Grappling With War, Grappling With Grief: Filipina Poets in Hawai‘i and Diasporic Visions of Sovereignty

ABSTRACT:This essay explores the decolonial potential of Filipina demilitarization work in Hawai‘i through two contemporary activist-poets, Darlene Rodrigues and reyna aiko leah lani ramolete hayashi. I argue their work marks a notable shift— particularly in Hawai‘i but also throughout our decolonial diaspora—of Filipinx imagining how the unfinished struggle for sovereignty in the Philippines informs our understanding of sovereignty for the Indigenous nations on whose lands we have settled. Rodrigues and ramolete advance a politics rooted in the refusal to play by empire’s rules, namely, the militarization of land, the militarization of bodies, and the insatiable appetite for war.