This week, APEX Contributors Karl Jagbandhansingh and Marie Choi bring us APEX’s final segments recorded at the Moana Nui 2013 Teach In. Speaker bios below ( from Moana Nui conference):
Kyle Kajihiro (Hawai’i) See Video
American Friends Service Committee; DMZ Hawai’i/Aloha Aina
Kyle Kajihiro is a board member of Hawai’i Peace and Justice, the successor organization to the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) Hawai’i Area Program. From 1996 to 2011, Kajihiro served as a program coordinator, and later program director, for the American Friends Service Committee Hawai’i. Born and raised in Hawai’i, Kajihiro was involved in human rights activism, Central America solidarity, and immigrant worker organizing while living in Oregon in the 1980s and 1990s. His current work focuses on research, education, and action to counter U.S. militarization in Hawai’i. He has published numerous articles about militarization and resistance in Hawai’i and has participated in solidarity delegations and international conferences to speak about resistance to the U.S. military occupation of the Hawaiian Islands.
Dante C. Simbulan (Philippines)
Professor, Author
Dante C. Simbulan earned his doctorate in Political Science from the Australian National University, received his master’s degree from the University of the Philippines and his Bachelor of Science from the Philippine Military Academy. He taught politics, government and sociology at the Philippine Military Academy, University of the Philippines, Ateneo de Manila University and Maryknoll College. His book, The Modern Principalia: The Historical Evolution of the Philippine Ruling Oligarchy (University of the Philippines Press, 2007, 2nd ed.) based on his doctoral dissertation written in 1965, was a pioneering study of the socio-economic elite in Philippine politics and government—the ruling family political dynasties of today. Dr. Simbulan was Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the Polytechnic University of the Philippines when Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law. A former political prisoner, he was arrested and detained for more than three years, without charges, when he actively and openly opposed the dictatorship; he was adopted as a “prisoner of conscience” by Amnesty International. While in exile in the United States, he served as the first Executive Director of the Church Coalition for Human Rights in the Philippines (based in Washington, D.C.), which worked for the termination of U.S. support to the Marcos dictatorship. He has since been a leader of the Philippines’ protest movement opposed to U.S. military presence and intervention in the Philippines. He taught at Montgomery College in Maryland and lectured in several universities in the United States and Canada.
Arnie Saiki (Hawai’i)
Research Director, Statehood Hawai’i /’Imipono Projects, Co-Coordinator, Moana Nui 2011
Imipono Projects received a 2008, “We the People, National Endowment for the Humanities” grant for Arnie Saiki’s research, presentation and program, “Statehood and Hawaii: Correspondences between the State Department, Congress and the United Nations.” He was one of the coordinators for the Moana Nui 2011 meeting in Hawai’i and has since been writing and helping to coordinate the Moana Nui 2013 conference. Other presentations and programs that he organized include “Impact of Immigration on Hawai’i’s Past, Present and Future”; “International Routes: De-occupation, Decolonization and the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples”; “History of Hawaiian Political Activism 1887-Present”; “Recovering our Political Past while Probing toward the Future”; “Ho’opunipuni: the Myth of Statehood”; and many short programs related to issues of statehood and colonization in Hawai’i and in the Pacific. He lives in Los Angeles with his family.
APEX Express is a weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, djs, and activists and airs each week on KPFA 94.1FM.
APEX Express is committed to building a broader social movement for justice and collective liberation for all oppressed people, including poor & working-class people, people of color, women and queer people. We support grassroots organizing and cultural work that advance these goals, and see APEX as a space for building consciousness and promoting critical discussion about these efforts.
Like what you hear? Show your support for independent community media that is free and accessible to everyone by sharing this broadcast of ideas, news, and views with your network of thinkers & doers.