Creating culturally regenerative Pasifika educational resources in Utah

"Our genealogies are a backbone stretching to the very inception of these islands, and when we understand our genealogy, we know our origins, where we have been. We always have our ancestors at our back. That certainty gives us a wider possibility of movement, a more supple way to navigate through the world. Standing on our mountain of connections, our foundation of history and stories and love, we can see both where the path behind us has come from and where the path ahead leads. This connection assures us that when we move forward, we can never be lost because we always know how to get back home. The future is a realm we have inhabited for thousands of years."1

CREATING CULTURALLY REGENERATIVE PASIFIKA EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES IN UTAH by Eliana Massey A Senior Honors Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The University of Utah In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Honors Bachelor of Science in Museum Studies (Bachelor of University Studies) In History Approved: _ Dr. Matthew Basso Faculty Thesis Mentor _______ ______________________ Dr. Paul Reeve Chair, Department of History _______ Dr. Rachel Mason Dentinger History Departmental Honors Liaison April 2025 Copyright © 2025 All Rights Reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION & METHODS 2 CRITICAL PROJECT REFLECTION 1 18 CRITICAL PROJECT REFLECTION 2 35 CLOSING REFLECTION 57 BIBLIOGRAPHY 61 1 INTRODUCTION & METHODOLOGICAL BACKGROUND “Our genealogies are a backbone stretching to the very inception of these islands, and when we understand our genealogy, we know our origins, where we have been. We always have our ancestors at our back. That certainty gives us a wider possibility of movement, a more supple way to navigate through the world. Standing on our mountain of connections, our foundation of history and stories and love, we can see both where the path behind us has come from and where the path ahead leads. This connection assures us that when we move forward, we can never be lost because we always know how to get back home. The future is a realm we have inhabited for thousands of years.”1 Bryan Kamaoli Kuwada (Kanaka ʻŌiwi) Introduction to Kanaka ʻŌiwi Epistemologies: Moʻokūʻauhau as Methodology In Ōlelo Noʻeau: Hawaiian Proverbs & Poetical Sayings, Mary Kawena Pukui, a foundational Kanaka ʻŌiwi (Native Hawaiian) cultural scholar and practitioner, recorded thousands of traditional proverbs in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (the Native Hawaiian language).2 This collection has become a foundational resource for scholars in Hawaiian studies and to a lesser extent Pacific Island studies and Indigenous studies. Among its many proverbs, one of the most well-known is “I ka wā ma mua, ka wā ma hope.”3 The phrase reflects a unique Kānaka ʻŌiwi perspective on time: “I ka wā ma mua” refers to the past, or "the time in front of your body," while “ka wā 1 Bryan Kamaoli Kuwada. “We live in the future. Come join us.” April 3, 2015, Ke Kaupu Hehi Ale, https://hehiale.com/2015/04/03/we-live-in-the-future-come-join-us/. 2 In this thesis, I will use Native Hawaiian and Kanaka ʻŌiwi interchangeably depending on the context. 3 Mary Kawena Pukui and Dietrich Varez. ʻŌlelo Noʻeau : Hawaiian Proverbs & Poetical Sayings. (Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 1983). 2 ma hope” refers to the future, or "the time behind your body."4 This perspective on time is intimately connected to the concept of moʻokūʻauhau, a vital element in Hawaiian epistemology and pedagogy.5 In The Past Before Us: Moʻokūʻauhau as Methodology, Nālani Wilson-Hokowhitu and Manulani Aluli Meyer describe moʻokūʻauhau as follows: “Moʻo in this context can be defined as a succession, a series, stories, traditions, or lineage. Kū refers to standing upright, stopping, halting, or anchoring, and in another manifestation presides over aspects of battle and warfare. ʻAuhau is the femur and humerus bones of the human skeleton. When strung together moʻokūʻauhau speaks of the succession of our ancestors and the mana within their bones, buried in the ʻāina (land), which establishes our place to stand tall, our place from which to speak, protect, defend, and love. Our moʻokūʻauhau gives us our strength, direction, guidance, and mana.”6 In the fields of Hawaiian studies, Pacific Island studies, and Indigenous studies, it is common to begin with a personal reflection of one’s own moʻokūʻauhau as a means of grounding one’s research. In this spirit, I will begin my thesis by sharing my own moʻokūʻauhau to contextualize the approach I have taken in my Nālani Wilson-Hokowhitu and Manulani Aluli Meyer, “Introduction: I Ka Wā Mamua, The Past Before Us,” in The Past Before Us: Moʻokūʻauhau as Methodology, ed. Nālani Wilson-Hokowhitu (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2019), 1. 5 Wilson-Hokowhitu and Meyer, “Introduction: I Ka Wā Mamua, The Past Before Us.” 6 Wilson-Hokowhitu and Meyer, “Introduction: I Ka Wā Mamua, The Past Before Us,” 2. 4 3 community-engaged research. By doing so, I aim to honor the past that stands before me. Positionality: My Moʻokūʻauhau My moʻokūʻauhau primarily traces to present-day New Mexico, Texas, Mexico, Spain, Germany, England, and Hawaiʻi. Growing up in a predominantly white city in North Texas—thousands of miles from my Kanaka ʻŌiwi grandpa and great-grandma, who also live in the continental United States—I had few opportunities to connect with other Pacific Islanders. My grandpa attended Kamehameha Schools at Kapālama when it was still a militarized boarding school for Kanaka ʻŌiwi boys. His academic advisor encouraged him to leave Hawaiʻi for college, insisting he wouldn’t succeed academically at a local school because he’d be too distracted by “frivolous things” like surfing. Leaving Hawaiʻi, the advisor argued, was the best way for him to make use of his intellectual aptitude. In contrast, the same advisor told one of my grandpa’s classmates that he was “too dumb” for college and might as well stay in Hawaiʻi. My grandpa applied to several West Coast schools, as well as BYU-Provo, ultimately choosing BYU because it was the only school he applied to with an Air Force ROTC program. At the time, the U.S. Army was aggressively drafting Kanaka ʻŌiwi boys from Kamehameha Schools to fight in the Vietnam War. He himself received four draft notices. Joining the Air Force ROTC at BYU-Provo was his way of avoiding being forced into the infantry and the jungles 4 of Vietnam. After college, he was stationed at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, where my dad and I were both born. My dad grew up with a strained relationship with his father, without a Pacific Islander community, and far from his grandparents and cousins, which led him to assimilate into white American culture. Like my grandpa, Utah wasn’t my first choice for college. But the University of Utah offered me something no other school did—a full-ride scholarship. During my short 10-minute scholarship interview, I casually mentioned that the Pacific Island studies program stood out to me as something unique about the University of Utah because my grandpa was Native Hawaiian. But looking back, I had no idea just how central the Utah Pacific Islander community would become to my college experience—or how much my own identity would evolve because of it. When I arrived in Utah for school, it was my first time ever in the state. One of my first days in Utah, my family and I went to the Hungry Hawaiian restaurant, where we met my mom’s old friend from her LDS college sorority at UT-Austin. She and her Native Hawaiian husband ran the restaurant, and through FamilySearch, she and my mom realized that he is my fourth cousin. That day was the first time I can remember trying kālua pork. I also met an aunty there who was fluent in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi—the first fluent speaker I had ever met. Utah's vibrant Pacific Islander community is one of the largest diasporic 5 Pacific Islander communities in the United States.7 Utah ranks third in terms of the largest proportion of Pacific Islanders within a state's population.8 Furthermore, the Utah Pacific Islander community is rapidly expanding, surpassing the overall state population growth.9 For many Pacific Islanders in Utah, Hawai’i is a bridge between the broader Pacific and the continental United States. For instance, many families immigrated from their home islands to Hawaiʻi before coming to Utah. But for me, Utah became my bridge back to Hawai’i and the broader Pacific. Interestingly, while I was raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, my Native Hawaiian grandpa is the only family member who lived in Utah before me—back in the 1960s. I didn’t grow up with the story about why he left Hawai’i, why he chose to come to Utah, or how that side of my family ended up in Texas. My grandpa never shared that story with my dad, and I didn’t learn it myself until we happened to be visiting Hawaiʻi at the same time—while I was doing research through the University of Utah’s Pacific Island studies program about boarding schools in Hawai’i. It has been mostly in Utah, or in Hawaiʻi because of my relationships in Utah, that I have begun to understand how my family became “American”—while other Native Hawaiian families, as Haunani-Kay Trask once put it, “will never be American.”10 Heidi Prior, "Insight: Utah’s Pacific Islander Community," Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, September 23, 2022, https://gardner.utah.edu/blog/blog-utahs-pacific-islander-community/. 8 Prior, “Insight: Utah’s Pacific Islander Community.” 9 Prior, “Insight: Utah’s Pacific Islander Community.” 10 Haunani-Kay Trask, “Haunani Kay Trask speech, Jan 17 1993,” HawaiianVoice, filmed Jan 17, 1993, video of speech, 17:57, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwWNigoZ5ro. 7 6 Introduction to Kanaka ʻŌiwi Epistemologies: Regenerative Refusals Despite being consistently welcomed and acknowledged by Native Hawaiians in Utah, it wasn’t until I grasped the gravity of the history of how education was used to assimilate Native Hawaiian children, including my grandpa, great-grandma, and great-great-grandma—that I felt brave enough to embrace being Native Hawaiian. I was in Utah, reviewing archival records I had scanned in Hawaiʻi, when I recognized my great-great-grandma’s name in the records of a carceral boarding school. Later, in Hawaiʻi, an aunty mentioned that many people changed their names after being released from these institutions, and I immediately thought of my great-grandma, who not only changed her name—even on her birth certificate—but also refuses to talk about her past. After researching carceral boarding schools in Hawaiʻi for a couple years, I strongly suspect she was sent to one of these boarding schools but I may never know for sure. It is incredibly kaumaha (heavy) to realize that my dad is likely the first generation, after three consecutive generations, to not be sent to a carceral or militarized boarding school. He is also the first in our family to grow up outside of Hawaiʻi and to primarily identify as white. I can’t help but feel like my family finally escaped this cycle of educational violence by successfully assimilating into whiteness and leaving Hawaiʻi—making room for more haoles (foreigners) and tourists. 7 At the 2024 Protecting Oceania: Philosophies of Will and Action conference, held in conjunction with the 2024 Festival of Pacific Arts & Culture (FestPAC), I met Erin Kahunawaikaʻala Wright, a Kanaka ʻŌiwi scholar who studies Pacific Islander experiences in higher education. She shared her sadness with me that her nieces, who grew up on the continental U.S. and are eager to learn about Hawaiʻi and contribute to Native Hawaiian causes, feel like they shouldn’t move to Hawaiʻi because they don’t want to “take up precious resources” —a concern haoles rarely consider. Kahunawai emphasized that Hawaiians should never feel guilty for being in Hawaiʻi—regardless of blood quantum. I told her it wasnʻt until that summer that I even considered moving to Hawaiʻi in the future, not just because of the high cost of living, but because I, too, felt that guilt. I had to unlearn a colonized way of thinking that I once mistook for self-awareness—the belief that my presence in Hawaiʻi would be an act of (over)consumption rather than one of reciprocity. While I already realized that most of my feelings of not belonging in the Native Hawaiian community stemmed from the intergenerational trauma of colonization, I still had to accept that I could contribute something meaningful to the community. My insecurity held me back from contributing in ways that were needed and occasionally blinded me to the fact that my presence was wanted. She told me she was proud I had reached that realization and hoped her nieces would too. During that conversation, I mentioned that I had only recently learned why my grandpa left Hawaiʻi. She acknowledged that many people from his generation 8 had left in similar circumstances. That moment was just one of many where I realized that the things I once thought were unique to my family—or even made us somehow less authentically Native Hawaiian—were actually shared experiences among many other Native Hawaiians. This was also one of several moments when I realized that one reason some Native Hawaiians, a generation or two older than me, offer me a sense of belonging—despite our differences—is because they see their children, nieces, nephews, and grandchildren reflected in me and my experiences. I would argue this is one example of what Maile Arvin, a feminist Kanaka ʻŌiwi scholar, describes as "a regenerative refusal."11 Arvin broadly defines regenerative refusals as "actions that seek to restore balance and life to Indigenous communities that continue to live with structures of settler colonialism.”12 More specifically, she describes regenerative refusals as actions that “seek to restore these connections [to our bodies, to each other, and to the land], often through the clear rejection of ongoing colonial ideologies both imposed upon and sometimes deeply internalized within Indigenous communities.”13 In this case, Kahunawai rejected the colonial logic of blood quantum, prioritizing instead moʻokūʻauhau and the desire to build and maintain reciprocal relationships in the present and future. Maile Arvin. Possessing Polynesians : the science of settler colonial whiteness in Hawaiʻi and Oceania, (Durham: Duke University Press, 2019). 