FIGHTING
FOR
PACIFIC
FUTURES

MEMBERSHIP

OPIC is a formal collective of Pacific Islander (PI) organizations, individuals, and allies. Our members self-identify as PI or they demonstrate solidarity and an alignment with our values. Organizational members must have at least half of their leadership self-identify as Pacific Islander. Together, the coalition builds capacity for our movement work and launches strategic initiatives to heal our community.

shared waters

We navigate this complex ecosystem of movement work together with the goal of developing sustainable leaders and organizations rooted in our many indigenous values.

The Shared Waters program brings PI leaders and organizations together to share the lessons learned, indigenous wisdom, and technical assistance necessary to build PI-led movements.

interwoven

Our collective vision of thriving indigenous Pacific futures is woven together through shared struggles of colonization and erasure, and our shared love of Oceania.

Our strategic initiatives focus on cultivating PI community organizing power to drive systems change through policy, advocacy, data, research, and storytelling.

SHARED WATERS

  • The coaching circle brings Executive Directors of member organizations together to support one another in developing leadership practices that honor our cultures and creates space for innovative and sustainable ways to lead PI organizations.

  • Coming in 2024.

  • In the summer of 2024 coalition members will travel to Hawai’i for Ho’oulu Lahui: Regenerating Oceania, the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts & Culture.

    Cultivating Self focuses on bringing diaspora to the Pacific to witness the gathering of our nations and the sharing of our cultures. The program aims to foster connections with others committed to cultural preservation, and cultivate a deeper sense of self and our indigenous identities.

  • Coming in 2024.

Shared Waters is home to our leadership and organizational development programs. These are internal facing programs, aimed to nurture the leadership and sustain the organizations of coalition membership to ensure that Pacific Islanders are leading Pacific Islander work.

The Pacific currents are moving; it remains to be seen where they will take us.

— Lisa Kahaleole Hall

INTERWOVEN

  • [PI Student Success] In 2023 OPIC’s Education Committee made history through the passage of HB3144: The Pacific Islander Student Success Act. The bill is the first of its kind in the U.S., focusing on all Pacific Islanders (Melanesian, Micronesian, and Polynesian) without lumping our people into the “API” category. The bill requires the Oregon Department of Education to make a multi-million dollar investment to improve PI student outcomes.

    [2024] The Education Committee is reconvening to connect existing education and youth development programs happening across the coalition to envision what the future of this work looks like. Stay tuned!

  • Health has been the foundation of the coalition’s work since 2020. Past health efforts include: Woven with Elders COVID-19 Toolkit, advocating for PIs to be a COVID-19 testing and vaccination priority in Oregon, COVID-19 emergency response service coordination, and Pacific Islander Data Modernization in partnership with the Oregon Health Authority.

    [2024] The Health Committee is launching for the first time in 2024. Stay tuned!

  • [2024] The Housing Committee is launching for the first time in 2024. Stay tuned!

Interwoven is home to the coalition’s strategic initiatives. Strategic initiatives are focused on the external, community facing work that we do and are powered by Work Committees. Work Committees consist of coalition members that lead programs, have lived experience, or display a commitment to OPIC’s 3 focus areas of education, health, and housing. These priorities were identified by Pacific Islander community members in “This is The Way We Rise: Pacific Islander Data Modernization 2021,” a statewide PI-specific community needs assessment.

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Ocean Speaks: Oregonian Voices from the Mighty Pacific is a narrative change campaign to transform the practices and systems that drive Pacific Islander erasure in the United States, and more specifically, Oregon. This work is built on the concept of self determination. Pacific Islanders must lead in a way that is beneficial to us and is aligned with our cultural values.

Self determination is about recognizing indigenous power, and respecting indigenous wisdom. More specifically, it refers to our right to be identified in the ways that we deem fit, and to build towards our vision of healing.

  • Like all of the coalition’s work, Oceans Speak is guided by a Work Committee consisting of coalition members.

    Currently, Ocean Speaks work is overseen by the Voting Representatives of each organizational member.

  • In 2023, OPIC hosted the first PI-focused funder’s convening in Oregon. “Ocean Speaks: Funding the Fight for PI Self Determination,” was hosted in partnership with Meyer Memorial Trust.

    Funder’s convening is an invite-only event for coalition members and funders that have been assessed for basic alignment with coalition values and areas of work. The next funder's convening is tentatively set for 2025.


    If you are interested in attending, or co-hosting the convening, please reach out to info@oregonpacificislanders.org.

  • Released date TBD.

  • Release date TBD.