.

As she reminded us, this is not our land, and we come here for many reasons that are often not our own, but it is our choice to be in good relation with those whose land we live on. The least we can do is honor them and build relationships.

Consider also the uncounted Hawaiians who leave Hawaiʻi because their families do not accept them. Or, even less dramatically, those who leave because sometimes when intergenerational trauma, transphobia, homophobia rears its ugly head, all you can do is run.

Those are the kinds of things we lose in data. Mahalo @prxncesa_ for this tweet. We need to collectively do better at understanding what embodied knowledge can do to shift our conversations.

Also as for giving a framework for going home: how do we honor the work done outside of Hawaiʻi? And when I mean that, I mean how do we actively ensure that our collective sense of lāhui is healing rather than damaging?

Collectivism and commutism only works when it is evenly applied. This includes the Hawaiian diaspora, many of whom are Black and Brown Hawaiians. Because, lets face it: East Asian and white Hawaiians like myself often have privilege that allows us to stay in the islands.

My being away from home is rough, but it is privileged: i have a bachelors and masters degree, access to institutional knowledge, was born as and still largely present as a man (tho that is not my id),am treated better by Hawaii institutions because I am japanese, etc.

thats the kind of shit that gets lost when we dont think about how diaspora is experienced. punahou kids going to willamette is not the same as Kanaka from Waiʻanae coming to Vegas for jobs and housing.