12 Arvin, Possessing Polynesians : the science of settler colonial whiteness in Hawaiʻi and Oceania, 130. 13 Arvin, Possessing Polynesians : the science of settler colonial whiteness in Hawaiʻi and Oceania, 130. 11 9 The legacy of assimilatory education in my own moʻokūʻauhau provides context for why I chose to undertake two community-engaged projects focused on creating educational resources for Pacific Islander children in Utah, using Indigenous research methodologies and pedagogies. Over the course of the last two years, I worked on both projects simultaneously. Throughout this work, the particular past of assimilatory education in Hawaiʻi was always in front of me, facing me. These projects serve as “regenerative refusals” of ongoing colonial ideologies that marginalize Pasifika research methodologies and pedagogies and disconnect Pacific Islanders in Utah from their own histories and cultures. On a personal level, these projects allowed me to confront the traumatic legacy of colonial education in Hawaiʻi within my own family, reconnect with lost knowledge through relationships with other Pacific Islanders, and share that reclaimed knowledge with others. When engaging with community members, I always sought to acknowledge the past before me as well as the present to work towards a brighter future for those that come after us. Introduction to Pasifika Indigenous Education Projects In this thesis, I examine two distinct yet interconnected projects aimed at developing educational resources for Pacific Islander children in Utah, utilizing Indigenous and Pasifika research methodologies and pedagogies. The first project involved designing a series of middle grade lesson plans about Indigenous foodways 10 for Pacific Heritage Academy (PHA), a K-8 charter school in Rose Park, Utah, that integrates Polynesian culture and language into its curriculum. These lessons explore the interconnected food histories of Moananuiākea (the Pacific Islands), Turtle Island (North America), and Abya Yala (South America) while aligning with Utah Core Standards. The second project entailed the creation of digital K-12 educational resources on Utah’s Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) history for the Utah Historical Society (UHS) and Utah Education Network (UEN). These digital materials included timelines, biographies of historically significant individuals, profiles of important locations, and demographic data visualizations presented through ArcGIS StoryMaps. Both projects, which began in early 2023, evolved significantly over time. While it may be impossible to fully trace the ways in which these projects informed one another, examining their beginnings provides insight into the deeply interwoven relationships and methods that made them possible. While many, many people contributed to these projects, no one more fundamentally shaped them than Maile Arvin, the inaugural director of the Center for Pasifika Indigenous Knowledges at the University of Utah. My mentorship-relationship with her began in my sophomore year of college in 2022. In Fall 2022, I was given the opportunity to extend my paid undergraduate digital humanities fellowship at the University of Utah’s Digital Matters Lab for another semester. With the trust of the Digital Matters Director, Rebekah Cummings, to 11 pursue any digital humanities project I deemed meaningful, I chose to approach the not-yet-official Center for Pasifika Indigenous Knowledges and offer to work on a supportive digital humanities project. Based on Maile’s recommendations, I began developing an ArcGIS StoryMap documenting Pacific Islander and Native American community gardening projects in Salt Lake City, as well as another StoryMap highlighting resources for Pacific Islander students at the University of Utah. As part of the Indigenous community gardening project, Maile introduced me to Lisia Satini, a leader in Utah’s Pacific Islander community and a program manager at the Utah Pacific Islander Health Coalition (UPIHC) nonprofit. There, she played a key role in the Healthy Roots program, an initiative spearheaded by Representative Jake Fitisemanu Jr. to equip local Pacific Islander families with tools and education to grow their own food while strengthening cultural ties to Pacific Islander foods. Soon after, I was introduced to PHA, which Sia believed to be an ideal community partner for a project related to Indigenous foodways. During the same semester in early 2023, I was also enrolled in a public history course taught by Gregory Smoak. As part of the course, Utah’s State Historic Preservation Officer, Chris Merritt, was invited to guest lecture. During his visit, Merritt mentioned that he was seeking an undergraduate or graduate student intern to develop a digital humanities project related to Utah’s unique AANHPI history. Initially, I did not intend to pursue this opportunity, as I was exploring other possibilities at the time. However, after sending a thank-you note to Merritt, I 12 briefly mentioned my work on digital humanities projects focused on Pacific Islanders in Utah. This led to a meeting, during which I was unexpectedly offered the internship within minutes. In retrospect, while my background in K-12 education, public history research, and digital humanities aligned well with the project’s objectives, it was likely my connections with Utah’s Pacific Islander community—particularly my relationships with faculty in the University of Utah’s Pacific Island studies program—that were especially compelling to Merritt and Wendy Rex-Atzet, the Public Historian State Coordinator for National History Day at UHS who became my supervisor for this project. I soon learned that UHS had struggled for years to build relationships with Pacific Islander communities due to a combination of factors, including unfamiliarity with cultural protocols, their historical neglect of Pacific Islander histories, and the challenge of engaging with Utah Pacific Islander community leaders, many of whom have demanding schedules. When I accepted the internship, neither UHS nor I anticipated the extent of primary source research and community-engaged scholarship the project would require. What was initially expected to be a short-term internship evolved into a two-year undertaking. One reason I did not fully grasp the scope of the project at the outset was my relative unfamiliarity with the historical and contemporary context of Utah’s Pacific Islander communities. Rather than becoming easier over time, the project grew increasingly complex. As I became more deeply involved in the community, my sense of responsibility to the work also 13 intensified. For these reasons, my critical reflection on the latter project will be longer than the former project. The Connection Between Museum Studies and My Pasifika Indigenous Education Projects While my engagements with Hawaiian studies, Pacific Island studies, and Indigenous studies have significantly shaped these projects, many of the skills I used to execute them—such as primary and secondary source historical research, curriculum development, and data visualization—were developed through my museum studies degree program. I created my own Honors Bachelor of University Studies degree in museum studies with the help of public historian Matt Basso through a formal proposal process. I wanted a transdisciplinary education that would prepare me to work in an informal learning space like a museum, library, or nature center. In this thesis, I will not define museum studies as a broad field but instead focus on the specific coursework that constituted my program and demonstrate how it contributed to the two projects discussed here. My coursework was organized into five main areas: theories and methods of museums, education, community engagement, public history, and digital humanities. Each of these areas provided essential skills and knowledge that directly influenced the projects I developed. For example, as part of the theories and methods of museums section of 14 my degree, I participated in an exhibit design internship with the Natural History Museum of Utah where I refined my ability to distill complex information into clear and engaging narratives, a skill that was critical to both of the projects I completed. One of my education courses, EDU 5375: Science Methods, provided the opportunity to observe an exceptional 5th grade teacher in the classroom. The course also introduced the Understanding by Design curriculum framework to me, which I applied when developing the curriculum for PHA. My community engagement courses helped me plan and structure my project with PHA. These courses also introduced me to project management tools that were helpful in both projects. Public history courses taught me how to conduct primary and secondary historical research and present it for a public audience. As mentioned previously, a public history course is the reason I began working for UHS. Finally, on the topic of digital humanities, I took ARTH 4820: Data Visualization and Culture where I learned data visualization skills that I utilized in my digital resources for UHS. Altogether, my museum studies coursework directly informed the development and execution of my projects. Potential for Collaboration Between Western and Indigenous Knowledge Systems in Museums To say that museums have harmed Indigenous peoples is a gross understatement. Nevertheless, it would be reductive to characterize all the skills 15 and methods associated with museum studies as what Audre Lorde would call “the master’s tools.”14 Many of the knowledge-sharing methods used in contemporary museum studies predate colonization and continue to be utilized in Indigenous communities whether they are associated with museums or not. Furthermore, Indigenous people have long recognized the power of museums and chosen to engage with them in strategic ways. For example, in 1969, when Native American activists occupied Alcatraz Island and demanded its return, they planned to build a museum on the island.15 I’ve been privileged to be one of thousands of participants in the last two annual conferences for the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums where I’ve witnessed countless brilliant regenerative refusals from Indigenous people working in or with archives, libraries, and museums. In Refocusing Ethnographic Museums through Oceanic Lenses, Philipp Schorch, a German professor of museum anthropology, and Noelle M.K.Y. Kahanu, a Kanaka ʻŌiwi curator at the Bishop Museum (designated as the Hawaiʻi State Museum of Natural and Cultural History), illustrate the potential for collaboration between Indigenous and Western knowledge systems in museums.16 They use Hawaiian scholar Manulani Aluli Meyer’s metaphor of the muliwai—the dynamic place where freshwater from rivers merges with saltwater of the sea—to represent Audre Lorde. The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House. (London, England: Penguin Classics, 2018). 15 Indians of All Tribes. “Alcatraz Proclamation and Letter,” History is a Weapon, written December 16, 1969, https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/alcatrazproclamationandletter.html. 16 Phillip Schorch and Noelle M.K.Y. Kahanu. "I Kū Mau Mau: Restoring Hawaiian Intent, Presence, and Authority" In Refocusing Ethnographic Museums through Oceanic Lenses, (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2020), 21-42. 14 16 the intersection between Indigenous and Western knowledge systems.17 They argue that Mary Kawena Pukui’s decades of work at the Bishop Museum exemplify this potential for bridging knowledge systems.18 Pukui recorded “I ka wā ma mua, ka wā ma hope,” the proverb that opened this thesis, in one of her nearly 50 publications. Many of these publications were created during her long-term employment with the Bishop Museum and over a dozen were published by the Bishop Museum Press.19 Most notably, she authored the Hawaiian-English dictionary, a crucial text for the preservation of the Hawaiian language.20 During the 1960s and 1970s, Hawai‘i experienced a cultural renaissance interwoven with a renewed political movement for Indigenous sovereignty.21 Many argue this resurgence was made possible in large part due to Pukui's efforts to preserve nearly lost language and cultural practices.22 Pukui’s life demonstrates the enormous, yet complicated, potential of the muliwai where Indigenous studies and museum studies meet. 17 Schorch and Kahanu. “I Kū Mau Mau: Restoring Hawaiian Intent, Presence, and Authority,” 23; Manulani Aluli Meyer, Ho‘oulu: Our Time of Becoming. Hawaiian Epistemology and Early Writings (Honolulu: ‘Ai Pohaku Press, 2003). 