Alumni Diversity Programs & Initiatives Co-Sponsored Oceanic Studies Book Forum

The legacy of settler colonialism in Oceania, specifically Guåhan (Guam) and Hawai‘i, is a complex history that binds the two distinct archipelagos together. Join authors Alfred Flores and Christen Sasaki, and moderator Gena Carpio, as they explore these multifaceted connections through the scope of settler military occupation, imperial jurisdiction, and cultural transformation.

In "Tip of the Spear: Land, Labor, and US Settler Militarism in Guåhan 1944-1962", Alfred P. Flores demonstrates how the US military’s transformation of the island from a primarily subsistence agricultural landscape to a major military base was founded on a co-constitutive process that included Indigenous land dispossession and the recruitment of Filipino laborers.

Christen T. Sasaki’s "Pacific Confluence: Fighting over the Nation in Nineteenth Century Hawai‘i" considers how the battle to control the island chain destabilized notions of race, power, and state-based jurisdiction around the world.

By bringing these authors together in dialogue, this book forum opens up space to consider the impact of settler colonialism through time and space, while also connecting the islands and peoples of Oceania through themes of resistance and survival.

Speakers:

Alfred Peredo Flores is assistant professor of Asian American Studies at Harvey Mudd College. His research and teaching interests include Pacific Islander history with an emphasis on diaspora, labor, indigeneity, militarization, oral history and settler colonialism in Micronesia. He earned his Ph.D. in History with a graduate concentration in Asian American Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles, M.A. and B.A. degrees in Public History and History from the University of California, Riverside, and an A.A. degree in Liberal Arts from College of the Desert.

Christen T. Sasaki is an Associate Professor in the Ethnic Studies Department at the University of California, San Diego. Her research and published works focus on the politics of race and empire in the Pacific Island world. Her recent articles include “Making Sartorial Sense of Empire: Contested Meanings of Aloha Shirt Aesthetics,” published in The Contemporary Pacific (2022). Christen received her doctorate in History from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Moderator: Genevieve Carpio, Associate Professor of César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies. She is the author of Collisions at the Crossroads: How Place and Mobility Make Race (University of California Press, 2019). Her current book project is titled Pacific Imaginaries: Architecture, Movement, and Race Making from California to New Zealand, 1914-1945, and examines cultural exchange between California and the Pacific World.

Books will be on sale by ASUCLA Bookzone. Payment by Credit Card is preferred.

Tip of the Spear: Land, Labor, and U.S. Settler Militarism in Guåhan 1944-1962

Pacific Confluence: Fighting over the Nation in 19th Century Hawai‘i

A Zoom webinar is available to tune in to the forum due to limited seating capacity. The Zoom webinar link will be sent to you via Eventbrite email a few days before the forum.

Co-Sponsored by: Asian American Studies Center and Department, Institute of American Cultures, UCLA Alumni Affairs – Alumni Diversity Programs & Initiatives, César E. Chávez Department of Chicana/o and Central American Studies