Pacific Islander Americans, Education of

Who Are Pacific Islander Americans?

The term Pacific Islander Americans is used to categorize people in the United States and its territories who come from—or whose ancestors came from—islands located in the vast marine expanse known as the Pacific Ocean. Along with socially constructed concepts like the Pacific, such as Oceania and Asia, the notion of Pacific Islanders is a construct—an invented category—used to categorize groups of people under a collective identity. The term Pacific Islanders is usually constructed to include islanders only from the island groups in Oceania known as Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesia—labels invented in the late 18th and early 19th centuries by the French. Although islands such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Japan, and the Aleutian Islands are located in the Pacific Ocean, islanders from those locales are not typically considered Pacific Islanders. They are usually considered Asian, with Aleuts considered Alaskan Natives. Despite anthropological, linguistic, and genetic evidence that shows shared ancestry among the various indigenous peoples of the vast area connected by the Pacific, irrespective of their modern labels and divisions, Pacific Islanders continue to be defined as those whose ancestors came from the areas known as Polynesia, Melanesia, and Micronesia in the region known as Oceania. As such, Pacific Islander Americans are Pacific Islanders or those descended from Pacific Islanders who are U.S. citizens, nationals, or residents within the borders of the United States and its territories.

Specifically, according to U.S. Census categories determined by the Office of Management and Budget, the category “Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander” is defined as “a person having origins in any of the original peoples of Hawai'i, Guam, Samoa, or other Pacific Islands.” The category includes the following groups: Native Hawaiian, Guamanian or Chamorro, Samoan, Carolinian, Fijian, Kosraean, Melanesian, Micronesian, Northern Mariana Islander, Palauan, Papua New Guinean, Ponapean (Pohnpeian), Polynesian, Solomon Islander, Tahitian, Tarawa Islander, Tokelauan, Tongan, Trukese (Chuukese), and Yapese. As a point of clarification, the term Native Hawaiian does not necessarily include persons who are native to the State of Hawai'i simply by virtue of being born there.

Most Pacific Islander Americans, particularly those from generations who live in or migrated from Pacific Islands, do not consciously think of themselves as Pacific Islander Americans. They tend to think of themselves, instead, in terms of their particular ancestral island-based and ethnic identities. While the children of Pacific Islander migrants may still identify with their ancestral island-based identity, they are more apt than their parents to consider themselves Pacific Islander American. Pacific Islander American is becoming more salient as a common identity for people in the United States whose ancestors come from the Pacific Islands. Their shared experiences, including the ways they are perceived by mainstream Americans, contribute to the continued formation of a Pacific Islander American panethnic identity.

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