PICA-WA HIGHLIGHTS OF 2020
LEARN ABOUT OUR MISSION
The Pacific Islander Community Association (PICA-WA) is an organization that seeks to live out the indigenous values of the Pasifika communities here in Washington State through community organizing, and speaking our truth fiercely to systems of power while providing social supports and cultural spaces for the community to gather and center our values. Our mission is threefold: establish a cultural home, center community power, and further the wellness of our communities physically, culturally, socially and spiritually. Pasifika communities of Washington are a resilient community and while it has had to endure struggles in combating systematic erasure, Pasifika people will continue to rise!
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SOLIDARITY
In solidarity with the Indigenous Peoples and Tribes in Washington State, and all Indigenous people of the Americas, we will continue to perpetuate our sacred cultures and traditions. We remember the purpose handed to us from our tupuna, our ancestors, to resist, build and thrive alongside our earth and ocean and our fellow neighbors. We are Kanaka Maoli, Samoan, Tongan, Mashallese, Chamorro/CHamoru, Palauan, Kosraean, Maori, I-Kiribati, Fijian (I-Taukei), Niuean, Tokelauan, Yapese, Ponhpeian, Pingelapese, Chuukese, Tahitian, Tokelauan, Maori, Solomon Islanders, Papua New Guineans, Uvean, Rotuman, Tuvaluan, Refaluwasch and the many other colorful Pasifika nations that make up our family.
WE BELIEVE IN BUILDING TOGETHER
Kotahitanga or unity and collective action drives our body of work. We work across the diversity of our Pacific Islander communities to build collaboration while addressing specific concerns and needs of each Pasifika community. We believe in one Oceania, where our peoples are not divided along lines of Polynesia, Micronesia, or Melanesia, but we instead build, strategize, struggle and celebrate together. Our collective advocacy is stronger than our individual silos. We work against settler colonialism frameworks that erases Oceanian sovereignty and history and lift up Native Hawaiian & Pacific Islander Autonomy as a collective network of leaders working together to build our civic voice and power while co-designing the Beloved Community that we want our children to live in. We will traverse together, canoe by canoe towards our liberated future.
OUR VOICE IS OUR LIBERATION
PICA-WA is guided by the belief that our Pasifika communities are fully capable of healing ourselves. Only through equitable integration of our leadership and voices at critical decision-making tables nationally and locally can we ensure that systems and institutions are more responsive to our communities while establishing our own expansive tables to model what it means to move together with accountability and transparency. Our tongue is where our blessing is birthed from. We will speak our cultural wealth into existence. We are committed to expanding leadership spaces that sharpens and strengthens the voices of our youth.
OUR FUNDERS
