More recently, these belief systems can be found in contemporary fiction, SCI-Fi, Fantasy and poetry. Generally, works are rooted in Pasifika traditional culture, reflecting the continued importance of the spiritual and indigenous belief systems, their creation stories and the oral history of storytelling. For most non-pacific islanders, when you tell them you are of Pasifika heritage they automatically assume you are Polynesian – wrong! Pacific Islanders are Melanesian, Micronesian and Polynesian, depending on ethnicity and the islands we come from.Įach Pasifika region has produced and is continuing to produce, a plethora of talent in the literary world. In total, there are 15 independent Pacific Island nations including the addition of tens of thousands of islands, islets, and atolls which span over 300,000 square miles (800,000 square kilometres) and millions of square miles of the Pacific Ocean. So for API Month, I am only going to celebrate and highlight works by indigenous Pacific Islanders.įor those of you who are not familiar with the region, I will also provide a little history and geography lesson.

image by Īnd without the marketing machine of large publishing houses, or not fitting their ‘trending’ lists, it’s harder for the authors, writers and poets of Oceania to be given the recognition they deserve. However, API month has come to be dominated by Asian culture – you only have to look at Goodreads recommendations for AAPI month to see the glaring disparity – with little recognition for Pacific Islanders.Īnd as a consumer of books, you and I both can also be blinded by what the large publishing houses and bookstores put in front of us – majority-white publications with similar book covers, or their marketing machines going overdrive to publish the latest trending books, or rehashing the classics without making room for new authors and more diversity.

However, the indigenous people of Asia and the Pacific Islands have long been involved in shaping the country of America, and so May was chosen as the month to commemorate this long and rich heritage with the celebration of the first immigration of the Japanese to the United States in May 1843, along with the completion, in 1869, of the transcontinental railroad – the majority of which was built by Chinese Immigrants.Īs someone with both Asian and Pacific Island Heritage (Chinese and I-Kiribati) the month of May is a great opportunity for me to indulge in these two sides of my heritage. In America, the month of May marks the celebration of all things Asian and Pacific Islander to which some might argue that lumping two very different continents together – the whole of Asia and the large expanse of Oceania – is somewhat bizarre.

Black Ice Matter by Gina Cole