18 Schorch and Kahanu. “I Kū Mau Mau: Restoring Hawaiian Intent, Presence, and Authority,” 21-42. 19 D. Kealiʻi MacKenzie. “"Mary Kawena Pukui Annotated Bibliography," University of Hawaʻ’i at Mānoa Library, 2011, https://guides.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/c.php?g=105763&p=683543. 20 Mary Kawena Pukui and Samuel H. Elbert. Hawaiian Dictionary: Hawaiian-English English-Hawaiian (revised and enlarged edition). (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986). 21 Haunani-Kay Trask. "Birth of the Modern Hawaiian Movement: Kalama Valley, O'ahu," The Hawaiian Journal of History 21 (1987): 126-153, http://hdl.handle.net/10524/144. 22 "Biography.” Mary Kawena Pukui Cultural Preservation Society, accessed March 1, 2025, https://marykawenapukui.com/bio1-10/. 17 CRITICAL PROJECT REFLECTION 1 Introduction to Pacific Heritage Academy In the spring of 2009, Ofa Moea‘i, Malia Thurman, and Lia Whitman initiated the development of Pacific Heritage Academy (PHA), a K-8 charter school in Rose Park, Salt Lake City, Utah focused on serving Pacific Islander students. Working from their homes and meeting in public spaces where their children could play, they engaged in extensive discussions, late-night meetings, and phone conferences to formulate their plans. They were united by the vision of providing a holistic education for their children that offered them “roots,” or connections to their Pacific Islander heritage, and “wings,” or skills and opportunities to shape their futures as Pacific Islander Americans.23 The founders drew inspiration from Uintah River High School, a charter run by the Ute Indian Tribe on the Uintah and Ouray reservation that integrates Ute cultural education with Utah state education standards.24 Uintah River High School opened in 1998 as an expression of Indigenous educational self-determination after Ute children were forcibly taken from their families for decades and sent to assimilatory boarding schools.25 Uintah River High School seeks to address the “Our School,” Pacific Heritage Academy, accessed January 15, 2025, https://phlearning.org/our-school/. 24 Pacific Heritage Academy Charter School Application 2012-2013 (Pacific Heritage Academy), https://phlearning.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/school charter-1.pdf, 9. 25 Courtney Tanner. “The Ute Tribe has its own high school. It outperforms its public school neighbors,” Salt Lake Tribune, July 10, 2023, https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2023/07/10/ute-tribe-has-its-own-high-school/. 23 18 academic neglect of Ute students and their history and culture in the Utah public education system.26 PHA’s organizing charter also cites Kamehameha Schools, a well-known private school system continuously serving Native Hawaiian students since 1887, as one of its models. Even moreso, PHA’s charter emphasizes Hawaii's network of at the time 31 public charter schools—15 of which specifically emphasized Hawaiian culture—as foundational models for PHA.27 Hawaiian studies scholar Noelani Goodyear-Kaʻōpua has written extensively on the tensions between state education systems and Indigenous educational self-determination within the Hawaiian charter school movement. She argues that these schools represent one of “the most visible and significant accomplishments of the Hawaiian movement in the first decade of the twenty-first century.”28 Goodyear-Kaʻōpua describes them as “cultural kīpuka”—islands of cultural regeneration, akin to forests of old-growth trees that survive volcanic flows and foster new life in the hardened lava.29 In addition to Indigenous charter schools in Utah and Hawaiʻi, the founders examined a Pacific Islander charter school proposal in San Diego. They noted that while it included cultural components, it did not employ culture as a fundamental framework for curriculum design like they hoped to do. The founders thus positioned PHA as the first charter school in the continental US to comprehensively Tanner. “The Ute Tribe has its own high school. It outperforms its public school neighbors.” Pacific Heritage Academy Charter School Application 2012-2013, 42-43. 28 Noelani Goodyear-Kaʻōpua. The Seeds We Planted : Portraits Of A Native Hawaiian Charter School. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013.), 47. 29 Goodyear-Kaʻōpua. The Seeds We Planted : Portraits Of A Native Hawaiian Charter School, 2; 8. 26 27 19 incorporate Pacific Island cultures into its educational model. They also positioned themselves as one of the first charter schools to represent Pacific Island cultures beyond Native Hawaiian culture.30 Like many Indigenous charter schools that inspired it, PHA addresses educational disparities among Pacific Islander students by integrating cultural values into its curriculum.31 To counter this gap, PHA adopts research-based models such as Expeditionary Learning, which emphasizes hands-on “learning expeditions” over formal instruction and gives equal importance to character development and intellectual growth.32 This approach is rooted in the educational philosophy of Kurt Hahn, founder of Outward Bound, a global network of outdoor education programs.33 Although not developed by Pacific Islanders, PHA’s founders saw alignment between Expeditionary Learning and Indigenous Pacific educational values, particularly in its emphasis on experiential learning, character and community building, and nature-based education.34 PHA’s charter also recognizes that while education has long been central in Pacific Island cultures, colonial influences have reshaped its meaning. Many church and government schools in the Pacific continue to prioritize formal instruction, often sidelining traditional, Pacific Heritage Academy Charter School Application 2012-2013, 43. Pacific Heritage Academy Charter School Application 2012-2013, 7-20. 32 Pacific Heritage Academy Charter School Application 2012-2013, 9-10. 33 Emily Hanford, “Kurt Hahn and the roots of Expeditionary Learning,” American Public Media Reports, September 10, 2025, https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2015/09/10/kurt-hahn-and-the-roots-of-expeditionary-lea rning. 34 Pacific Heritage Academy Charter School Application 2012-2013, 17. 30 31 20 community-centered learning methods. PHA aims to revitalize these collaborative educational practices while supporting first and second-generation immigrant families in navigating the U.S. education system.35 After refining their proposal following an initial rejection in 2009, the founders secured approval from the Utah State Office of Education in November 2010. The charter was formally authorized in April 2011 and construction on the school’s facility in Rose Park began in April 2012. PHA opened in September 2012.36 One year later, Mana Academy, another Utah charter school focused on Pacific Islander students was founded.37 As of the 2023–2024 academic year, PHA reports an enrollment of approximately 300 students. Although the school’s charter aimed for a student body comprising at least 50% Pacific Islander students, the current enrollment reflects only 19% representation.38 Evolution of Partnership with Pacific Heritage Academy My partnership with PHA emerged from a shared desire to expand opportunities for Utah’s Pacific Islander communities to engage with their ancestral plants and foods. Although the Wasatch Front hosts one of the largest Pacific Islander populations outside the Pacific, Utah’s climate significantly limits opportunities to cultivate culturally significant plants compared to diasporic Pacific Heritage Academy Charter School Application 2012-2013, 16-17. “Our School.” 37 “Our Story,” Mana Academy Charter School, accessed March 15, 2025, https://www.themanaacademy.org/our-story. 38 “Pacific Heritage Academy Report Card–Profile.” 35 36 21 communities in other places like the West Coast. To address this, I partnered with the Center for Pasifika Indigenous Knowledges (CPIK) and the Utah Pacific Islander Health Coalition (UPIHC) Healthy Roots Program to initiate a community-engaged grant-writing process to support additional infrastructure and supplies for PHA’s school garden. Lisia Satini from the Healthy Roots program proposed this collaboration, noting that previous partnerships with Granite School District and Wasatch Community Gardens were geographically inaccessible for many Pacific Islander families. While the Healthy Roots program had success providing individual families with gardening supplies and training, they saw the PHA partnership as an opportunity to foster community-based learning. PHA, centrally located within a largely Pacific Islander neighborhood and possessing sufficient land for a greenhouse, was equally enthusiastic. The dream of a greenhouse that could expand the cultural curriculum is even outlined in PHA’s founding charter. Although students currently enjoy the school garden boxes outside, they are unable to grow many Pacific Islander plants. CPIK supported the project as a natural extension of its semiannual Planting Good Relations event series, which brings Pasifika and Indigenous community members, leaders, and scholars together to share food and discuss what it means to “plant good relations” with the land and each other. Through these gatherings, I formed meaningful relationships and learned about pre-colonial interactions between Pacific Islanders and Native Americans. 22 Despite this strong foundation, the original plan shifted because my first and second points of contact left UPIHC to pursue other leadership opportunities, the Healthy Roots program paused, and my first point of contact at PHA went on maternity leave. Ultimately, PHA lacked the capacity to undertake a community-engaged grant writing process and execute a major grant during this time. Likewise, UPIHC and CPIK’s organizational capacities were also increasingly constrained by federal, state, and university policy changes. In response, we pivoted from grant writing for infrastructure to curriculum design. This new focus aimed to directly support PHA’s four full-time heritage teachers who are tasked with developing original curricula across all grade levels unlike PHA teachers in standard subjects like ELA and math who are assigned to specific grade levels and provided with curriculum. The tremendous responsibility placed on a few heritage teachers to uphold the schoolʻs mission is likely driven by financial constraints, a commitment to experiential cultural learning, and the lack of comprehensive K-8 curricula on Pacific Island studies or Pacific languages. By creating a curriculum on native plants and foodways, I hope to ease this load and strengthen the case for future funding to support garden infrastructure, including the long-envisioned greenhouse. While UPIHC and CPIK did not end up being formal partners in a grant, I still consider UPIHCʻs Healthy Roots program and CPIK’s Planting Good Relations program as part of the moʻokūʻauhau of the curriculum. 23 Trans-Indigenous Framework When I began this project, I mostly focused on plants that are culturally significant to Pacific Islanders. However, conversations with PHA staff revealed a complex demographic reality: while the school was founded to center Pasifika languages and traditions, during the 2023–2024 school year, Latine students made up 48% of the student body, compared to 19% Pasifika.39 This demographic shift has led to racial tensions, with some non-Pasifika parents advocating for a name change and a broader multicultural focus—despite PHA being one of the few Pasifika-focused schools in the continental U.S. On the surface, it is understandable why some parents may feel uneasy about the allocation of resources, given that three full-time teachers are dedicated to Pasifika cultural specificities (Samoan, Tongan, and Hawaiian heritage) while only one full-time teacher covers the cultural background of nearly half the student population (Latin America heritage). However, what is less clear is why non-Pasifika parents—both those who support and oppose broadening the school’s focus—choose to enroll their children in a school explicitly dedicated to Pasifika culture. Daniel Hernandez (Tecun Arcia), a Winak Mayan scholar whose family is from Guatemala, offered one possible reason: proximity. He sends his children to PHA in part because it is close to their home in Rose Park, which may also be a factor for other non-Pasifika families. However, I doubt this is the only reason Daniel or any other parent chooses to send their child 39 “Pacific Heritage Academy Report Card–Profile.” 