Day Five: APA Highlights
There is so much talent in the local Pacific Islander American community that we could not limit it to one day at the Festival. Pacific Islanders can be seen in many places in the ten-day program, such as yesterday's day of crafts and games capped by an evening of song and dance by the talented Halau Ho'omau I Ka Wai Ola O Hawai'i, headed by their Kumu Hula, Manu Ikaika.
On June 28, however, the entire day of programming is given over to Pacific Islander Americans and issues related to their lives. Enjoy Hawaiian music from the Aloha Boys and Halau O' Aulani, and entertainment from the Marshallese and Samoan American communities. Try lei-making, Pacific Island board games, Marshallese activities, and Fijian tapa painting. Stop by at 12:30 p.m. for our luau, hosted by Darlene Kehaulani Butts of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, or watch the preparation of food from Fiji, Hawaii, and the Marshall Islands.
Talkstory will feature Americans from Guam and other Pacific Islander communities.
By the way, do you know whatever happened to the trust territory of the United States? If not, try Googling the issue, or come down to the Talkstory tent at 4:15 p.m. to meet the ambassadors of the Marshall islands, Micronesia, Northern Marianas, and Palau.
Thanks for help in programming this day of activities go to our colleagues at the National Museum of the American Indian, Hayes Lavis and Doug Herman; Gayle Awaya McCallum, the executive director of the National Japanese American Memorial Foundation (and former volunteer with the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program); Tim Johnson and his staff at the Office of Hawaiian Affairs; Ryan Edgar and his colleagues at the federal Office of Insular Affairs at the United States Department of the Interior; and Festival intern Laura Levi Zonis, who was our point person for this day of programming.
Phil Tajitsu Nash is the curator of the Asian Pacific Americans program at the 2010 Folklife Festival.