Viewed by Itself, Pacific Islander Experience Looks Very Different (Full Report)  Josie Huang | March 25th, 2014, 9:05am
http://www.scpr.org/blogs/multiamerican/2014/03/25/16178/pacific-islander-native-hawaiian-asian-american/

 

Empowering Pacific Islander Communities and Asian Americans Advancing Justice

Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders lag the rest of the country in attaining college degrees, according to a new report released jointly by Empowering Pacific Islander Communities and Asian Pacific Islanders Advancing Justice.

Pacific Islanders are often grouped with the much larger population of Asians-Americans. For one, their countries of origin share relative proximity, and joining forces helps create the critical mass needed to advocate on policy issues.

But a new report released Tuesday morning underscores just how much more difficult the Pacific Islander experience can be when it comes to education, health and staying afloat financially.

“Those are some of the issues that in many ways are undergirded by poverty,” said Iosefa Aina, an associate dean at Pomona College and a board member for Empowering Pacific Islander Communities, or EPIC.

EPIC, which is based in Los Angeles, co-authored the report with frequent collaborator Asian Americans Advancing Justice. The groups say the report is one of the most detailed looks at Pacific Islanders living in California and other parts of the mainland.
Key findings show:

• During the recession, the number of unemployed Pacific Islanders rose more than any other racial group — 123 percent — and the number living in poverty grew by 56 percent.
   
• Rates of diabetes and obesity are higher than the national average. Aina said that has a lot to do with sedentary lifestyles and consuming processed food because of the low cost and accessibility.
  
  
• About 18 percent of Pacific Islanders, including Native Hawaiians, have a bachelor's degree, lower than the national average. In this regard, they share some similarities with some immigrants from southeast Asia for whom rates of educational attainment also lag the general population.

Joanna Lee, a principal researcher with Asian-Americans Advancing Justice, said the report will help show policymakers that the Asian & Pacific Islander community is not a monolith.

While the number Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders living in the US now tops 1.2 million, that's "masked under the 18 million or 17 million Asian Americans that live in the country," she said.

"So it's really important to look at this data to really understand the community and understand how to better serve the community," Lee said.

California is home to the largest Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander population outside of Hawaii. Aina said that many households took root in the state after World War II , when many people moved to the mainland to serve in the military and were followed by relatives.

Population growth has been steady in California over the last decade. The Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander community has expanded 29 percent to nearly 286,000 people.

Despite some discouraging news in the report, Aina described the potential for change, especially within the community's large segment of young people. (The median age is 26.5 for Pacific Islanders, the lowest among racial groups.)

“What we see is an opportunity to train our young people, to build the capacity within our community to do research, become doctors and lawyers," Aina said.
Read the full report here:

a Community of Contrasts- Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in the United States

Poet Speak . ..

Guam: Where America’s Day Begins with Injustice

Dåko’ta Alcantara-Camacho 

December 18, 2013 

  The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) enters Apra Harbor, Guam for a scheduled port visit in 2011.

  U.S. Navy photo by MCSC Peter Lewis

For Washington’s 9,000-strong Chamorro community, getting hassled going into bars is just the tip of the warship.

I’m 22 this year and still very new to the bar scene. I’m not too big on drinking, but I think dancing is medicine—the call and response between the beat and my feet, the sweat, embodying the fearlessness it takes to move my body in public.

I like to dance, so I’ve become very accustomed to this conversation with the bouncers:

“ID please.”“Håfa adai! Thank you, here you go.”

(Confused/Disgruntled Face)

“I’m sorry sir, I can’t accept your ID, do you have your passport?”

“I do have my passport, but as you can see sir, this ID says ‘Guam USA, Where America’s Day Begins.’”

“I see that, but Washington State Law requires a valid state ID.”

Here is the point in the conversation where I whip out my smartphone, pull up the bookmarked Washington State Liquor Control Board page with the relevant laws and read out loud: Types of Acceptable ID, Driver’s License, Instruction Permit, or I.D. Card issued by any U.S. State, U.S. Territory and District of Columbia.

Most bouncers have been real “cool.”

