Issues of Aggregation: Navigating Polynesian Identities in America and the AAPI Label

Abstract

My earliest exposure to Polynesian ritual culture was in fifth grade, at the end of my football season. Prior to the championship game one of my friends' mothers presented my father – our head coach – with a long, rectangular cloth, covered in intricate tribal patterns and natural imagery like flowers and turtles. She explained that this is called a Lavalava, and it is worn by wrapping it around one’s waist. It symbolized their culture. Not only was it a symbol of his impact on the Polynesian kids on the team, but an expression of the unity and family within the team. From that moment, I was surrounded by the rich culture and familial values of my Polynesian friends and teammates. It was not until I was working on my junior paper, which focused on Asian masculinity in America, that I started to think about how Polynesian cultural identity fit, or stood out from, the broader label of AAPI. I hypothesized that while this term seems convenient, this convenience comes at the cost of clarity and understanding. This led me to investigate the internal diversity of Polynesian cultural identity through ethnographic interviews with a former teammate and a former coach. My findings highlight how ethnic and populational aggregation can present oversimplified, and sometimes harmful, views of cultural groups. These forms of aggregation obscure internal and external differences in experience and identity, which ultimately lead to misunderstanding and misrepresentation in public discourse and policy.