Decolonization in Oceania

‘O wau ‘o Loke Aloua. ‘O Mauna a Hualālai ku’u mauna, ‘o Kona Kai Malino ku’u kai, ‘o Kaloko ku’u loko, a ‘o Kona ku’u ‘āina kūlāiwi.

My name is Loke Aloua. My mountain is Hualālai, ocean is Kona Kai Malino, fishpond is Kaloko, and Kona is my ancestral lands.

Keith L. Camacho is a professor of Asian American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. He is also the author of Sacred Men: Law, Torture, and Retribution in Guam (Duke University Press, 2019), the editor of Reppin’: Pacific Islander Youth and Native Justice (University of Washington Press, 2021), and the former senior editor of Amerasia Journal. Elsewhere, Professor Camacho has facilitated educational workshops for the College of Micronesia, Empowering Pacific Islander Communities, the Kutturan Chamoru Foundation, Mapping Indigenous LA, the Northern Marianas Humanities Council, and the Pacific Island Ethnic Art Museum, among other organizations. He now directs the UCLA Guam Travel Study Program, an intensive four-week program that prepares students for careers in community-based advocacy, research, and policy in Oceania.

Tressa P. Diaz is an Assistant Professor at the Division of Social Work, School of Health at the University of Guam (UOG) and a co-investigator for the Community Outreach Core at the UOG Cancer Research Center. Her cancer research has been supported by the National Cancer Institute Partnerships to Advance Cancer Health Equity. Her work in the community is focused on access to care, cancer disparities, intergenerational consciousness, and social determinants of indigenous health. Most recently she has published on the issue of territorial status as a social determinant of health in Guåhan. Her current community education interventions aim to examine knowledge and cultural beliefs about clinical cancer trial participation among CHamoru. She is committed to health as a human right, exploring intergenerational narratives, indigenous health, and cancer survivorship in Micronesia.

Joy Lehuanani Enomoto Is a Kanaka Maoli, African American, Japanese, Caddo Indian, Punjabi and Scottish visual artist, archivist, social justice activist and kiaʻi of Mauna Kea. Her work engages with mapping climate justice, extractive colonialism, anti-Blackness in Oceania, and demilitarization currently affecting the peoples of Oceania. Her artwork and scholarship have been featured in the Contemporary Pacific: Experiencing Pacific Environments: Pasts, Presents, Futures, Detours: A Decolonial Guide to Hawaiʻi, Routledge Postcolonial Handbook, Amerasia Journal, Na Wahine Koa: Hawaiian Women for Sovereignty and Demilitarization, Amerasia Journal, Bamboo Ridge: Journal of Hawaiʻi Literature and Arts, Slate Magazine, Flux Magazine, Absolute Humidity and Hawaiʻi Review.  

Joy is a mentoring artist with regional Oceania youth organization Youngsolwara Pacific and co-curated the exhibition Mai Em(ocean) in Suva, Fiji with Papua New Guinea artist, Jeffry Feeger and travelled with Youngsolawara members to to support West Papua self-determination by participating in artists talks and actions during the Melanesian Arts Festival in Honiara, Solomon Islands. In January 2020, Joy collaborated with poet and climate activist, Jetnil-Kijiner for the exhibition Inundation at UH Mānoa Art Gallery and Donkey Mill Gallery in Kona.

Victoria-Lola M. Leon Guerrero is the Managing Editor of the University of Guam Press. She has taught Creative Writing, Composition, and Women and Gender Studies courses at the University of Guam, Mills College, and Southern High School. She has a Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Mills College and a Bachelor of Arts in Politics from the University of San Francisco. As the Managing Editor of UOG Press, Victoria-Lola has edited and led the publishing efforts for over 30 publications. She is also a published author of a children’s book, several short stories, and essays; co-edited an anthology of Chamoru writers; was the editor of Storyboard: A Journal of Pacific Imagery for three years; and is co-author of the successful Guam play entitled Pågat. Victoria-Lola was also a journalist and worked for newspapers in Guam, California and Oregon. Victoria-Lola is the co-chairperson of Independent Guåhan and a member of the Commission on Decolonization.

Zita Pangelinan is co-founder and President of Håya Cultural Heritage Preservation Foundation, a non-profit volunteer organization established in 2005.  Håya Foundation’s mission is to “Enhance the Well-Being of Our People” with focus on the revitalization of our indigenous healing tradition to reconnect our people and heal from the dis-ease with the current health and behavioral epidemics on the island.  Pangelinan has spent the past 16 years developing relationships and consulting traditional healers throughout the Mariana Islands.  She has coordinated the past three Åmot (traditional healing) Conferences and has worked on   achieving the objectives and the resolutions adopted.  With the grace of God, the wisdom of the healers and volunteers, the Foundation’s accomplishments, thus far include: the opening of three traditional healing centers; the first “Guma Yo’åmte”, Guam’s First Traditional Healing Center was opened in 2018 at Sagan Kotturan Chamorro in Tamuning; the second center in Agat opened March 1, 2019   to serve the southern residents of Guam and the third center opened March 17, 2019 in the village of Yona to serve the central residents of Guam.  To further perpetuate traditional healing, To further engage the community, Haya Foundation opened “Guma Para Hinem’lo” Haya’s resource center in 2019 to launch itss official Apprenticeship Program and to serve as a resource center for community engagement activities. 

Dr. Noʻeau Peralto was born and raised in Waiākea Uka, Hilo, Hawaiʻi, and is a proud descendant of kūpuna from Koholālele, Hāmākua, Hawaiʻi. He is a community organizer, educator, and a cultivator of seeds and stories, and holds a PhD. in Indigenous Politics from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. His dissertation research explored the continuity of aloha ʻāina praxis in his home community of Hāmākua Hikina through the land- and story-based resurgence work of Hui Mālama i ke Ala ʻŪlili–a grassroots, Native Hawaiian nonprofit organization of which he is a founding member and the current Executive Director. huiMAU’s mission is to re-establish the systems that sustain our community through place-based educational initiatives and ‘āina-centered practices that cultivate abundance, regenerate responsibilities, and promote collective health and well-being.