24 to PHA. In fact, Daniel differs from many non-Pasifika parents at PHA in that he is a scholar of Pacific Island studies and his children were born in Aotearoa (New Zealand).40 As someone of both Native Hawaiian and Mexican-American heritage, I found the push to change PHA’s identity—though seemingly stalled—disheartening. I perceived this as an unfortunate competition for resources between the larger Latine community and the smaller Pacific Islander community—despite the significant cultural similarities I’ve observed. While I did not grow up with the language of moʻokūʻauhau, I grew up with the concept because of the cultural values my Hispanic mother instilled in me. While I did not grow up with knowledge about companion planting in the Pacific, I did grow up with knowledge about the Indigenous wisdom behind planting corn, squash, and beans together. These experiences shaped my interest in Pacific Islander foodways and the sense of community responsibility that motivated this project. Nationally, 56% percent of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (NHPI) reported multiple races in the 2010 U.S. Census, and 27% of Hispanic Americans married outside their racial group according to the 2014-2015 American Community Survey.41 Notably, 37.7% of NHPI 40 In this thesis, I use Indigenous place names and official place names interchangeably rather than exclusively using Indigenous place names to make it easier to follow. 41 US Census Bureau, “2010 Census Shows More than Half of Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders Report Multiple Races,” news release, May 8, 2012, https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/native_hawaiian/cb12-83.html; Gretchen Livingston and Anna Brown, “Trends and patterns in intermarriage,” Pew Research Center, May 18, 2017, https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/05/18/1-trends-and-patterns-in-intermarriage /. 25 in Utah self-identified as multiracial and 36% of Hispanics in Utah self-identified as “two or more races” or a race other than “white alone” or “some other race alone” according to the 2020 US Census.42 These statistics highlight the fluid and interconnected identities that exist within the PHA community. There is limited scholarship on solidarity between Latin American and Pacific Islander communities, but Daniel helped inform one of the few academic articles on the subject, "From Roots to Reefs: Metaphors for Relational Praxis from the Diasporas of Abya Yala and Moana Nui."43 The piece draws on the neighborhoods of Rose Park and Glendale in Utah to explore trans-Indigenous relationships between Latin American and Pacific Islander communities. The lead author, Agustín Tino Díaz, reflects on his work in Utah secondary schools, where educators often viewed Latin American and Pacific Islander students as inherently divided by gang affiliations or cultural differences. Díaz recalls facilitating a university overnight trip for students from both communities, during which a Tongan-Chicano DJ played music from both cultures. Initially, students danced in separate groups, but over time, they began sharing moves and laughing together. That moment, he writes, Heidi Prior. Exploring Utah’s Pacific Islander Groups: A Detailed Analysis (Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, 2024), https://d36oiwf74r1rap.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Pacific-Islanders-FS-Sep202 4.pdf, 2; Heidi Prior. Exploring Utah’s Hispanic of Latino Groups: A Detailed Analysis (Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, 2024), https://d36oiwf74r1rap.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Hispanic-FS-July2024.pdf, 1. 43 Agustín Tino Díaz et al. “From roots to reefs: metaphors for relational praxis from the diasporas of Abya Yala and Moana Nui.” AlterNative, 19(3), 2023, 584-592. https://doi.org/10.1177/11771801231178851. 42 26 illustrated how shared cultural expressions can foster connection and challenge narratives of division.44 This article explores the interconnectedness of land and water in Pacific Islander and Latin American histories and relationships through the metaphors of roots and reefs. The authors argue that framing these trans-Indigenous connections as “roots and reefs” offers a regenerative lens that moves beyond racialized logics. Like kīpuka—old-growth forests that regenerate after lava flows—coral reefs form through the layered remains of marine life. Diasporic communities, the authors suggest, grow like coral: rooted in ancestral traditions while continually regenerating through solidarity and mutual support across Indigenous diasporas.45 I believe “Roots and reefs” connects perfectly with PHA’s guiding philosophy of “roots and wings” and their intentions to serve the multicultural Rose Park community while focusing on Pacific Islander culture. My interactions with people like Daniel encouraged me to build my curriculum from a “roots and reefs” trans-Indigenous framework, rather than a generic multicultural framework. Many PHA students are the children or grandchildren of Pacific Islander and Central and South American immigrants who settled in Rose Park in the 1980s and 1990s.46 A Díaz et al. “From roots to reefs: metaphors for relational praxis from the diasporas of Abya Yala and Moana Nui,” 587. 45 Díaz et al. “From roots to reefs: metaphors for relational praxis from the diasporas of Abya Yala and Moana Nui,” 589. 46 Chris Dunmore. “Rose Park,” Mapping Salt Lake City, accessed March 15, 2025, https://www.mappingslc.org/this-was-here/item/151-rose-park. 44 27 trans-Indigenous approach is particularly relevant for a place like Rose Park, a neighborhood with a large immigrant population, because it resists the tempting framing of the U.S. solely as a "nation of immigrants," which erases Native American histories, presents, and futures. A trans-Indigenous perspective centers Indigenous languages and knowledges while fostering meaningful connections between students’ lived experiences and cultural backgrounds. Just as the Tongan-Chicano DJ brought their different communities together through music, I hope to bring these different communities together through education about the interconnected food histories of Moananuiākea, Turtle Island, and Abya Yala. The Curriculum Design Process My lesson plans were developed in consultation with heritage teachers and administrators at PHA, informed by conversations with community members, and grounded in extensive research. Early in the process, a PHA heritage teacher suggested that I focus on the 7th–8th grade level, as these students, unlike younger grades who alternate between two heritage classes each year, enroll in a single heritage course for the full academic year. This structure allows for greater curricular depth in their daily 45-minute class periods. Additionally, I was asked to structure the curriculum using the Understanding by Design (UbD) framework. UbD emphasizes backward design by centering instruction and assessment around 28 enduring understandings and transferable skills.47 To inform the lesson plans, I conducted a wide-ranging review of existing K–12 educational resources on Indigenous foodways across the Pacific and Americas. My research centered on key Indigenous staple foods including taro, sweet potato, breadfruit, yam, banana, cassava, corn, beans, squash, and plantains. While resources on these topics were limited overall, materials addressing trans-Indigenous relationships at the K–12 level were especially rare. Most existing resources focused on individual cultural groups (e.g., Native Hawaiians) or broadly generalized large regions (e.g., all of Latin America), with limited comparative or cross-cultural perspectives. Resources related to Pacific Islander foods were frequently created by Native Hawaiian organizations. Even when searching using Indigenous food names from other Pacific Islander cultures, I encountered limited materials specific to non-Hawaiian communities. This disparity may be partly attributed to the extensive school garden networks in Hawaiʻi.48 As far as I am aware, these networks, in conjunction with the Hawaiian charter school movement, have no direct parallels in Samoa and Tonga—the ancestral homelands of many PHA students. Similarly, in researching K-12 resources related to corn, beans, and squash, it was easier for me to find resources related to some groups like the Jay Mctighe and Grant Wiggins. “Understanding By Design White Paper,” Understanding By Design, 1, accessed March 15, 2025, https://files.ascd.org/staticfiles/ascd/pdf/siteASCD/publications/UbD WhitePaper0312.pdf. 48 “Hawai’i Farm to School Network,” Hawai’i Public Health Institute, accessed March 15, 2025, https://www.hiphi.org/jointhehui/. 47 29 Haudenosaunee. The Haudenosaunee “Three Sisters” framework may have gained broader recognition through Robin Wall Kimmerer’s New York Times best-selling book, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants.49 I did not explore resources entirely in languages other than English as English is the language of instruction at PHA, so it remains unclear how including them might have shifted my findings. While I located several resources specific to Indigenous peoples in present-day Utah, most were not incorporated into the final lesson plans due to a focus on foods not central to this project. Nevertheless, I organized and shared these materials with PHA teachers for potential future use. To manage the scope of available resources, I created a spreadsheet cataloguing over 50 educational materials which was shared with PHA. Each entry was organized by associated plants or foods, associated cultural group(s), associated present-day countries, intended audience, language(s), source, and resource type. Ultimately, I developed a sequence of five 45-minute lessons—a manageable unit that could be meaningfully integrated into the existing curriculum for 7th–8th grade heritage classes. The selection process was challenging due to the sheer number of potential topics and the uneven availability of culturally specific resources. In this context, I felt that videos were especially useful for succinctly introducing Indigenous stories that may be unfamiliar to the teacher, modeling Robin Wall Kimmerer. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants (Minneapolis: Milkweed, 2013). 49 30 agriculture and food preparation practices, and stimulating student discussion—particularly in the absence of local infrastructure for hands-on activities. As a result, the disparities in available resources are reflected in the final lesson plans. Lesson Plan Sequence Overview The first lesson, “Born From Corn, Born From Kalo: Connections Between the Pacific and Americas Through Creation Stories,” introduces students to the concept of plants as relatives in Indigenous worldviews by examining two creation stories: the Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiian) story of kalo (taro) and the Ki’iche’ Maya story of ixim (corn). Students compare these narratives and consider how viewing plants as kin alters human-plant relationships. While both taro and corn are important across multiple Indigenous cultures, these two specific stories were chosen because of the availability of high-quality, video resources that I felt were naturally in conversation with each other. I felt that cultural specificity was especially important when addressing creation stories. However, the lesson design also allows for substitution with stories from other cultures—for instance, a Samoan creation story—should a heritage teacher wish to adapt the content. This lesson was inspired by Nacidos del Maíz–Born from Corn, a lesson plan series developed by Artes de México en Utah in partnership with the Utah Education Network.50 In the 50 “Born from Corn Lesson Series.” Utah Education Network, 2022, https://www.uen.org/latino/born-from-corn/index.shtml. 31 second lesson, “Food Families: Connections Between the Pacific and Americas Through Regenerative Agriculture,” students explore Indigenous approaches to regenerative agriculture through three case studies: the Haudenosaunee “Three Sisters” system, the Milpa system in Mexico, and a contemporary Pasifika food forest restoration project in Hawaiʻi. The lesson also invites students to consider the use of family metaphors—such as "sisters"—as frameworks for understanding ecological relationships. In the third lesson, “The Sweet Potato’s Journey From South America to Oceania: Connections Between the Pacific and Americas Through Migration,” students will use different forms of evidence to evaluate competing theories about how the sweet potato traveled from South America to the Pacific Islands in around 1200 AD. One of the theories is that Polynesian voyagers traveled to South America and brought the sweet potato back to the Pacific Islands. This topic opens a broader conversation about pre-colonial contact between Indigenous peoples of the Pacific and the Americas. In the fourth lesson, “Introduction to Earth Oven Cooking: Connections Between the Pacific and Americas Through Cooking,” students compare and contrast earth oven cooking methods across Indigenous cultures in the Pacific and the Americas. This lesson plan idea was prioritized because PHA's principal recommended integrating existing school infrastructure—such as the on-site umu (earth oven)—into the curriculum. The lesson draws heavily on research by Daniel and a short video he produced is 32 included.51 The lesson includes many culturally-specific resources, making it adaptable to various cultural contexts. In the fifth and final lesson in the sequence, “The Nutritional Value of Tropical Starches: Connections Between the Pacific and Americas Through Eating,” students learn more about the nutritional benefits of tropical starches such as cassava, taro, plantains, breadfruit, and sweet potatoes. In this lesson, they are introduced to basic preparation techniques. I proposed possible hands-on extensions or field trips for all the lessons, but the final lesson perhaps lends most naturally to cooking and/or eating. Sustainability and Impact Before completion, the lesson plans were shared with PHA heritage teachers and Pacific Island studies faculty members at the University of Utah for review. I attempted to organize a catered, in-person curriculum training with the PHA heritage teacher team to explain in-depth my curriculum design process and offer suggestions for how these lesson plans could be implemented and adapted in different classrooms. Unfortunately, we were not able to find a time during the school year when everyone was available so I recorded a brief curriculum training and sent it to the teacher team along with the finalized lesson plans and resource collection. The recorded curriculum training and resource collection are intended to ensure the adaptability and sustainability of this curriculum. I also plan to 51 Arcia Tecun. “Underground Earth Ovens,” Tracy Aviary, 2024, https://tracyaviary.org/blog/post/underground-earth-ovens/. 