Be part of a discussion on the important role of international and inter-campus solidarity in supporting the movement to protect Mauna Kea at an online webinar, “Solidarity Works: Lessons from Mauna Kea,” 10 a.m. on Oct. 16.

“The movement to protect Mauna Kea has transformed how we do politics, how we do astronomy, and how we do solidarity,” said UH West Oʻahu assistant professor of history Kim Compoc, who will be moderating the event. “We invite everyone to join us for this interdisciplinary panel of scholar-activists weighing in on the lessons learned, and where we go from here.”

The panelists are ʻIlima Long of UH Mānoa, Iokepa Casumbal-Salazar of University of Texas at Austin, and Christina Manzano-King of University of California, Riverside. Following the discussion, there will be time for the audience to engage with the speakers and consider what solidarity action is most needed now.

“Solidarity Works: Lessons from Mauna Kea” is part two of a discussion on “Mauna Kea, Colonialism, and Science.” Originally planned for April at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign (UIUC) campus, the event was postponed because of COVID-19.

The event is presented by UIUC and UH West Oʻahu, where it is sponsored by the Department of History, Department of Hawaiian/Pacific Studies, and Hoʻopūliko Kumu Hou. At UIUC, the event is sponsored by the Campus Research Board, Student Cultural Programming Fee Advisory Board, The Carl R. Woese Institute of Genomic Biology, Department of Anthropology, Department of Asian American Studies, Native American House, and Society for Equity in Astronomy.

About the panelists:

• K. Kamakaokaʻilima Long is a Kanaka Maoli Ph.D. student in Political Science at UH Mānoa. She became involved in the work to protect Maunakea in 2010 as a UH campus organizer. In the 2019 standoff at Puʻuhonua o Puʻuhuluhulu she landed as the mauna media team coordinator where she leaned on her experience in campaign messaging and popular education. She is deeply involved with student organizing and activism on Hawaiian issues, graduate student labor, and feminist issues. She works to connect student life to organizing and activism, and in political organizing and decolonization more generally.
• Iokepa Casumbal-Salazar is an assistant professor of Native American and Indigenous Studies in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin. His research examines Indigenous social movements, Kanaka ʻŌiwi thought and praxis, settler colonization, race, gender, class, and imperialism. His book manuscript examines the politics and poetics of struggle over Mauna a Wākea and the Indigenous-led resistance to construction of the Thirty Meter Telescope on the mountain Kanaka ʻŌiwi continue to hold as a sacred place.
• Christina Manzano King, Ph.D., is an astronomer from ʻEwa Beach and is currently studying black hole-driven winds and dwarf galaxy evolution at UC Riverside. Though her thesis depends on data collected on Maunakea, she has become an outspoken opponent of TMT. In her free time, she organizes to build solidarity and visibility for under-represented students in STEM.
• Moderator Kim Compoc has taught in the departments of English and Ethnic Studies at UH Mānoa, and Asian American Studies at UIUC, where she recently finished a two-year postdoctoral research fellowship. She is a co-founder of UIUC Mauna Kea Solidarity Group.

To register for the event, visit http://bit.ly/3kLEtsO.