The Micronesians

By Floyd K. Takeuchi

Editor’s note: This photography exhibit originally appeared at the Downtown Art Center in Honolulu.

One of the sad realities of living in a society populated by waves of immigrants is that prejudice and discrimination are ways of life. In Hawaii, the Chinese and Portuguese were brought to work on the plantations, followed by the Japanese and Filipinos. All faced economic, social and cultural discrimination, common for groups holding the title “fresh off the boat”.

Humans seem to have a need to try to lift the veil of the prejudice they faced by dumping on the group just behind them. I can recall being a graduate student at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in the mid-1970s and hearing a student worker talking disparagingly of Tongans, speaking of them (then the lowest on the economic ladder) as poor immigrants. I nearly lost it because I knew her family. Her parents were second generation Japanese, and in those days, there were still prominent social clubs in Honolulu that refused membership to Hawaii residents of Japanese ancestry.

Today it is the Micronesians who bear the brunt of attitudes of cultural and economic superiority by some in Hawaii. Never mind that the term Micronesian is so broad that it is practically meaningless. The area known as Micronesia, the size of the Continental United States, is home to nine distinct languages, and scores of dialects. Never mind that Hawaiian missionaries were among the first to educate Micronesians in Western-style schools. Never mind that a Micronesian, Mau Piailug of Satawal atoll in Yap State, of the Federated States of Micronesia, shared his secret knowledge of navigating by the stars to reintroduce Hawaiians to their long-lost craft of wayfaring.

Today, in some schools, locals refer disparagingly of the newcomers as Micros. Any islander from the Micronesian region who has spent any time in Hawaii in recent decades can tell you of knowing prejudice and discrimination because of their ancestry. Many are too polite to share the prejudice they face, as hurtful as it may be.

This photographic project is a modest attempt to force locals in Hawaii to face their own prejudices. It uses the so-called Micronesian skirt as a symbol of the latent discrimination that festers in our contemporary society. Hopefully these portraits of women of accomplishment and distinction are a visual wedge to begin breaking up the assumptions that we use to shield our ignorance.

I’m not so removed from reality to think that nine portraits are the visual equivalent of Joshua’s trumpets and will bring down the walls of fear and prejudice that cast a shadow on Hawaii’s community of Pacific Islanders from the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Palau, Guam and the Northern Marianas. The most I can hope for is a solitary note that might be a wakeup call for a single local resident who knows little if anything of those beautiful islands and their rich cultures.

But if these portraits can move one person, that is a start. And we will move forward from there.

Why do I care? Because I’ve been blessed, and my family has been blessed, to call many Micronesians among our closest of friends. My parents went to Micronesia, then called the U.S. Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, to serve in the administration of those islands from 1953 almost continuously until 1982.

They were a young, newly married couple from Hawaii who found their calling and their purpose in life in those islands. And they brought two sons into this world in local hospitals, nothing more than abandoned US Navy Quonset huts from World War II, assisted by island doctors who were trained by US Navy corpsmen after the war.

I also don’t delude myself into thinking that I am a Micronesian. But I do have close friends scattered across the region, friends who have made me feel welcome in their homes, on their boats, and on their islands. If there is a place that calls to me, it is those islands.

So, this is my effort to do the right thing for those Micronesians who live among us, the relatives and extended families of my friends back in their respective island homes. And in the islands, that makes them family to me.

The nine remarkable women who are so strikingly photographed by Floyd K. Takeuchi in this exhibition are notable for at least three reasons: they are exceptional and of Micronesian ancestry; they would be the first to tell you that their distinct and rich cultural traditions helped them to become recognized leaders and role models; and, they would stand out in any crowd, not just one made up of fellow immigrants from Micronesia in the United States. That’s what I see when I study these portraits of nine sisters from the Pacific.

Hilda C. Heine, EdD
Senator and Former President
Aur Atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands

Floyd K. Takeuchi is a writer-photographer who has spent most of his adult life writing about or photographing Micronesia. An American of Japanese ancestry whose parents served in the U.S. administration of the Micronesia region, Floyd was born and raised on Majuro Atoll in the Marshall Islands. His family also called Saipan home for nearly 20 years. He has a BS in Journalism (cum laude) from Boston University and earned an MA in Pacific islands Studies from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. He was a graduate degree grantee at the East-West Center’s Communication Institute.

Pacific Islands Report publications represent the views of the respective authors.

Featured photo courtesy of Floyd K. Takeuchi.