33 broaden the impact of these resources by sharing them with my personal connections at CPIK, UPIHC, Mana Academy, the Wasatch Community Garden School Garden Educator Network, local high school Peoples of the Pacific courses, Tracy Aviary, and two Indigenous-led organizations on Salt Lake City’s West Side: ‘Aikona, a storytelling and gardening co-op led by a Tongan artist, and Proyecto Xilonen, an urban farm and culinary business focused on Mesoamerican foods led by a Nicaraguan chef. Finally, this summer I will be working with the University of Utah’s Growing Educational Pathways for Food Sovereignty (GEPFS) program. GEPFS is a college bridge initiative that offers West Side high school students three college credits through a hands-on, three-week summer course focused on food sovereignty and culturally significant agricultural and culinary traditions.52 I plan to incorporate some of the resources I’ve developed, along with the community connections I’ve built through this project, into the GEPFS program. “Growing Educational Pathways for Food Sovereignty,” SPARC Environmental Justice Lab, accessed March 15, 2025, https://shorturl.at/MgNRl. 52 34 CRITICAL PROJECT REFLECTION 2 Addressing Gaps in Historical Narratives in Utah Founded in 1897, the Utah Historical Society (UHS) is an organization focused on preserving and sharing Utah’s history “through scholarship, research, library & collections, and public engagement.”53 Since 1917, UHS has been nested under Utah’s state government. Since 1928, the Utah Historical Quarterly, “the official journal of Utah history,” has been published on behalf of UHS.54 UHS frequently partners with the Utah Education Network (UEN) which “connects all Utah school districts, schools, and higher education institutions to a robust network and quality educational resources.”55 My work to create K-12 educational resources on Utah’s AANHPI history for UHS and UEN was part of the Peoples of Utah Revisited initiative, which seeks to conduct new historical research and expand UHS collections to better reflect Utah’s diverse history in preparation for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The Peoples of Utah Revisited initiative builds upon the groundbreaking work of renowned Greek American ethnographer Helen Zeese Papanikolas, who led the original Peoples of Utah initiative as part of Utah’s bicentennial commemoration. Published in 1976, the original 500-page volume, “About Us,” Utah Historical Society, accessed March 15, 2025, https://history.utah.gov/about-us/. “Utah Historical Quarterly,” Utah Historical Society, accessed March 15, 2025, https://history.utah.gov/utah-historical-quarterly/. 55 “About UEN,” Utah Education Network, accessed March 15, 2025, https://www.uen.org/ueninfo/. 53 54 35 along with a priceless collection of historic photographs and documents, has served as a vital resource for historians and educators.56 My project specifically addressed the severe lack of K-12 educational materials—and, more broadly, secondary sources—on Utah’s AANHPI history. Existing K-12 resources on Utah’s Asian American history are largely limited to Chinese railroad workers and Japanese internment at the Topaz camp, leaving much of the broader Asian American experience untold. Even more striking, there are virtually no K-12 educational materials on Utah’s Pacific Islander history. The scarcity of secondary sources is also evident in academic and public history publications. Since its inception in 1928, the Utah Historical Quarterly has published hundreds of articles on a wide range of topics, often exploring highly specific subjects.57 However, I was only able to identify two articles focused on Pacific Islander history and less than 20 directly address Asian American history.58 While the original Peoples of Utah initiative was groundbreaking in its effort to document the histories of Utah’s Native American, Black, Chinese, Japanese, Jewish, Mexican American, Middle Eastern, and various European immigrant communities, Pacific 56 “Peoples of Utah Revisited,” Utah Historical Society, accessed March 15, 2025, https://history.utah.gov/peoples-of-utah-revisited/. 57 “Utah Historical Quarterly.” 58 Richard H. Jackson And Mark W. Jackson. "Iosepa: The Hawaiian Experience in Settling the Mormon West," Utah Historical Quarterly 76, Number 4 (2008): https://issuu.com/utah10/docs/uhq volume76 2008 number4/s/10217177; Tracey E. Panek. "Life at Iosepa, Utah's Polynesian Colony," Utah Historical Quarterly 60, Number 1 (1992): https://issuu.com/utah10/docs/uhq volume60 1992 number1/s/162486; “UHQ articles,” Utah Historical Society, https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/2/d/e/2PACX-1vSM woEKWp-S21pWgJDQecTnN0uPxX YnvWB8aFPtREG y9YEnDlTkROoUXmUpF9i9GcwXqZ i39wtVv/pubhtml?urp=gmail link. 36 Islander histories were absent even though Pacific Islanders had lived in Utah for over 100 years when the book was published.59 While this omission may be partly explained by the significant growth of Utah’s Pacific Islander community in the 1980s and 1990s following the book’s publication, there has been minimal effort since then to fill this gap with new secondary sources. For example, the Utah Department of Culture & Community Engagement (CCE) recently published Salt Lake West Side Stories: A History of the Pioneer Park Neighborhood, a 35-article series written by senior public historian Brad Westwood with contributions from various scholars.60 This impressive series, completed in 2023, features dedicated articles on the history of Chinese and Japanese Americans in Salt Lake City’s West Side, as well as pieces on Native Americans, Irish, Cornish, Welsh, Jewish, Eastern and Southern European immigrants, African Americans, and Latinos. The absence of Pacific Islanders who have lived in large numbers on the West Side for four decades is glaring. The second article in the series, “Pioneer Park’s Neighborhood Boundaries,” describes Pacific Islander communities as “an exception” to the West Side, referencing their historical presence in Warm Springs (northwest Salt Lake City) in the late 1800s and later in Iosepa in Skull Valley.61 This inclusion is unusual, 59 “Peoples of Utah Revisited”; “From the Sandwich Islands,” Deseret News, 30 July 1873. Brad Westwood. “Introducing Salt Lake West Side Stories,” Utah Department of Cultural and Community Engagement, accessed January 15, 2025, https://community.utah.gov/introducing-salt-lake-west-side-stories/. 61 Brad Westwood. “Pioneer Park’s Neighborhood Boundaries,” Utah Department of Cultural and Community Engagement, https://community.utah.gov/the-pioneer-park-neighborhoods-boundaries/, 60 37 as neither location falls within the West Side. The only apparent connection comes from a brief passage noting: “By World War II, the LDS Church had grown substantially in the Pacific Islands. After the war ended, thousands of Hawaiians, Tahitians, Samoans, Tongans, and other Pacific Islanders left their homes to settle mainly along Utah’s Wasatch Front. More specifically, a majority found homes in Utah’s ‘new’ west side communities, located west of the Jordan River across the Salt Lake Valley.”62 This awkward placement suggests that Westwood recognized the importance of including Pacific Islanders but struggled to find more than his three cited secondary sources. By creating educational resources on Utah’s AANHPI history, this project takes a crucial step toward addressing these longstanding gaps in public history and K-12 education. Key Sources Informing This Project Given these challenges, the Asian American resources relied heavily on two secondary sources: Asian Americans in Utah: A Living History, a 264-page volume compiled by John H. Yang and written by the Utah Asian American Advisory Council in 1999 and Making a Place in the Beehive State: A Literature Review and Preliminary Identification of Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Sites in Utah, 1865–1970, 62 Brad Westwood. “Pioneer Park’s Neighborhood Boundaries.” 38 prepared for the Utah Division of State History by SWCA Environmental Consultants, a global environmental consulting firm in 2016.63 While the SWCA report provided 76 pages of analysis on Utah’s Asian American history, it included only 9 pages on Utah’s Pacific Islander history. This discrepancy is disproportionate given that Utah’s Pacific Islander population is nearly half the size of the Asian American population according to the 2020 census.64 Additionally, the report identified historic sites associated with AANHPI heritage, yet Asian American sites received detailed tables spanning seven pages, while Pacific Islander sites were limited to a single page of bullet points.65 To address the limited availability of secondary sources on Utah’s Pacific Islander history, I reviewed hundreds of historical newspaper articles—mostly from the Salt Lake Tribune and Deseret News—using newspapers.com. While these newspapers provided a helpful starting point, I didn’t treat them as definitive sources. Instead, I saw them as tools to help open dialogue with community members. Working with Maile helped me understand that community-engaged research as a form of gift-giving. I began to see my access to paid research tools John H. Yang. Asian Americans in Utah: A Living History (Salt Lake City: State of Utah Office of Asian Affairs, 1999); SWCA Environmental Consultants. Making a Place in the Beehive State: A Literature Review and Preliminary Identification of Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Sites in Utah, 1865–1970 (2016). 64 Heidi Prior. Exploring Utah’s Asian Groups: A Detailed Analysis (Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, 2024), 1, https://d36oiwf74r1rap.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Asian-Pop-FS-Oct2024.pdf; Prior. Exploring Utah’s Pacific Islander Groups: A Detailed Analysis, 1. 65 SWCA Environmental Consultants. Making a Place in the Beehive State: A Literature Review and Preliminary Identification of Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Sites in Utah, 1865–1970, 112. 63 39 like newspapers.com and my ability to conduct historical research as gifts I could share, even before meeting people in person. After digitally clipping and organizing around 150 articles, I sent them as a “digital gift”—along with a personal introduction and invitation to collaborate—to many community leaders. Growing up, I was taught the importance of saying thank you, often through handwritten cards. But working with Maile deepened my understanding of offering tangible, everyday gifts, especially in Indigenous communities. Whenever we visited a community partner, she always made time to pick up pastries or another small gift beforehand. In Hawaiʻi, this act of giving is often reciprocated with another gift in return. Robin Wall Kimmerer (Potawatomi), in The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, describes the power of “keeping [a] gift in motion… so that [it] does not accumulate and stagnate.”66 I tried to carry this principle into my work by bringing small gifts as often as possible when I met with community members. Funding and Project Structure Funding for the AANHPI K-12 educational resources came from a legislative appropriation, which Senator Karen Kwan—who became Utah’s first Chinese Robin Wall Kimmerer. The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2024), 14. 