Micronesians feel hatred in Hawaii, decry police shooting
HONOLULU (AP) — Comments on social media about a 16-year-old boy shot and killed by Honolulu police have been so hateful that a Catholic priest, who hails from the same small Pacific island as the teen’s family, hesitates to repeat them.
“It is really bad and I don’t want to say it as a priest,” said the Rev. Romple Emwalu, parochial vicar at a parish outside Honolulu who was born in Chuuk in the Federated States of Micronesia. “But, like, ‘ Micronesians are dirt.’”
Some in the Micronesian community say the April 5 shooting of Iremamber Sykap highlights the racism they face in Hawaii, a place they expected to be more welcoming to fellow islanders.
Police say Sykap was driving a stolen car when he led officers on a chase through oncoming traffic after a series of crimes including an armed robbery and purse-snatching.
Sykap’s family is from Chuuk, but he was born in Guam, a U.S. territory, said his mother, Yovita Sykap. “He’s American,” she said. Of Hawaii’s 1.5 million residents, 38% are Asian — mostly Japanese and Filipino — 26% are white, 2% are Black, and many people are multiple ethnicities, according to U.S. census figures. Native Hawaiians account for about 20% of the population. There are an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 Micronesians in Hawaii, who began migrating here in bigger numbers in the 1990s in search of economic and educational opportunities, said Josie Howard of We are Oceania, which advocates for the Micronesian community.
The Compact of Free Association allows citizens from the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands and the Republic of Palau to live and work freely in the United States in exchange for allowing the U.S. military to control strategic land and water areas in the region.