MLK Week 2020: Centering Indigenous futures in our work towards transformation
Channel: Highline College
Date: 2020-02-11

Our Mo’olelo (history/story) of Liberation: Centering Indigenous futures in our work towards transformation. Presented by Dr. Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio. Discussing the role of Indigenous values and practices in our contemporary social movements for justice and transformation, Dr. Osorio will share ʻŌiwi (indigenous) moʻolelo (stories and histories) of activism and resistance to settler / state violence and how those histories are informing a birth of a revolution in Hawaiʻi around indigenous rights, extractive capitalism, over development, police brutality and State sanctioned violence. These moʻolelo will then be used to offer insight and possibilities for future organizing on Turtle Island (the US continent)—and offer some ideas as to how our movements can support and learn from and with each other.
Dr. Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio is a Kanaka Maoli wahine poet / activist / scholar born and raised in Pālolo Valley to parents Jonathan and Mary Osorio. Heoli earned her PhD in English (Hawaiian literature) with the completion of her dissertation entitled: “(Re)membering ʻUpena of Intimacies: A Kanaka Maoli Moʻolelo Beyond Queer Theory.” Currently, Heoli is an Assistant Professor of Indigenous and Native Hawaiian Politics at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Heoli is a three-time national poetry champion, poetry mentor and a published author. She is a proud past Kaiāpuni student, Ford fellow, and a graduate of Kamehameha, Stanford (BA) and New York University (MA).