The University of Michigan’s Oceanic Student Association hosted a cultural event in collaboration with Indiana University’s Pacific Islander Student Association titled Party for the Pasifika, on March 4 at Indiana University. The event included dance workshops, poetry and a kanikapila jam session in an effort to celebrate Pacific Islander communities. Fundraising from the event supported the Bloomington Community Kitchen and Brown Girl Woke, an organization that invests in the future of young people in Samoa.
Public Health graduate student Sarah McNally, OSA board member, told The Michigan Daily in an interview after the event that the collaboration was significant, especially because of the lack of Pacific Islander students in the Midwest. According to the 2020 U.S. Census data, Pacific Islander people make up less than 0.1% of the populations of Michigan and Indiana. McNally said allowing students from both universities to celebrate their shared culture helps build a sense of community in the region.
“It was significant in a lot of different ways,” McNally said. “First and foremost, there isn’t a well-established Pacific Islander community, particularly for students attending ( the University of Michigan). The fact that this event was not only hosted at Indiana University, but also included (the) University of Michigan and gave that space and sense of community for Pacific Islander students was really significant.”
Rackham student Wren Palmer, another OSA board member, told The Daily the event was part of an ongoing effort within the organization to build connections between various Pacific Islander communities in the Midwest. She said she was pleasantly surprised to see so many people who identify as Pacific Islander in one place.
“The main thing was really just building community and finding Pacific Islanders in the Midwest, because it doesn’t seem like there would be very many of us,” Palmer said. “But surprisingly, there were a lot.”
While Indiana University hosted the event, U-M OSA was involved in organizing it. Palmer said the idea for Party for the Pasifika arose when McNally told the OSA board she wanted to build Pacific Islander connections throughout the Midwest. The organization started working with Indiana University’s Pacific Islander Student Association to organize a student invitational and the rest was history, Palmer said.
She described the event, which featured a variety of speakers and activities over the course of a weekend.
“It was a three day thing for us, but essentially there were only two formal days of events,” Palmer said. “Friday, we had a dinner with a guest speaker, a professor from the University of Washington: Dr. David Palaita. Saturday, we had a day full of workshops that we could register for.”
The workshops included Tahitian Dance lessons, poetry writing and lei making sessions. Palmer said she participated in all of the dance workshops, and enjoyed the Haka workshop the most — where she learned a traditional war dance routine.
“Haka was the most transformative for me,” Palmer said. “I learned things that I didn’t know about, in the sense that the Haka is a war dance, but I didn’t know that it was supposed to be about a type of release. Check everything at the door and just let (out) pure rage. (I learned) just don’t be afraid of what the person next to us was thinking and embody a warrior, say things with our full chest.”
Aia Hawari, sponsor of U-M OSA and program manager at Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs, said in an interview with The Daily that she hopes attending the Party for the Pasifika has helped students in OSA connect with their identities and make new friends.
“I would say hoping they feel affirmed in the connectivity, despite distance being in (the) diaspora, despite the small number of Oceanian students and community in the midwest and at (the University of Michigan),” Hawari said. “I want them to feel connected to their roots and their identities and feel affirmed in them.”
Only 28 U-M students — including undergraduate, graduate and professional students — identified as Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander during the Fall 2022 semester according to U-M enrollment numbers. Palmer said she thinks there’s room to improve the representation of students of these identities at the University, though she appreciates the way student organizations like OSA are helping student voices be heard.
“I think we’re definitely trying our best to be heard,” Palmer said. “I want to recognize there are student organizations that are helping us and really uplifting us as Pacific Islander voices. There’s definitely room for improvement, but I’d say that I’m appreciative of the level that there is now in actively seeking out Pacific Islander students.”
As OSA plans future events at the University, McNally said the organization hopes to use their experience at the Party for the Pasifika to improve their own outreach efforts within the campus community and with other local universities. Currently, OSA is preparing for Pacific Islander Heritage Week in conjunction with MESA, which will be held on April 9–15. The annual event will aim to share Pacific Islander culture with the broader campus community.
“It definitely helped inform a lot of how we can do our programming here,” Mcnally said. “For example, even just replicating some of the events that (Indiana University) hosted. Essentially, doing more community events where we can educate the University of Michigan campus culture, and inform them of (Pacific Islander experiences on campus).
”Daily Staff Reporter Joshua Nicholson can be reached at joshuni@umich.edu.