66 40 American legislator in 2016—successfully advocated for.67 Although the funding grouped Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders together, UHS responded to community feedback by separating the groups into two distinct projects. However, the projects remained connected in practice as I was hired for both projects because they were seen as two phases of the same initiative. I created the Asian American resources between summer 2023 and summer 2024 and focused on the Pacific Islander resources from summer 2024 to summer 2025. The Asian American resources were developed in collaboration with an Asian American community advisory board and the Utah Division of Multicultural Affairs. The Pacific Islander resources involved much more extensive community engagement and the guidance of a Pacific Islander community advisory board. While UHS expected this project to interpret findings from the SWCA historic sites report for K-12 educators through ArcGIS StoryMaps, the structure and contents of the resources were left open-ended. This flexibility was both an opportunity and a challenge. In retrospect, I am grateful I began with the Asian American resources because it gave me time to develop and refine the structure before moving on to the much more research-intensive Pacific Islander resources. In all the resources, I aimed for a middle grade reading level to make the information accessible to a broad audience. Ryan Morgan. “First-year lawmaker touts Asian-American contributions in Utah,” KSL News, January 24, 2017, https://www.ksl.com/article/42978609/first-year-lawmaker-touts-asian-american-contributions-i n-utah. 67 41 Building Relationships Although advisory boards played a role in both the Asian American and Pacific Islander projects, they functioned quite differently. The Asian American advisory group had been meeting monthly for a year by the time I began working on the project. Additionally, the representatives on the Asian American advisory board from the Utah Division of Multicultural Affairs readily shared resources and connections with me. However, when I started developing the Pacific Islander resources, no equivalent advisory group existed. Nonetheless over the course of the year I worked on the Asian American resources, I organically developed and strengthened many relationships with Pacific Islander leaders, such as Lisia Satini, that became foundational to the Pacific Islander resources. Sia learned about the Peoples of Utah Revisited initiative because UHS was tabling at the 2024 Utah Asian Festival and sharing my newly published Asian American resources. At the end of summer of 2024, we met up to talk about our Healthy Roots partnership and she informed me that she was leaving UPIHC to focus on her nonprofit, JAYHAWKS, and take on a one-year ambassador role with UHS to conduct a Pacific Islander oral history project. This was when I learned that UHS had shared my newly created resources with Sia to build trust and demonstrate that they were committed to AANHPI history despite their past neglect. Sia hadn’t realized I had created those resources when they were shared 42 with her, but she said that when she read through the resources she felt like it was created by someone she knew or at least someone who knew people she knew. It appears to me that I was likely the first person of Pacific Islander descent to be employed, albeit part-time for a temporary period, by UHS. Learning that Sia would also be employed part-time for the same temporary period gave me a huge sense of relief and excitement. By this point, I recognized that building trust among Pacific Islanders in UHS was a lift that required multiple people. Her deep-rooted connections within Utah’s Pacific Islander community contrasted with my own, as I was still in the early stages of building relationships. Beyond that, I felt uncomfortable because my lived experience as a white Native Hawaiian is not representative of the majority of Pacific Islanders. Moreover, age and experience hold considerable weight within Pacific Islander cultures. While the financial constraints of UHS made the hiring of a younger candidate logical–especially because Sia and I were unfortunately paid the same hourly rate–I became aware that some community members might view it as inappropriate for a project of this scale. Sia and Jake Fitisemanu Jr.—who is in the process of writing the first article by a Pacific Islander about Utah Pacific Islander history for the Utah Historical Quarterly—both made it clear to me that some elders might be less responsive or more critical of my work because of my age. They generously introduced me to elders themselves or allowed me to use their names as references when I reached out. Sia told me that when she began doing community engaged work in Utah she 43 was often not taken seriously because of her age. Hearing this surprised me because I had only ever known Sia as a well-respected community leader. Ultimately, the Pacific Islander resources were improved in so many ways because of Sia’s support. Asian American Educational Resources The People & Places Within Utah's Asian American History StoryMap begins with a series of data visualizations illustrating the size and diversity of Utah’s Asian American community.68 The final annotated line graph traces the historical growth and decline of Utah’s Chinese and Japanese American populations in response to key legislation and events. This analysis was most feasible for these two groups, as they have the longest-established presence in Utah and were differentiated in Census records earlier than other Asian American communities. Following these visualizations, the StoryMap transitions into profiles of six historically significant people and six key locations which were approved by the advisory board. Selecting individuals and places that reflect the diversity of Utah’s Asian American community was a complex process. The goal was to ensure representation across ethnic communities, time periods, gender, and geographic locations. Additional considerations included connecting selections to broader themes in Utah’s Asian American history and ensuring the availability of sources Eliana Massey. “People & Places Within Utah’s Asian American History,” Utah Education Network, May 7, 2024, https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/0bcedec07531433fb24ad812386ad1cc. 68 44 and photographs. Balancing these factors was incredibly challenging, and I often grappled with the difficult reality that some perspectives and communities would inevitably be underrepresented due to these constraints. Utah’s Asian American History Timeline StoryMap includes approximately 75 events divided into three chronological sections.69 It begins with a symbol key that distinguishes national events from state events, along with instructions on how to manually filter events using this key. This ensures that the broader context of Asian American history is provided alongside Utah-specific events. Initially, I planned to create the timeline in Tableau, which would have offered a more visually appealing design and made it easier to filter national and state events. However, UHS did not have a professional Tableau account, and they preferred to easily edit the resources directly, rather than relying on my personal Tableau dashboard and contacting me for any future changes. The decision to divide the timeline into the following three sections was intended to simplify the narrative: “1868-1909: Arrival,” “1910-1963: Perseverance,” and “1964-2001: Community Growth.” The first section covers the arrival of Chinese railroad workers in Utah and the establishment of Salt Lake City’s Japantown, highlighting the origins of Utah’s Asian communities. The second section spans from the 1908 Gentlemen's Agreement, which restricted Japanese immigration, to the repeal of Utah’s anti-miscegenation law, influenced by the Japanese-American community. The third section begins with the Civil Rights Act Eliana Massey. “Utah’s Asian American History Timeline,” Utah Education Network, updated August 2, 2024, https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/0bcedec07531433fb24ad812386ad1cc. 69 45 and the Immigration and Nationality Act, which significantly increased Asian American immigration, and ends with the rise of Islamophobic hate crimes after 9/11. Pacific Islander Educational Resources For the People & Places Within Utah’s Pacific Islander History StoryMap, I chose not to focus on creating demographic data visualizations since the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute already provides them in Exploring Utah’s Pacific Islander Groups: A Detailed Analysis.70 Instead, my focus was on conducting primary source research for profiles, securing community approval for featured individuals and locations, and collaborating with community reviewers. The advisory board approved eight individuals and six locations, emphasizing family legacies by featuring joint husband-wife and mother-daughter biographies. The Utah’s Pacific Islander History Timeline StoryMap includes approximately 100 events, divided into five chronological sections.71 This timeline has more events and sections than the Asian American timeline due to its coverage up to the present year. Similar to the Asian American timeline, it begins with a symbol key distinguishing international from state events and instructions for filtering. The timeline is divided into the following five sections: “1838-1887: US Expansion” Eliana Massey. “People & Places Within Utah’s Pacific Islander History,” Utah Historical Society, forthcoming; Prior. Exploring Utah’s Pacific Islander Groups: A Detailed Analysis. 71 Eliana Massey. “Utah’s Pacific Islander History Timeline,” Utah Historical Society, forthcoming. 70 46 “1888-1915: Arrival in Utah,” “1916-1947: Resistance & WWII,” “1948-1980: Growing Community,” and “1980-2025: Community Building.” The first section covers U.S. and Mormon expansion into the Pacific and the arrival of the first Pacific Islanders in Utah. The second section explores how the Bayonet Constitution spurred Native Hawaiian migration to Utah, the founding of Iosepa, and the U.S. takeover of Hawaii, American Samoa, and Guam. The third section highlights resistance in the new Pacific territories, WWII’s impact, increased Pacific Islander immigration to Utah, and U.S. control over Micronesia. The fourth section examines civil rights and immigration reforms that boosted migration to Utah, along with U.S. nuclear testing in Micronesia which would later lead to Micronesian migration to Utah. The final section focuses on rising immigration and the founding of key organizations and festivals. Community Engagement and Outreach Strategies While the Asian American advisory group played an active role in developing educational resources through regular monthly meetings, the creation of the Pacific Islander resources required a much more extensive community engagement approach. I reached out to dozens of community members and leaders to “talk story” about the people, places, and events they considered significant in Utah Pacific Islander history. I tabled at the 2024 Friendly Islands Tongan Festival alongside Sia and other representatives from UHS, distributing flyers with a QR 47 code linking to a survey where individuals could nominate historical figures, locations, and events. I also provided QR codes to the Asian American resources as an example. The same survey was shared through the Center for Pasifika Indigenous studies newsletter, which reaches approximately 1,000 recipients. However, survey-based outreach proved far less effective than one-on-one conversations—an unsurprising result given both the general limitations of surveys and the cultural importance of oral storytelling within Pacific Islander communities. Nevertheless, the survey increased awareness of the project and contributed to broader engagement. Beyond direct community outreach, the project gained visibility through multiple channels. For example, I shared about the project in meetings with the Center for Pasifika Indigenous Knowledges Board and the Nuanua Collective. Sia spoke about our work at AAPI Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill during the 2025 legislative session. The extent of the project’s reach became apparent in March 2025 when I unexpectedly discovered an article in Kai Wai Ola News by Charlene Lui, one of the advisory board members. Aunty Charlene’s article, published just weeks earlier, highlighted three projects related to Native Hawaiian history in Utah, including my K-12 education initiative and Sia’s oral history project.72 Kai Wai Ola Charlene Vincent Lui. “Hawaiians in Utah,” Ka Wai Ola News, March 1, 2025, https://kawaiola.news/columns/na-lei-makalapua-hawaiian-civic-clubs-on-the-continent/hawaiia ns-in-utah/. 72 48 News, funded by the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, has a significant readership—51,000 print subscribers and 20,000 digital subscribers.73 Advisory Board Structure and Challenges As mentioned beforehand, UHS did not create an advisory board for my project before I began work on the Pacific Islander resources. In retrospect, the focus on finishing the Asian American resources likely overshadowed some of the work to set the foundations for the Pacific Islander resources. Around the same time that I shifted my focus to Pacific Islander history, Sia and her UHS supervisor organized a Pacific Islander advisory group for her oral history project. Due to a lapse in communication, I was unaware of this group’s existence for a few months and simply relied on the relationships I had already built (which included many people on the advisory board). Ironically, I first learned about it not through UHS but at a Friendsgiving gathering with an advisory board member. Following this interaction, I was invited to join their meetings in December 2024. Unlike the Asian American advisory board, which met monthly over two years to focus on a single project, the Pacific Islander board convened only a few times and provided input on three separate initiatives: Sia’s oral history project, my K–12 education resources, and the representation of NHPI communities in the future Museum of Utah. This structure was likely somewhat intentional, as Sia prioritized 73 “About.” Ka Wai Ola News, accessed March 25, 2025, https://kawaiola.news/about/. 