head of the heʻe

The center of the so called Indo Pacific Command is located in Puʻuloa (Pearl Harbor) on the island of Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi. It is often referred to as the head of the heʻe (octopus) with its tentacles having far reaching impacts on island nations. Most especially among the US occupied nations such as Hawaiʻi, Guahan and CNMI. It is in these spaces that it devastates our ecosystems and our most sacred ancestral lands to play at war. The moray eel, which is a well hidden creature, that can strike because you do not see it. I think of this eel as the collective anger and resistance of the CHamoru people rising up out of the Mariana Trench, to end US imperialism in the Pacific. 

Originally a part of the digital exhibition Everyday Life in an Imperial Archipelago curated by Isa Arriola PhD. (2022)