“I’ll let you in tonight, but next time bring your passport.”

Because, even though I was born in America, my Guam ID makes me a little less American.

It’s pretty frustrating having to explain U.S. History every time I want to go out to dance. But that’s just one of the smallest injustices the Chamorro people face.

Resilience runs in the blood.

When the United States seized Guam in 1899, as a part of the U.S.-Spanish War, a navy governor was appointed to be the supreme lawmaker of the island.

The governor passed general orders banning our native language, prohibiting whistling, banning dancing after 10:00 p.m., banning interracial marriages. Governor Adelbert Althouse even collected all of the Chamorro books and burned them.

At a time when Chamorros were not even considered citizens of the United States, my grandfather, like many of his generation, served in the U.S. Military during World War II.

Stationed at Pearl Harbor, he survived the kamikaze attacks. Hours before the infamous bombing, Guam was invaded by the Japanese en route to Hawai‘i. The American military, predicting the invasion, evacuated all of their personnel and dependents, leaving the Chamorro people to fend for themselves in a war fought between superpowers.

In 1944, American Troops re-invaded Guam and carpet bombed the island. Luckily, the Japanese had interned the Chamorros in concentration camps, so they survived. After the successful, “liberation” of the Chamorros, the U.S. seized two-thirds of the island for military bases. Ironically, the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the bombs that ended World War II, were stored and flown out of Chamorro land.

In 1949, the Guam Assembly walked out of session, forcing the federal government to grant self-government and citizenship to the people of Guam. So unlike our grandparents, our generation has U.S. Citizenship—we just don’t get to vote for president.

Over 70 years after World War II, the federal government refuses to provide reparations to the only Americans who lived through enemy occupation. The United States continues to evade responsibility for establishing over 100 toxic dumpsites (nuclear and chemical weapons) on Guam, an island eight miles wide and 31 miles long.

Today, Chamorros enlist and die in the military at the highest rates per capita, higher than any U.S. state.

As part of what the White House is calling the “Pacific Pivot,” Obama plans to move 60 percent of the military to the Pacific.

In 2009, the U.S. Military released a 10,000 page document, the Draft Environmental Impact Statement, detailing the upcoming “military build-up.” Part of the plan is to dredge of 70 acres of healthy coral reef to house a Nuclear Air Craft Carrier, build a Missile Defense program and 5-Range Firing Complex on an ancient burial ground, seizing the entire island of Pågan, and exposing residents to mortars, howitzers, artillery, high explosive munitions and anti-tank weapons.

After several generations of military occupation, subsequent migration and attempted assimilation, my family is still not free. After my Grandpa, my dad, his brothers and so many of my cousins have fought for the freedom of Americans, my family is still not free. Even though our bodies have been poisoned, our language has been outlawed, and our land has been stolen, I am alive. I am alive and all generations of my ancestors are alive in me. I am living and our traditions, our language live inside of me.

With all of this trauma in my body, sometimes I just need to cleanse. On nights when I’m feeling like sweating the radiation out of my system, I’ve got to fight to get into the club.

Well, unless I bring proof of my legitimate citizenship.

I’m frustrated, but not surprised. I’m from Guam USA, where America’s day begins with injustice.

People and organizations all over the world have rallied to oppose the Department of Defense’s proposed “Military Build-Up.” Together we can protect our home. Take Action Now! Visit http://www.arkiology.tv/2013/11/14/take-action/.

This story originally appeared at The Seattle Globalist at seattleglobalist.com.

chicks

Rutgers MFA Student Draws Inspiration from Proud Chamorro Heritage

Your Source for University News

Monday, November 25, 2013

By Tom McLaughlin

 'I write to speak my voice ... I want to disrupt the discourse.' 

– Jacob Camacho

As Jacob Camacho recalls, it all started when he got “Goosebumps” – that is, the popular children’s horror fiction novels – when he was 7 years old. Growing up in his native Guam, Camacho voraciously read every Goosebumps book he could find, requiring his mother to keep buying more, along with new shelves to amass his growing collection.

