Pacific Islander
Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, Pacificans, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the Pacific Islands. As an ethnic/racial term, it is used to describe the original peoples—inhabitants and diasporas—of any of the three major subregions of Oceania or any other island located in the Pacific Ocean.
Melanesians include the Fijians, Kanaks, Ni-Vanuatu, Papua New Guineans, Solomon Islanders, West Papuans and Moluccans.
Micronesians include the Carolinians, Chamorros, Chuukese, I-Kiribati, Kosraeans, Marshallese, Nauruans Palauans, Pohnpeians, and Yapese.
Polynesians include the New Zealand Māori, Native Hawaiians, Rapa Nui, Samoans, Tahitians, Tokelauans, Niueans, Cook Islands Māori, Tongans, Wallisians, and Futunans. The term Pasifika was first used in New Zealand to designate the non-indigenous ethnic groups arriving from the aforementioned Pacific nations, excluding New Zealand itself; this term, when used in New Zealand, does not encompass the indigenous Māori people.
Auckland in New Zealand has the world's largest concentration of urban Pacific Islanders living outside of their own countries, and is sometimes referred to as the "Polynesian capital of the world." This came as result of a steady stream of immigration from Polynesian countries such as Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands, Niue, and French Polynesia in the 20th and 21st centuries.
The umbrella terms Pacific Islands and Pacific Islanders may also take on several other meanings. At times, the term Pacific Islands only refers to islands within the cultural regions of Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia, and to tropical islands with oceanic geology in general, such as Clipperton Island. In some common uses, the term refers to the islands of the Pacific Ocean once colonized by the Portuguese, Spaniards, Dutch, British, French, Germans, Americans, Japanese, and Chinese. In other uses, it may refer to areas with Austronesian linguistic heritage like Taiwan, Indonesia, Micronesia, Polynesia and the Myanmar islands, which found their genesis in the Neolithic cultures of the island of Taiwan. In an often geopolitical context, the term has been extended even further to include the large landmass of Australia.
Extent
In the North Pacific, non-tropical islands in and around Alaska, Japan, and Russia were inhabited by people related to Indigenous American and Far East Asian groups, with some Japanese ethnic groups also being theorized to be related to Indigenous Pacific groups. In the South Pacific, the easternmost oceanic island with any human inhabitation was Easter Island, settled by the Polynesian Rapa Nui people. Oceanic islands beyond that which neighbor Central America and South America are among the last inhabitable places on earth to have been discovered by humans. All of these islands were annexed by Latin American nations a few hundred years after their discoveries, and initially were sometimes used as prisons for convicts. Today only a small number of them are inhabited, mainly by Spanish-speaking mainlanders of mestizo or White Latin American origin. These individuals are not considered Pacific Islanders under the standard ethnically based definition. In a broad sense, they could still possibly be seen as encompassing a small Spanish-speaking segment of Oceania, along with the Easter Island inhabitants, who were eventually colonized by Chileans. The 1996 book Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas notes that Spanish was once commonly spoken in the Pacific on the colonial-era Philippines, further stating, "at the present time, the Spanish language is not widely used in the South Pacific, being unknown outside of a handful of places. Spanish is spoken by a resident population only on the Ecuadorian Galápagos Islands, the Chilean possessions of Rapa Nui, Juan Fernández Islands and a few other tiny islands. Most Pacific insular possessions of Latin American nations are either unpopulated or used as military outposts, staffed by natives of the mainland."Lord Howe Island, located between Australia and New Zealand, is one of the only other habitable oceanic islands to have had no contact with humans prior to European discovery.
The island is currently administered by Australia, and Its residents are primarily European Australians who originated from the mainland, with a small number also being Asian Australians. Like with the Spanish-speaking islanders in the southeastern Pacific, they would not normally be considered Pacific Islanders under an ethnically based definition. Remote and uninhabitable islands in the central Pacific such as Baker Island were also generally isolated from humans prior to European discovery. However, Pacific Islanders are believed to have possibly visited some of these locations, including Wake Island. In the case of Howland Island, there may have even been a brief attempt at settlement.
