Pacific Island Lecture Critiques Pop Culture
Sociology Prof. and Speaker Series In Push For New Curriculum 
BY ARIELLA COHEN

In the third installment of the Indigenous Women’s Series, Associate Professor of Sociology Antoinette Charforous McDaniel spoke last Thursday. Students and faculty crowded into Wilder 112 in anticipation of Charforous’s “Surviving the Survivor Mentality: A Critical Appraisal of Pacific Islanders in Pop-Culture.” 
Charforous opened her speech with a blessing of “dankalo si yu’us ma’ase,” a Chamora greeting. The Chamorro, a people Charforous references often, are Guam’s indigenous people. Born in Guam and of Chamorro descent, Charforous is the only Asian Pacific American faculty member specializing in APA Studies. Thursday’s speech focused on popular depiction of the Pacific Islands. Implicit in her talk was a concern with the overall representation of the Pacific Islands, including in the classroom. “[My concerns] are less that you know nothing about Pacific islanders than a concern with what you do know and how you came to it,” Charforous said.
Charforous called distorted popular renditions of Pacific Island culture “survivalist discourses,” playing on the hauntingly popular “reality TV” series set in an uninhibited Pacific Island. 
Paraphrasing Karl Marx in his decree of religion as “the opiate of the people,” Charforous similarly argued that “harmless and ironic good-natured” representations of the Pacific Islands and its societies are instead the very “meat and potatoes” of American imperialism in the Pacific. For Charforous, survivor discourses attempt to veil the ongoing exploitation and oppression of Pacific Islands. 
“Such discourse obscures the fact that in word, deed and action, the United States of America continues to be not a post-colonial regime, but very much a contemporary colonial regime in the Pacific,” Charforous said. 
While her research remains in its preliminary stages, Charforous has found other examples of this “survivalist discourse.” She cited tropical themed advertising, essentializing Nickelodeon cartoons and the newly released cinematic remake of James Michner’s South Pacific as examples of survivalist discourses. 
This spring’s Indigenous Women’s Series attempts to combat problems of cultural misrepresentation by exposing the College to a history of the U.S. and European imperialism that, as organizers assert in their promotion of the series, is often limited to student-initiated events and discussions. 
A large student turnout for each of the Indigenous Women installments indicates desires for more courses centered around issues of ethnicity, gender, race, politics and identity. “I certainly believe there should be more courses devoted to Ethnic studies, Women’s studies and Queer studies and that’s where Comparative American Studies comes in. If the program happens it will be a step in right direction,” Assistant Professor of History Moon-Ho Jung said. 
The proposed CAS program would encompass multiple fields of ethnic studies in its multi-cultural approach to retelling American history. Jung, in his second and final year at Oberlin, is a member of the Comparative American Studies Program Committee. 
Comparative American Studies appeals to a wide coalition of student and faculty activists interested in anti-racist education. “I think a good majority of professors would consider themselves non-racist but I think anti-racist professors are few and far between. I am not sure if most would understand the difference, but anti-racist are those who act, speak up against racism, its implications and its role in white supremacy. When someone says, ‘I am not a racist,’ people say, ‘prove it.’ Anti-racists are continuously proving it,” Asian Pacific American Community Coordinator kt shorb said.
Currently some students feel that the College is not adequately providing the resources necessary to fully act against racism. “Students have told me about coming to a professor with a text and saying that they feel that a certain group is being esentialized, compartmentalized or ignored and being shot down. The professor will say that it is not a problem and that issues of race or ethnicity or identity should not be brought into classes that aren’t specifically about this subject,” shorb said.
Professors, including Charforous, include themselves under the anti-racist heading. “My own pedagogues combine elements of traditional and radical pedagogues in requiring students to place their own histories, subjectivities in the academic context. I would say this fits to both anti-racist and liberal definitions of education. The liberal arts education challenges students to think critically about social and political issues and enter into public forum socially responsible and informed,” Charforous said. 
A growing consciousness regarding cultural discourse permeates Oberlin’s classrooms. “I think we all hope to be anti-racist educators. I recognize many of us come from positions of privilege and it’s important to realize this –– and then fight for equality. I hope to, through American history, provide windows into diverse cultural experiences,” History Professor Pablo Mitchell said. 
Mitchell specializes in Latino Studies and teaches courses such as the popular “Borderlands” and “American Sexualities” classes. Both courses examine America’s marginalization of divergent groups. 
Within this call for a wider academic curriculum, a demand for a more diverse faculty has been heard. “In a lot of ways the importance of faculty of color comes down to role models. Some students have never seen people of their group in positions of power or high paying jobs or even in certain fields, such as an African American in science. Additionally, we need people of different groups to talk about their own identity in intellectual discourse. We already have a lot of academic material where non-target groups discuss target groups, such as in anthropology and to an extent, sociology. Now we need members of the target group talking about the target group,” shorb said. shorb represents the Multicultural Resource Center, in the larger Indigenous Women Series coalition. 
Charfauros, as well as A.G. Miller, an African American Studies professor, and several other college instructors came to Oberlin through an externally-funded Minority Scholar in Residence fellowship. For the nine years between Miller’s stint as the college’s 1988 minority fellow and Charfaurous’s 1997 reception of the position it had stood vacant. In the years since, the fellowship has been consecutively filled. Unfortunately, this year’s recipients, History Instructor Edda L. Fields and Theater and Dance Instructor Jeanette Roan, will be leaving when the fellowship expires at the close of the semester. 
“The fellowship is a great opportunity, but what the College could do better is the follow-up. Students get a lot from our classes but then we leave and our classes do too. The College brings people in but then it is only temporary…If there was some way to bring scholars in and keep them, that would be making the most of the fellowship,” Roan said. She will begin a tenure track position elsewhere in the fall.