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honestly this time of quarantine makes me jealous of people who study communities they're not part of or have no ties to. must be nice to write about people without experiencing the violence you're supposed to always write & read about.
As Setsu Shigematsu & Keith Camacho argue, the tendency to see the Pacific as a place to be explored & thus taken over is also prevalent in Asian Am spaces while claiming solidarity under the legally constructed AAPI umbrella.
and honestly, Guåhan gets less visbility than Hawai'i for better or worse, but also there are folks who aren't from both these places that have done ethical work in relation to organizers. they're just a lot more rare than common.
Also there are ton of people who are from communities and do unethical work. So yeah, it's more like is community protocol and work part of folks' research ethics? Cause honestly, I wouldn't want to make $$$ out of my own or anybody else's oppression.
I also always get called in by my CHamoru & Guam Filipinx mentors when I'm getting too ahead of myself and not listening to what's happening in Guåhan or the Philippines. Feedback can be scary, but the deep relations & trust that are earned through action are worth it.
I'm writing this thread mainly in response to the structure of academia that rewards this rather than individual people. I am also grateful for scholars & writers that try their best to listen and amplify people's voices rather than commodify their experiences.
And to be clear, I decided to go into academia because I want to TEACH. I want to be in a place where I can help folks deconstruct things when they're at the very brink of the educational system, just like I was when I was depressed & lost till I met Prof. Wu in undergrad.
