We belong to Oceania. We belong to a diverse sea of moving islands, peoples, cultures, languages, and ecologies. We belong to a legacy of navigation that teaches us how to read the stars, waves, currents, winds, and horizons.
Pacific Islanders peopled Oceania thousands of years ago and developed complex societies based on the values of interconnection, harmony, balance, sustainability, and respect. We named and recognized the sacredness of waters and lands. We storied our new homes with songs, poems, and chants.
We have many names, indigenous and imposed: Hawaiian, Samoan, Chamorro, Tongan, Fijian, Marshallese, Tahitian, Tokelauan, Māori, Palauan, Kosraean, Pohnpeian, Chuukese, Yapese, I-Kiribati, Papua New Guinean, Solomon Islander, Ni-Vanuatu, and more.
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Beginning in the sixteenth century, the violent storms of imperialism conquered, missionized, claimed, diseased, and divided Oceania into Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia (many islands, tiny islands, and black islands). Foreign militaries dispossessed islanders from ancestral lands and waters, and poisoned our environments through weapons testing, training, and storage.
Read the full essay on the Poetry Foundation website.