Vakeaemanu E. Hunkin

Welcome to my capstone page! I am so excited to share my research with you. This project means the world to me and I am so thankful that I have been blessed with the opportunity to uplift the voices of my fellow PI brothers and sisters. Below, I share about my capstone project, what I love about sociology, as well as what's in store for me 🤙🏽

Vakeaemanu E. Hunkin (She/Her/Hers)

Pasifik Voices - The Truth Untold: A Qualitative Study on the College Experience of Pacific Islanders and how they fit into the Asian Pacific Islander Label

ABSTRACT : Pacific Islanders (PIs) are a steadily growing population in the U.S., yet most of the data on PIs does not accurately tell the story of Pacific Islanders in America because it has been aggregated under the Asian Pacific Islander (API) label. This study examines how the college experience of Pacific Islander students is affected by the API label, also known as the model minority label. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with 10 self-identifying Pacific Islander college students over the age of 18. Using an interview guide I created with the help of my professors, I find that the college experience of Pacific Islanders is defined through a cultural lens that is unique to PIs but that this lens is not necessarily reflected in the data that has been presented throughout the years. Historically, data collected on the API group has been more reflective of the Asian population than of the Pacific Islander population. In this study I find that family is both a barrier and a motivator to academic success. I also find that community and a sense of belonging is crucial to whether or not Pacific Islander students stay at their current institution and graduate, or they transfer out or drop out entirely. By explicitly examining Pacific Islander students this study conceptualizes a more accurate depiction of the PI experience and how it differs from the API experience.

LINK TO FULL PAPER:

If you would like to take a look at my work in full,

you can click on the link here!

"Oceania is vast, Oceania is expanding, Oceania is hospitable and generous, Oceania is humanity rising from the depths of brine and regions of fire deeper still, Oceania is us. We are the sea, we are the ocean. " - Epeli Hau'ofa

Post Graduation Plan

I plan to take an academic hiatus for about a year or two to look for a career path that fulfills my passion for helping others. Once I have some real world experience under my belt I plan to go back to school to get my Masters in either Sociology or Communications.

Favorite Sociologists

Patricia Hill Collins

Richard Nagasawa

Patricia Adler and Peter Adler

Major/Minor

Sociology Major

Communications Minor

Sport Psychology Minor

Why Sociology

I like that you can look at the same situation through so many different lenses and come up with a multitude of reasons as to why things played out the way they did. Sociology is exhausting and a lot of hard work, but I'm proud of the work we do. Studying human behavior, societal norms, and how the world works/why it works that way is intriguing, all-encompassing, and never-ending. There is always work that needs to be done, and there is never a dull moment (unless it's studying theory 😜).

Acknowledgements

First and foremost I want to thank all my participants for sharing their experiences with me. Without you all, this wouldn't have been possible! Secondly, I would like to thank all my friends and family for their never-ending love and support. I am nothing without my community. Speaking of community, I want to give a special thank you to the PLU track team for becoming my home away from home. Finally, I would like to thank the sociology department (especially Galen Ciscell for introducing me to Sociology and pushing me to to become a Sociology Major) for supporting me these past 4 years.

In honor of Asian and Pacific Islander Heritage month I wanted to share this beautiful poem by Terisa Siagatonu.

FOR US.

#APAHM #PIHeritgeMonth #Oceania

For Aunty Hauani her words, my final resting place one day:“upon the survival of the Pacificdepends the survival of the world.”
We, the biggest region on the planet.The oldest ocean.The heart, if this world ever had one. How dare anyone look at a mapwith Oceania sliced in halfhanging on the edges of it and say:I know what the world looks like.
For everything that fractured us.
For my severed island,once belonging to itself for my chest, where Samoa is whole alwayswhere Guahan is demilitarized finallyHawai’i too. Northern Mariana Islands toowhere the Marshall Islands is nuclear waste freeand the sins that bombed them 67 times1000 times bigger than the one dropped on Hiroshimaremain America’s judgement day explanation, and never theirs.
For every misspelled / mispronounced attemptat our family heirlooms.How people will suggest that Iintroduce myselfbefore giving my keynote address,rather than trouble their lazy tonguewith learning how to say itout of respect for my ancestors.

No.You say itso there’s no mistakethat you can see meand the villageI’m standing in.
The audacityhas always been violent.
The honeymoonstimesharesfamily vacationsspring breaksviolence done to us masked as gaslight
but this is for the lighting of the match.
For the spark of my generationsettling for nothing lessthan our due.For the aloha spirit being sharperthan you last remembered. For the locals no longer willingto tourist trap for you.
For the love of my ancestorshow once, I read that when our colonizers came back to Samoa the second time, their boats were capsized by our sea.

Oh well. For that too.
And as always & forever more:for the culture.The one I come from and the one that had no choicebut to come from me.Indigenous diaspora finds home everywheremy people survive.From Cali’s coast to Oceania’s edgefrom my swollen heart to the valley in my voicethe one that my love echos between foreverfor the ones I intend to die forand the ones who now understandwhy they’re alive.
For the lengths I will goto tell the truthin this lifetimein my writingfor us.
#APAHM #PIHeritageMonth