The Official Journal of the Asia Oceania Geosciences Society considers the term Pacific Islands to encompass American Samoa, Cook Islands, Easter Island, the Galápagos Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Guam, Hawaii, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Caledonia, Niue, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Pitcairn Islands, Salas y Gómez Island, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, the United States Minor Outlying Islands, Vanuatu and Wallis and Futuna. The 1982 edition of the South Pacific Handbook, by David Stanley, groups Australia, New Zealand, Norfolk Island and the islands of Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia under the more restrictive label of the "South Pacific Islands", even though Hawaii and most islands in Micronesia technically lie in the North Pacific. He additionally includes the Galápagos Islands in his definition of the South Pacific, but does not include any other islands located within the southeastern Pacific area, aside from Easter Island which is considered part of Polynesia.
Ian Todd's 1974 book Island Realm: A Pacific Panorama considers Oceania and the term "Pacific Islands" to also encompass the non-tropical Aleutian Islands, as well as Clipperton Island, the Coral Sea Islands, the Desventuradas Islands, Guadalupe Island, the Juan Fernández Islands, the Revillagigedo Islands, Salas y Gómez Island and the Torres Strait Islands. He notes that the terms are sometimes taken to include Australia, New Zealand and the non-oceanic Papua New Guinea, however he does not consider them to encompass the Japanese archipelago, the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, Russia's Kuril Islands and Sakhalin Island or countries associated with Maritime Southeast Asia. The Philippines according to him are at a "cross-roads of the Pacific—a racial and geographic link connecting Oceania, Southeast Asia and Indonesia." Debate exists over whether or not the Philippines should be categorized with Pacific Islands of shared Austronesian origin or with the mainland nations of Asia. The islands of the Philippines do not have oceanic geology, and instead sit on the continental margins of Asia. As such, they are sometimes deemed as a geological extension of Asia. In his 2012 book Encyclopedia of Diversity in Education, American author James A. Banks claimed that, "although islands such as the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan, Japan and the Aleutian Islands are located in the Pacific Ocean, islanders from these locales are not typically considered Pacific Islanders. They are usually considered Asian, with Aleuts considered Alaskan natives." Thus, because proximity does not determine ethnicity, only through defined connections such as between the Polynesian Māori and Rapa Nui people, it has to be evident that some "islands" near Oceania are to be considered Southeast Asian, such as the Philippines, even when the inhabitants may be distantly connected by similarities in language and practices similar to Melanesians, Micronesians and Polynesians.
The Pacific Islands Forum is the major governing organization for the Pacific Islands, and has been labelled as the "EU of the Pacific region". Up until 2021, its member nations and associate members were American Samoa, Australia, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji, French Polynesia, Guam, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, New Caledonia, New Zealand, Niue, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Wallis and Futuna. Additionally, there have been pushes for Easter Island and Hawaii to join the Pacific Islands Forum, as they are primarily inhabited by Polynesian peoples. Japan and Malay Archipelago countries such as East Timor, Indonesia and the Philippines are dialogue partners of the Pacific Islands Forum, with East Timor having observer status, but none are full members. The nations of the Malay Archipelago have their own regional governing organization called ASEAN, which includes mainland Southeast Asian nations such as Vietnam and Thailand. In July 2019, at the inaugural Indonesian Exposition held in Auckland, Indonesia launched its 'Pacific Elevation' program, which would encompass a new era of elevated engagement with the region, with the country also using the event to lay claim that Indonesia is culturally and ethnically linked to the Pacific islands. The event was attended by dignitaries from Australia, New Zealand and some Pacific island countries.
Australia and New Zealand have been described as both continental landmasses and as Pacific Islands. New Zealand's native population, the Māori, are Polynesians, and thus considered Pacific Islanders. Australia's Indigenous population are loosely related to Melanesians and the United States Census categorize them under the Pacific Islander American umbrella. In Island Realm: A Pacific Panorama, Ian Todd states that, "New Zealand is uniquely gifted in its role as a Polynesian associate. A large section of its own indigenous population consists of Māori—a Polynesian race. Beyond her own sphere of association, New Zealand's trading influence is prominent in Tonga, Fiji and other areas of the Pacific with Commonwealth affiliations." Regarding Australia, he further wrote, "Australia plays a leading economic role in the south-west Pacific area—commonly known as Melanesia. Fiji, the New Hebrides, the Solomons, even French-controlled New Caledonia have a major trade connection with Australia. The thriving little republic of Nauru was administered by Australia before its recent independence. Further afield, in western Polynesia, Australia provides economic and technical aid in Tonga and Western Samoa. Much of Fiji's tourist trade comes from 'down under'. Among the oceanic islands which are part of the Commonwealth of Australia are Lord Howe Island, Norfolk Island, the Torres Strait Islands, the Willis Group and Coringa Islands."