One of the things that stood out to me in this essay is the way Pacific Islanders were represented by early European travelers. When early European settlers came to Africa, they had two distinct narratives of Africans, the Jezebel and the Mammy; The Jezebel being hyper sexual and readily available and the Mammy, the de-sexualized worker. Pacific Islanders on the other hand, according to this article, seem to fit only one of these in a hyperactive way. All Pacific Islanders are the Jezebel and nothing else. “Pacific Islander women became conflated with mythologized women of antiquity as they had an untamable and alluring sexuality derived from their close proximity to the ocean… women were represented as ‘young, feminine, desirable, and vulnerable.'” This reputation of Pacific Islanders being only sexuality seductive and promiscuous erases their personhood and is extremely dangerous for women who do not wish to return sexual advances from those with a cis, white, European, colonizing mindset
Because of this historical narrative, the Pacific Islands and it’s indigenous people has become the subject of hyper sexual fantasies that are readily available for consumption and exploitation. Though this article stresses how Pacific Islanders and Asian Pacific Islanders are not the same, in which I would be a fool to disagree with, I cannot help but notice the similarities between the lenses through which people look at API and Pacific Islanders as being just the Jezebel. Vulnerable. Sexually available. Desirable. This has contributed to a rape culture that plagues indigenous peoples and Asian Pacific Islanders alike.
However, Pacific Islanders “are often linked with primitivist discourses and a perceived lack of civilization” which leaves them in an imaginary, static state which is dissimilar to the representation of API. This leaves the Pacific Islands and Pacific Islanders prone to “dispossession, exploitation, and settlement.” This critical difference marginalizes Pacific Islanders when grouped in with API and it must be recognized that the Pacific Islands is home to 2.3 million people with over 1,500 languages and is deserving of indigenous self-determination.
I really liked the connection you made between the weird stereotypes and labels whites attributed to black people in the U.S. and the weird stereotypes and labels whites attribute to Pacific Islanders– that made me think of that too!! I thought this article was awesome for helping me visualize the diversity of the Pacific, with its 2.3 million people and 1,500 languages.
Great points! I agree that colonial narratives perpetuate the eroticization and trivialization of Pacific Island women. I think it’s important and interesting to consider the ways in which these narratives served and continue to serve colonial interest. Through these narratives, Pacific men are portrayed as powerless because they cannot control Pacific women. Moreover, these fantasies and descriptions of Pacific Island women as “young, feminine, desirable and vulnerable” are used to justify colonial control, violence and erasure.