A Thread about Pacific Islander Erasure:

I'm really irritated with how Asian American's claim "Asian Pacific" Islander/American while at the same excluding and erasing Pacific Islanders from their cultural/political work.
The truth is that Asian American communities coming

together and building cultural and economic power in "The United States" has historically had negative impacts on Pacific Islanders.
In our homelands, it often literally means the theft of our lands, Asian people's 'ownership of our lands' and turning them into tourist

destinations means the inability to live on our homelands, the destruction of our environments, and then the theft and misappropriation of our language and culture. This has directly impacted my family and is part of the reason we now live in Coast Salish Territory.
In some

historical instances, we have suffered greatly at the hands of Asian militaries during war time. Just the other night, I was listening to my auntie tell me a story about the horrendous way Japanese military officials tortured My nåna and murdered her brother.
Today, this has

ongoing political and cultural impacts as Chinese, Japanese and other Asian Nation states build their economic and military power in the region by sacrificing the health and well-being of our peoples.
Look at how the Indonesian military is attempting genocide against West

Papuans. Look at how the Chinese businesses are digging up burial grounds in Saipan. Look at how the governments of South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia brutalize our islands and our oceans for the annual RIMPAC Military training exercises. Look at how

Chinese, Indian, and Japanese governments are backing the Thirty Meter Telescope
So it is unacceptable to see Asian people here in Turtle Island claiming 'Asian Pacific" experience and identities while excluding and erasing Pacific Islanders existence, cultures, peoples,

our brilliance, resilience, and creativity.
Especially when they're claiming "Asian Pacific" in funding application and then NOT passing those resources they get to Pacific Islanders.
When you're in a part of the continent that has one of the LARGEST and densest Pacific

Islander communities on the entire continent.
When you get your funding from corporations that are actively invested in the destruction of Pacific Islander homelands...
It makes me enraged and disgusted with all of you.