49 gathering the board only when major updates or extensive feedback were necessary. Many members of the board work multiple jobs, serve on numerous advisory committees, carry significant responsibilities within their communities, and maintain connections across the world. While I would have preferred a more extended and deliberative process, the meeting structure reflected the immense workload carried by Utah Pacific Islander leaders. Concerns Over Representation and Methodological Shifts During my first presentation to the Pacific Islander advisory board, I shared a preliminary list of approximately 20 people and places for inclusion based on extensive community conversations, archival research, and secondary sources. Given the limited time to explain my outreach process and the challenges involved, one board member expressed concern about the lack of a formalized selection process, fearing that community members might question how decisions about inclusion were made. Across all three UHS Pacific Islander projects the advisory board consulted on, there was deep anxiety about leaving anyone out. Because Pacific Islander history has been largely neglected by Utah institutions, these projects carried immense pressure to be as comprehensive as possible. This concern influenced my decision to diverge from a traditional biography format and instead write about some individuals in pairs, such as a mother-daughter duo or a couple, to include more voices. 50 Another concern was raised by one advisory board member regarding the overrepresentation of Native Hawaiians in my preliminary research because roughly one-third of my initial list of community suggestions related to Native Hawaiians whereas Native Hawaiians only make up 19.8% of Utah’s Pacific Islander population according to the 2020 Census.74 This was because Native Hawaiians were often the most responsive to outreach, provided the most detailed information, and readily connected me with additional contacts. This may have been influenced by how I introduced myself—as a “multiracial Native Hawaiian college student.” However, there might have been other factors at play as well as roughly half of the advisory board members organized by Sia (Tongan) were Native Hawaiian and they were frequently some of the most active participants. Initially, I had planned to move at a slower pace, making final decisions collaboratively with community leaders from all subcommunities and gradually filling in gaps through additional one-on-one conversations before drafting materials. However, the criticism confirmed what I had already noticed during my outreach, and given the time constraints, I knew I needed to shift my approach. Rather than waiting to gather more information, I began finalizing proposals and drafting the resources using what I had already collected through primary and secondary source research. In the case of the people and place profiles, I developed a comprehensive proposal of people and places based on community 74 Prior. Exploring Utah’s Pacific Islander Groups: A Detailed Analysis. 51 recommendations. I explained how each selection met the criteria of reflecting the diversity within Utah's NHPI community with a focus on the largest groups as well as those with the longest presence in Utah, representing a broad range of time periods with particular attention to eras marked by significant social change, and spanning different geographical locations with a special emphasis along the Wasatch Front. In addition, I looked for stories that connected to larger themes in Utah’s NHPI history. I presented this proposal to the advisory board, where it was collaboratively refined. Together, we selected community reviewers for each biography and discussed key themes to emphasize in each profile prior to its approval. In terms of the timeline, I realized that community members might find it easier to respond to specific questions about a draft rather than engage in open-ended discussions. To ensure a manageable review process, I divided the timeline into subcommunity drafts, each containing 20–30 events, rather than expecting community leaders to review the full 100-event timeline. The first drafts focused on Utah’s largest Pacific Islander groups—Samoans, Tongans, Native Hawaiians, and Micronesians (primarily Marshallese)—who collectively make up 98.8% of the state’s Pacific Islander population according to 2020 Census data.75 These drafts were shared with approximately 50 community leaders and members for review and input. Despite efforts to establish relationships with community 75 Prior. Exploring Utah’s Pacific Islander Groups: A Detailed Analysis. 52 leaders and members from smaller groups, such as Māori and Fijians, time constraints prevented the development of detailed drafts. Nonetheless, the final resources still include several details that are specific to these communities. Addressing Archival Silences and Long-Term Engagement Coordinating between my work and Sia’s oral history project was challenging due to our packed schedules. I had initially hoped to attend some of her oral history interviews to gather insights and make connections for my educational resources, but time constraints made this impossible. Instead, I read the transcripts of her interviews. Even scheduling brief phone or video calls proved difficult. On multiple occasions, when Sia found time to talk, she was multitasking—taking calls from a doctor’s office waiting room while accompanying a family member or while driving. Both of us felt a deep sense of urgency and responsibility in our work. For Sia, this responsibility was particularly pronounced given her deep-rooted ties to the Utah Pacific Islander community. She once remarked that if she did not approach the work with the necessary care, she felt she would be “crucified” by her community. Throughout the project, we collectively undertook several side projects aimed at fostering a sustainable relationship between Pacific Islander communities and UHS. Recognizing that my internship was relatively short, I sought to build relationships and structures that would facilitate ongoing engagement beyond my time. I acknowledge the limitations of the resources I developed and recognize that some 53 Pacific Islanders may not feel adequately represented. These supplementary efforts were intended to help address these gaps, ensure long-term accountability to the community, and generate more primary or secondary sources for future researchers. Sia and I extensively explored the possibilities of partnering with Mana Academy’s high school social studies program, the Utah Pasifika Intercollegiate Association (UPIA), or West High School PISA to establish a grant-funded oral history partnership between UHS and Pacific Islander students that would generate more sources for UHS and give students hands-on experience with research. While there is community interest in this opportunity, it remains uncertain whether any of these organizations will pursue it given their limited capacity at this time. For example, UPIA was enthusiastic about the idea but they are uncertain about their future existence because of harsh implementation of HB 261, which restricts diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.76 Additionally, I collaborated with a curriculum developer for ILoveHistory’s fourth-grade Utah Studies program, providing materials to help her create lesson plans on Utah Pacific Islander history. I also informed Pacific Islander community leaders about opportunities to digitize and publicly archive historical materials through UHS while retaining ownership of the physical artifacts. Furthermore, I Courtney Tanner. “Governor Cox signs Utah anti-DEI bill prohibiting diversity efforts he once championed,” Salt Lake Tribune, January 30, 2024, https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2024/01/31/utahs-gov-cox-signs-anti-dei-bill/. 76 54 consulted with the director of the future Museum of Utah regarding the representation of Pacific Islanders in the museum’s exhibits. While the impact of these supplementary efforts is yet to be seen, I sought to create pathways for continued research and community engagement, ensuring that future scholars and community members could build upon my work. Through this project, I observed that many scholars and educators want to engage with Utah Pacific Islander history but often struggle to do so due to silences within institutional archives. When this history is rarely discussed, it often centers on the Iosepa—a 19th-century settlement that existed for less than 2 decades—while overlooking the continuous 150-year presence of Pacific Islanders in Utah. In 1889, the Utah Supreme Court banned Native Hawaiians from becoming citizens reflecting the widespread racism Native Hawaiians and Samoans faced in Salt Lake City.77 This was one factor that prompted many Pacific Islanders to move to Iosepa, an isolated 1,920-acre ranch in Skull Valley, Tooele County, owned by the LDS Church, in 1889.78 The relative prominence of Iosepa in scholarship, media, and historical records both reflects and reinforces its perceived significance. It is one of the few topics in which Utah Pacific Islanders currently see their history represented in scholarship, media, and historical records. I was surprised when 77 "In Re Kanaka Nian," Supreme Court of Utah, 6 Utah 259, 21 Ρ 993, accessed March 25, 2025, https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/in-re-kanaka-nian-897035755; Matthew Kester. “Race, Religion, and Citizenship in Mormon Country: Native Hawaiians in Salt Lake City, 1869-1889.” Western Historical Quarterly 40, no. 1 (2009): 51–76. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40505603. 78 Kester. “Race, Religion, and Citizenship in Mormon Country: Native Hawaiians in Salt Lake City, 1869-1889.” 55 some community leaders told me they had learned new information about their own communities’ histories when I sent them drafts for feedback. This highlighted how archival silences shape not only what non-Pacific Islander Utahns know about Pacific Islander history but also what Pacific Islanders themselves know about their past. 56 ClOSING REFLECTION “So in Anishinaabeg philosophy, if you have a dream, if you have a vision, you share that with your community, and then you have a responsibility for bringing that dream forth, or that vision forth into a reality. That’s the process of regeneration. That’s the process of bringing forth more life—getting the seed and planting and nurturing it. It can be a physical seed, it can be a child, or it can be an idea. But if you’re not continually engaged in that process then it doesn’t happen.”79 Leanne Betasamosake Simpson (Mississauga Nishnaabeg) As I was wrapping up the UHS project, Utah Pacific Islander community leaders started asking me about how “the Utah Historical Society project was going” and sharing their insights about Utah Pacific Islander history with me in the wee hours of the morning in a local kava bar. That night, someone told me that they dreamed of a Utah Pacific Islander museum and suggested buildings where it could be located. It was not the first time a Utah Pacific Islander community leader told me about their dream of seeing a Pacific Islander museum in Utah. After Sia visited the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience in Seattle, she told me, “When I went there I thought yeah–we need one of these in Utah.” She told me about an empty city-owned mansion that she was going to “ask about.” That interaction with Sia reminded me of a Planting Good Relations event years earlier where she talked about the dream of a community-owned greenhouse where the Pacific Islander community could grow culturally significant plants. She said Naomi Klein. “Naomi Klein Chats with Leanne Simpson about Idle No More,” Yes! Solutions Journalism, March 6, 2013, https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2013/03/06/dancing-the-world-into-being-a-conve rsation-with-idle-no-more-leanne-simpson. 79 57 whenever she learned about a new greenhouse she would text Jake Fitisemanu Jr. and say “hey these guys have a greenhouse!”80 Denae Shanidiin, a Diné and Korean artist and activist who was representing the Carry the Water garden, an Indigenous healing garden in Salt Lake City, responded to Sia: “Can I add to that? We’re such humble people. So much has been taken away from us so anything that we’re given we’re just like thank you. But that is not too much to ask for. I want the tallest, biggest greenhouse for your community.”81 When I first heard this, I cried at this tender and beautiful comment. When I think about trans-Indigenous kinship, I think about “I want the tallest, biggest greenhouse for your community.” Re-listening to the recording now, it still makes me cry, especially because the Carry the Water garden no longer exists after the land was taken back by the owners who allowed them to build their garden there. During the early morning at the kava bar, I spoke with another Pacific Islander community leader and friend. As we talked about Iosepa, they shared their experience being mentored by a member of the Carry the Water garden, who taught them how to identify and use local native plant medicines. They posed a rhetorical question: “When the church cut [Pacific Islanders’] food rations, how do you think they survived in Skull Valley?” They were referencing oral histories that describe how the Goshute helped Native Hawaiians and Samoans identify and Maile Arvin and Angela Robinson. “What Our Gardens Teach Us (Part 1),” December 8, 2022, in Relations of Salt and Stars, podcast, 47:06, https://relations-of-salt-and-stars.castos.com/episodes/what-our-gardens-teach-us-part-1. 81 Arvin and Robinson. “What Our Gardens Teach Us (Part 1).” 