Project Title: Americanizing Luakini: White Supremacy Colonizing the Hawaiian Nation State
Kalaniakea Wilson, University of Hawaii at Manoa
Kalaniakea Wilson is a political science Indigenous politics PhD ABD candidate at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. His research excavating the largest indigenous language archive in the early 19th century reveals a different history from the present understanding about Hawaii today. The complexity and longevity of Hawaii’s situation demanded multiple theoretical frameworks from diverse fields to properly analyze the situation Indigenous politics, international law, genocide studies, and language revitalization. He analyzes the evolution of culture from the collision between foreigners and indigenous leadership leading up to a century of denationalization Americanization policies that obliterated the Hawaiian national consciousness in the independent neutral nation state the Hawaiian Kingdom. Tourism as an economic component of genocide continue to target native Hawaiians for removal today. From approximately a population of a million Hawaiians prior to foreign contact in 1778 to only a few hundred kanaka maoli (full-blooded native Hawaiian) living today. This research is dedicated to the last living full-blooded native Hawaiian in his family, Panana. The 132 yearlong illegal occupation, state of war, and genocide eliminated the full-blooded native Hawaiian, thus, Your Vacation Our Genocide.
About the APSA Advancing Research Grants for Indigenous Politics Recipients