“My mother would say, ‘Jacob, money doesn’t grow on trees,’” recalls Camacho with a laugh.

Camacho’s older brother, Keith, soon challenged him to write one-page summaries of what he had read – sparking in him something much greater. “That lit a fire in me; I wanted to write stories of my own,” recalls Camacho, who was soon trying his hand at his own brand of horror.


Nearly 20 years later, Camacho is inching closer toward his dream – word by word, line by line – as a student in in the MFA creative writing program at Rutgers-Camden.

Almost 8,000 miles away from his island home, he draws much inspiration from his Chamorro heritage. He still carries his culture’s overriding sense of family, and the importance of being a good neighbor. However, he adds, he also carries the weight of nearly 500 years of foreign rule, oppression and dependence.

“I have all of that in me,” says Camacho, who arrived on campus in August.

As he explains, the Chamorro – Guam’s indigenous people –have been subservient to foreign powers since Ferdinand Magellan’s Spanish expedition landed on the island in 1521. Even today, much of the island’s economy is still largely dependent on the U.S. military. Camacho has a torn view of the military’s presence, believing that it offers the promise of education and benefits, but often at the expense of Guam’s poorest and most desperate citizens.

The struggles – and resilience – of Camacho’s native culture now provide the impetus for many of the characters and storylines that he creates. In his poems, short stories and two novels in the works, Camacho poignantly touches on the underlying themes of racial, gender, class and socioeconomic issues. Nodding to his own experiences, Camacho’s stories are set primarily in Guam, Japan and the Philippines, although he notes that the issues he addresses apply to regions and societies throughout the world.

 
“I write to speak my voice,” says Camacho, who especially enjoys crafting horror and psychological thrillers. “I want to disrupt the discourse.”

Camacho recalls that as he matured as a writer he increasingly turned to his pen and pad as a way to express his thoughts and feelings. In his high-school days, he added poetry to his repertoire, and often retreated to the solace of his poems. He and his friends soon formed a creative writers club and gathered on weekends to play guitar and share their poems.

Camacho decided to pursue a dual career as a writer and teacher, and earned a bachelor’s degree in English literature at the University of Guam. He then worked as an intern reporter for the Pacific Daily News. “It was great to write, but it wasn’t creative writing,” he says. Camacho subsequently worked as a tutor for Sylvan Learning Center, and organized a local creative writers group, which included University of Guam faculty, as well as reporters from the Pacific Daily News and Marianas Variety.

Hungrier than ever to find his voice as a writer, Camacho says that he is now prospering from the insight and guidance of the MFA program’s esteemed faculty. He notes that Lisa Zeidner has been instrumental in helping him to develop his story structure, while Patrick Rosal has worked with him to cultivate his characters, and to explore the works of other Asian-American and Pacific Island writers. On Rosal’s recommendation, Camacho recently attended a reading at the Asian-American Writers’ Workshop in Brooklyn. “It was a great experience to see such a tight community of writers who are interested in pushing one another forward,” Camacho says.

 Just as important, Camacho adds, Rosal has offered just the right words of encouragement. “He has helped me to believe in myself,” says Camacho. “That has helped me to be the best writer that I can be.”

Likewise, Camacho says he has benefited from the camaraderie and constructive criticism shared amongst the students in the creative writing program. He appreciates the opportunity to hear feedback from so many gifted writers, all with their own unique life experiences. He likens the constant give-and-take among students to his weekly kickboxing regimen, a hobby he recently picked up at Body Arts Muay Thai in Philadelphia.

“When you are doing drills, one person is kicking, while their partner is holding the mitts and giving that constant feedback,” says Camacho. “The key here is that it’s constant, and that’s what I love about this program. It can be very humbling, but in the end, we are all trying our best to bring out what we want to say.”

Still growing accustomed to his new surroundings, Camacho maintains that the MFA program has already had a profound impact on his work ethic. While he used to write two hours a day, he now spends entire days crystallizing his thoughts. “The way that I see it, I may not be the best writer, but I can be the best that I can be,” he says.

Copyright 2013, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, an equal opportunity, affirmative action institution.