80 58 prepare native foods like watercress when the food rations provided by the LDS ranch were inadequate.82 This question also reflected their personal experiences of seeking out relationships with local Indigenous mentors because of an ache to connect with the land they lived on amplified by separation from their own cultural plant medicines. That conversation reveals how deeply interwoven the two projects described in this thesis are in the minds of Pacific Islanders in Utah. While Pacific Islanders may interpret the history of Iosepa differently, everyone I spoke with agreed on the importance of highlighting both historical and present-day ties between Pacific Islanders and the Goshute in Skull Valley. Charmagne Wixom, a leader in the Iosepa Historical Society, told me how she regularly exchanges gifts with Goshute tribal leaders. When we spoke about Bill Kelly, a respected Native Hawaiian community leader in Utah, she emphasized his work supporting Native American and Pacific Islander students at BYU-Provo. Much of his work focused on helping Native American students reconnect with their cultures and communities and heal from the trauma of the LDS Indian Placement Program—a program modeled after the broader Indian boarding school system, where 50,000 Native children were removed from their families and placed with white Mormon foster families.83 Aunty Charmagne shared that many of those students ended up marrying Pacific Islanders and building families together. Those who didn’t, she noted, often Hokulani K. Aikau. "Indigeneity in the diaspora: the case of Native Hawaiians at Iosepa, Utah." American Quarterly 62, no. 3 (2010): 477-500. 83 Matthew R. Garrett. Mormons, Indians and Lamanites: The Indian Student Placement Program, 1947-2000. (Phoenix: Arizona State University Press, 2010.) 82 59 “didn’t stick around for long.” These stories reveal the stakes of “planting good relations” between Native Americans and Pacific Islanders in Utah. Sometimes, our very survival depends upon it. This is perhaps becoming even clearer as state and federal pressures are making it difficult for Indigenous communities in Utah to maintain what they’ve built over decades of work. The current challenges only deepen by admiration for Sia’s gift for looking at empty buildings or vacant lots and seeing possibilities—places for regeneration and life. Now, whenever I see an empty parking lot, I often think, “This could be a garden.” Sometimes I even think, “This used to be a garden.” After all, the future is not an unfamiliar place—it’s a realm the Ute, Shoshone, Paiute, Goshute, and Diné peoples have inhabited for thousands of years.84 I’m slowly learning to see both the past before us and the future behind us in these empty, neglected spaces. My younger brother, who attends college on Oʻahu, once told me, “I never understood the idea that if you take care of the land, the land will take care of you—until I came to Hawaiʻi.” I didn’t fully understand it either, until I came to Utah. When you truly learn the history of a place—its stories, its people, its connections across the world—it becomes easier to believe that place could be the center of the world. And so, especially now, when many Utah Pacific Islander organizations are fighting to sustain what they’ve built, I want to say: The tallest, biggest greenhouse and the tallest, biggest museum are not too much to ask for. 84 Kuwada. “We live in the future. Come join us.” 60 BIBLIOGRAPHY Aikau, Hokulani K. "Indigeneity in the Diaspora: The Case of Native Hawaiians at Iosepa, Utah." American Quarterly 62, no. 3 (2010): 477–500. “About.” Ka Wai Ola News. Accessed March 25, 2025. https://kawaiola.news/about/. “About Us.” Utah Historical Society. Accessed March 15, 2025. https://history.utah.gov/about-us/. “About UEN.” Utah Education Network. Accessed March 15, 2025. https://www.uen.org/ueninfo/. Arcia Tecun. “Underground Earth Ovens.” Tracy Aviary, 2024. https://tracyaviary.org/blog/post/underground-earth-ovens/. Arvin, Maile. Possessing Polynesians: The Science of Settler Colonial Whiteness in Hawaiʻi and Oceania. Durham: Duke University Press, 2019. Arvin, Maile, and Angela Robinson. “What Our Gardens Teach Us (Part 1).” In Relations of Salt and Stars. Podcast audio, December 8, 2022. https://relations-of-salt-and-stars.castos.com/episodes/what-our-gardens -teach-us-part-1. “Biography.” Mary Kawena Pukui Cultural Preservation Society. Accessed March 1, 2025. https://marykawenapukui.com/bio1-10/. “Born from Corn Lesson Series.” Utah Education Network, 2022. https://www.uen.org/latino/born-from-corn/index.shtml. Díaz, Agustín Tino, et al. “From Roots to Reefs: Metaphors for Relational Praxis from the Diasporas of Abya Yala and Moana Nui.” AlterNative 19, no. 3 (2023): 584–592. https://doi.org/10.1177/11771801231178851. Dunmore, Chris. “Rose Park.” Mapping Salt Lake City. Accessed March 15, 2025. https://www.mappingslc.org/this-was-here/item/151-rose-park. “From the Sandwich Islands.” Deseret News, July 30, 1873. Garrett, Matthew R. Mormons, Indians and Lamanites: The Indian Student Placement Program, 1947–2000. Phoenix: Arizona State University Press, 2010. Goodyear-Kaʻōpua, Noelani. The Seeds We Planted: Portraits of a Native Hawaiian Charter School. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013. 61 “Growing Educational Pathways for Food Sovereignty.” SPARC Environmental Justice Lab. Accessed March 15, 2025. https://shorturl.at/MgNRl. Hanford, Emily. “Kurt Hahn and the Roots of Expeditionary Learning.” American Public Media Reports, September 10, 2025. https://www.apmreports.org/episode/2015/09/10/kurt-hahn-and-the-roo ts-of-expeditionary-learning. Hawai’i Public Health Institute. “Hawai’i Farm to School Network.” Accessed March 15, 2025. https://www.hiphi.org/jointhehui/. Indians of All Tribes. “Alcatraz Proclamation and Letter.” History is a Weapon, December 16, 1969. https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/alcatrazproclamationandletter. html. “In Re Kanaka Nian.” Supreme Court of Utah, 6 Utah 259, 21 Ρ 993. Accessed March 25, 2025. https://case-law.vlex.com/vid/in-re-kanaka-nian-897035755. Jackson, Richard H., and Mark W. Jackson. "Iosepa: The Hawaiian Experience in Settling the Mormon West." Utah Historical Quarterly 76, no. 4 (2008). https://issuu.com/utah10/docs/uhq_volume76_2008_number4/s/10217177 . Kester, Matthew. “Race, Religion, and Citizenship in Mormon Country: Native Hawaiians in Salt Lake City, 1869–1889.” Western Historical Quarterly 40, no. 1 (2009): 51–76. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40505603. Kimmerer, Robin Wall. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants. Minneapolis: Milkweed, 2013. ———. The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2024. Klein, Naomi. “Naomi Klein Chats with Leanne Simpson about Idle No More.” Yes! Solutions Journalism, March 6, 2013. https://www.yesmagazine.org/social-justice/2013/03/06/dancing-the-wor ld-into-being-a-conversation-with-idle-no-more-leanne-simpson. Kuwada, Bryan Kamaoli. “We Live in the Future. Come Join Us.” Ke Kaupu Hehi Ale, April 3, 2015. https://hehiale.com/2015/04/03/we-live-in-the-future-come-join-us/. 62 Livingston, Gretchen, and Anna Brown. “Trends and Patterns in Intermarriage.” Pew Research Center, May 18, 2017. https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2017/05/18/1-trends-and-pat terns-in-intermarriage/. Lord, Audre. The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House. London: Penguin Classics, 2018. Lui, Charlene Vincent. “Hawaiians in Utah.” Ka Wai Ola News, March 1, 2025. https://kawaiola.news/columns/na-lei-makalapua-hawaiian-civic-clubs-on -the-continent/hawaiians-in-utah/. MacKenzie, D. Kealiʻi. “Mary Kawena Pukui Annotated Bibliography.” University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Library, 2011. https://guides.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/c.php?g=105763&p=683543. Massey, Eliana. “People & Places Within Utah’s Asian American History.” Utah Education Network, May 7, 2024. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/0bcedec07531433fb24ad812386ad1cc. ———. “Utah’s Asian American History Timeline.” Utah Education Network, updated August 2, 2024. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/0bcedec07531433fb24ad812386ad1cc. ———. “People & Places Within Utah’s Pacific Islander History.” Utah Historical Society, forthcoming. ———. “Utah’s Pacific Islander History Timeline.” Utah Historical Society, forthcoming. Mctighe, Jay, and Grant Wiggins. “Understanding By Design White Paper.” Understanding By Design, 1. Accessed March 15, 2025. https://files.ascd.org/staticfiles/ascd/pdf/siteASCD/publications/UbD_W hitePaper0312.pdf. Morgan, Ryan. “First-Year Lawmaker Touts Asian-American Contributions in Utah.” KSL News, January 24, 2017. https://www.ksl.com/article/42978609/first-year-lawmaker-touts-asian-a merican-contributions-in-utah. “Our School.” Pacific Heritage Academy. Accessed January 15, 2025. https://phlearning.org/our-school/. 63 “Our Story.” Mana Academy Charter School. Accessed March 15, 2025. https://www.themanaacademy.org/our-story. Panek, Tracey E. "Life at Iosepa, Utah's Polynesian Colony." Utah Historical Quarterly 60, no. 1 (1992). https://issuu.com/utah10/docs/uhq volume60 1992 number1/s/162486. Prior, Heidi. Exploring Utah’s Asian Groups: A Detailed Analysis. Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, 2024. https://d36oiwf74r1rap.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Asian -Pop-FS-Oct2024.pdf. ———. Exploring Utah’s Hispanic or Latino Groups: A Detailed Analysis. Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, 2024. https://d36oiwf74r1rap.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Hispa nic-FS-July2024.pdf. ———. Exploring Utah’s Pacific Islander Groups: A Detailed Analysis. Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, 2024. https://d36oiwf74r1rap.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Pacif ic-Islanders-FS-Sep2024.pdf. ———. "Insight: Utah’s Pacific Islander Community." Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, September 23, 2022. https://gardner.utah.edu/blog/blog-utahs-pacific-islander-community/. Pukui, Mary Kawena, and Dietrich Varez. ʻŌlelo Noʻeau: Hawaiian Proverbs & Poetical Sayings. Honolulu: Bishop Museum Press, 1983. Pukui, Mary Kawena, and Samuel H. Elbert. Hawaiian Dictionary: Hawaiian-English English-Hawaiian. Revised and enlarged edition. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1986. “Pacific Heritage Academy Charter School Application 2012–2013.” Pacific Heritage Academy. https://phlearning.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/school_charter-1.pdf . “Pacific Heritage Academy Report Card–Profile.” Utah State Board of Education. Accessed March 15, 2025. https://reportcard.schools.utah.gov/School/Profile?SchoolID=186276&Distri ctID=186276&SchoolNbr=100&SchoolLevel=K8&IsSplitSchool=0&schoolyeare ndyear=2024. 64 Schorch, Phillip, and Noelle M.K.Y. Kahanu. “I Kū Mau Mau: Restoring Hawaiian Intent, Presence, and Authority.” In Refocusing Ethnographic Museums through Oceanic Lenses, 21–42. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2020. SWCA Environmental Consultants. Making a Place in the Beehive State: A Literature Review and Preliminary Identification of Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage Sites in Utah, 1865–1970, 2016. Tanner, Courtney. “Governor Cox Signs Utah Anti-DEI Bill Prohibiting Diversity Efforts He Once Championed.” Salt Lake Tribune, January 30, 2024. https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2024/01/31/utahs-gov-cox-signs -anti-dei-bill/. ———. “The Ute Tribe Has Its Own High School. It Outperforms Its Public School Neighbors.” Salt Lake Tribune, July 10, 2023. https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2023/07/10/ute-tribe-has-its-ow n-high-school/. Trask, Haunani-Kay. “Birth of the Modern Hawaiian Movement: Kalama Valley, Oʻahu.” The Hawaiian Journal of History 21 (1987): 126–153. http://hdl.handle.net/10524/144. ———. “Haunani Kay Trask Speech, Jan 17 1993.” HawaiianVoice. Video of speech, 17:57. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwWNigoZ5ro. “UHQ Articles.” Utah Historical Society. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/2/d/e/2PACX-1vSM woEKWp-S 21pWgJDQecTnN0uPxXYnvWB8aFPtREG y9YEnDlTkROoUXmUpF9i9GcwXq Z_i39wtVv/pubhtml?urp=gmail_link. “Utah Historical Quarterly.” Utah Historical Society. Accessed March 15, 2025. https://history.utah.gov/utah-historical-quarterly/. “Peoples of Utah Revisited.” Utah Historical Society. Accessed March 15, 2025. https://history.utah.gov/peoples-of-utah-revisited/. US Census Bureau. “2010 Census Shows More than Half of Native Hawaiians and Other Pacific Islanders Report Multiple Races.” News release, May 8, 2012. https://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/native hawaiian/cb 12-83.html. Westwood, Brad. “Introducing Salt Lake West Side Stories.” Utah Department of Cultural and Community Engagement. Accessed January 15, 2025. https://community.utah.gov/introducing-salt-lake-west-side-stories/. 65 ———. “Pioneer Park’s Neighborhood Boundaries.” Utah Department of Cultural and Community Engagement. https://community.utah.gov/the-pioneer-park-neighborhoods-boundaries. Wilson-Hokowhitu, Nālani, and Manulani Aluli Meyer. “Introduction: I Ka Wā Mamua, The Past Before Us.” In The Past Before Us: Moʻokūʻauhau as Methodology, edited by Nālani Wilson-Hokowhitu. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2019. 66