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'; [39] Nauru's main political partner since World War I has been Australia, excluding a brief period of Japanese occupation in World War II. magazine_button_bg_color_384157 = '#ffcf0d'; The term "concentration camp" was the term used by the U.S. government to describe the intended purpose of containing Japanese Americans. In July 2019, at the inaugural Indonesian Exposition held in Auckland, Indonesia launched its Pacific Elevation program, which would encompass a new era of elevated engagement with the region, with the country also using the event to lay claim that Indonesia is culturally and ethnically linked to the Pacific islands. Although the prefecture consists of less than 1 percent of. Sources/Usage Public Domain. Seventeen thousand people formed a human chain around Futenma. He additionally includes the Galpagos Islands in his definition of the South Pacific, but does not include any other islands located within the southeastern Pacific area, aside from Easter Island which is considered part of Polynesia. "[16] Debate exists over whether or not the Philippines should be categorized with Pacific Islands of shared Austronesian origin or with the mainland nations of Asia. Reel Inequality: Hollywood Actors and Racism, Hawaiian language finds new prominence in Hawaii's courts decades after near disappearance, 1966 New York Times Magazine article, "Success Story: Japanese American Style,", Asian Americans now most economically divided group in U.S., report finds, The Marginalized Model Minority: An Empirical Examination of the Racial Triangulation of Asian Americans. 2000. are among the last inhabitable places on earth to have been discovered by humans. Is there a better term we should be using? [21], The Official Journal of the Asia Oceania Geosciences Society (AOGS) considers the term Pacific Islands to encompass American Samoa, Cook Islands, Easter Island, the Galpagos Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Guam,Hawaii, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Pitcairn Islands, Salas y Gmez Island, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, the United States Minor Outlying Islands, Vanuatu and Wallis and Futuna. magazine_text_384157 = 'Subscribe today and Save up to $129.
'; As an ethnic/racial term, it is used to describe the original peoplesinhabitants and diasporas of any of the three major subregions of Oceania (Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia).. Melanesians include the Fijians (), Kanaks (New Caledonia), Ni-Vanuatu (), Papua New Guineans . Now that theyre aware of these injustices, perhaps US policy-makers will be courageous enough to step in and right these wrongs.. Polynesians include the New Zealand Mori (New Zealand), Native Hawaiians (Hawaii), Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Samoans (Samoa and American Samoa), Tahitians (Tahiti), Tokelauans (Tokelau), Niueans (Niue), Cook Islands Mori (Cook Islands) and Tongans (Tonga). New Zealand's native population, the Moris, are Polynesians, and thus considered Pacific Islanders. The name means "rope in the open sea" because Okinawa is plopped in the middle of the oceans, with the Pacific to the . [56], According to the Office of Management and Budget, "Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander" refers to a person having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands. The largest and most populated island of the archipelago, Okinawa Island, is actually closer to Manila, Taipei, Shanghai and Seoul than it is to Tokyo. During the 1960s, he said, the water near Kadena was so contaminated that it literally could be set on fire. In his book, he documents 650 environmental incidents between 1998 and 2016 at Kadena, largely caused by leaks of fuel and firefighting foam. [9][10] In a broad sense, they could still possibly be seen as encompassing a small Spanish-speaking segment of Oceania, along with the Easter Island inhabitants, who were eventually colonized by Chileans. slotId: "thenation_right_rail_384157", In 1972 the United States returned Okinawa Island to Japan, although the extensive U.S. military installations there remained operative. I really hope my book helps people understand how badly the island has been contaminated, especially because so many American veterans are sick. Through his research, he has documented claims from more than 250 veterans that Agent Orange was stored on Okinawa during the 1960s and 70s. "Internment" and "relocation" implies benign protection, but these were military stockades with sentries and barbed wire to keep American citizens from getting out. Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander A person having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawaii, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands. Jon Mitchell, the investigative reporter for the Okinawa Times who interviewed Heathcote and Mohler, has spent years documenting the Pentagons brazen use of the Pacific as a testing site and dumping ground for dangerous weapons. Films such as "The Last Samurai" starring Tom Cruise and "The Great Wall" starring Matt Damon are some examples of white savior narratives. For Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, NBC News is taking a closer look at some of the terminology used when discussing Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in order to better understand why certain words and phrases are (or aren't) used. This coding can be broken down into the finer classification of 1,100 Australian Peoples; 1,200 New Zealand peoples; 1,300 Melanesian and Papuan; 1,400 Micronesian; 1,500 Polynesian. What does "hapa" mean and where did it come from? The Philippines according to him are at a "cross-roads of the Pacific a racial and geographic link connecting Oceania, Southeast Asia and Indonesia. As 'Asian American' turns 50, what comes next? The Pentagon, he writes, began placing these weapons during the Korean War and incrementally added more over decades. When people think of Pacific Islander, they think of Guam or Polynesian Islands. magazine_button_bg_color_384157 = '#dd3333'; [1], Auckland, New Zealand has the world's largest concentration of urban Pacific Islanders living outside of their own countries, and is sometimes referred to as the "Polynesian capital of the world. [24] In his 2012 book Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education, American author James A. [22] The 1982 edition of the South Pacific Handbook, by David Stanley, groups Australia, New Zealand, Norfolk Island and the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia under the more restrictive label of the "South Pacific Islands", even though Hawaii and most islands in Micronesia technically lie in the North Pacific. On Wednesday, a small group of activists announced they would study whether Okinawa could split from Japan and become an independent state, which was reported by island and national media.. Fiji, the New Hebrides, the Solomons, even French-controlled New Caledonia have a major trade connection with Australia. Most American newspapers dont report about these daily injustices to the people of Okinawa; they dont report about the contamination; they dont report about the weapons of mass destruction., To make the situation worse, the American military has dismissed the testimony of servicemen, saying they are mistaken or were lying, he told me. KADENA AIR BASE, Japan - An Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month recognition ceremony was held May 30 here at the Keystone Theater. Okinawa Island is the largest in the Ryukyus, being about 70 miles (112 km) long and 7 miles (11 km) wide and having an area of 463 square miles (1,199 square km). While becoming an immigrant might be difficult, and while the immigrants life in a new country might be challenging, the journey itself between two countries is relatively safe. In 2011, Mitchell was the first reporter to interview US Air Force technicians on Okinawa in charge of the storage of nuclear weapons, which included over 1,200 warheads at Kadena and Naha Air Force Bases as well as at US Army ammunition dumps in Chibana and Henoko. Naha, on the island, is the prefectural capital. Lecturer Music Phone: 956-8833 nkaneshi@hawaii.edu. He also broke stories about the US testing of biological weapons and its storage and transshipment of Agent Orangethe defoliant used over Vietnamon Okinawa.