Not even 30 minutes into the protest, the Honolulu Police Department arrives, summoned by the consulate staff, Korean nationals that eye the protest warily from behind cast-iron gates. The police speak with Christine Ahn, a longtime campaigner against militarism in the Pacific who has accompanied the group of students from Jeju to the consulate. Shortly thereafter, the students leave the consulate and move on to the Japanese Consulate-General where they protest the construction of a similar naval base at Henoko, Okinawa.

Because of the relative isolation of the island, the indigenous people of Jeju developed a culture and language distinct from those of mainland Korea. Jeju is home to thousands of local legends and the traditional language of Jeju has been designated as endangered.

Like so many islands in the Pacific, Jeju has a history of annexation and colonization, first by the Korean Kingdom of Joseon during the 15th century and then (along with the Korean mainland) by the Japanese Empire in 1910. Like so many other Pacific islands, Jeju is now the site of intense militarization as the United States continues to cling to its shrinking post-Cold War hegemony by shifting its military might into the Pacific.

Jeju's strategic location, some 60 miles south of Korea, 200 miles west of Nagasaki and 300 miles northeast of Shanghai, burdens it with the same sort of geopolitical curse that afflicts islands like the Ryukyus (Japan’s Okinawa Prefecture) and Hawaiʻi. And just as with the Ryukyus and Hawaiʻi, the indigenous inhabitants of Jeju are caught between an induced economic dependency on military colonialism and its subsidiary tourist industries and a desire to reclaim sovereignty, end militarism and realize self-determination.

Into this backdrop steps millennial activist Naomi Yoshida. “I like adventures. It was the right moment in life,” she says. “I think you get these thoughts—‘I don’t like what I’m doing; I need a change’—and you start to come up with ideas, ‘What can I do next?’ and you put that out there. Such decisions should come easily if they are true and right—I’m a firm believer in that—and that’s what this was.”

Called the “Hawaiʻi of the East” by the Republic of Korea, development on Jeju mirrors that of America's 50th state. With the principal controlling elements on Jeju solidly in line with the South Korean government, whatever money is injected into the Jeju economy goes straight into manufacturing a veneer of idyllic paradise that masks the deep scars of militarism beneath the surface.

South Korean newlyweds flock to Jeju for honeymoon retreats by the thousands, palm trees are forcefully planted where once there were none and a series of culturally tone-deaf museums dot the island—the Hawaiʻi of the East, indeed. Even the island's official tourism logo is evocative of the kind of homogenized, globalist ethos that directs official Olympic Games graphic design choices (think lowercase rainbow crayon font, complete with a little heart over the “j”).

Yoshida’s desire to travel to Jeju—not for selfies and self-satisfaction, but in the hopes of making a positive difference in the lives of fellow human beings—is indicative of the best aspects of the millennial generation: an eagerness to explore, a yearning for meaningful connection and a fearlessness to do what must be done for no other reason than because it is right.

While working in Honolulu, Yoshida met Soo Sun Choe, a Korean-American activist embedded in the struggle on Jeju. “She had already sent a few activists from Hawaiʻi to Jeju with the intention of learning and understanding the movement that’s going on there, specifically the demilitarization movement in the village of Gangjeong,” says Yoshida. “She bought me a one-way ticket, and off I went.”

Yoshida’s adventure led her to Jeju, Thailand, Okinawa, back to Jeju, and then back to Hawaiʻi. It also ignited an interest in that young group of students from Gangjeong to come to Hawaiʻi and learn about Hawaiian cultural resurgence, resistance to militarism and the struggle for self-determination.

A Familiar Tale

On April 3, 1948, against a backdrop of erupting ideological struggle for control of mainland Korea and a wide range of colonial grievances held by islanders against the local Korean authorities, communist sympathizers on the island (of which there were many) attacked police stations and government offices. The blow-back from these attacks resulted in a brutal and often indiscriminate suppression of leftist and perceived leftist groups and institutions, as well as the deaths and internment of tens of thousands of native villagers and communist radicals. The United States military was heavily involved in counterinsurgency operations across Korea at this time leading up to the Korean War.

“There’s a whole generation of islanders that’s still dealing with the trauma of that massacre,” says Yoshida. “The naval base is another slap in their face. As a foreigner, I had to be sensitive about the space I was taking up there. I came with the intention of just listening and learning. I felt empowered, though, to come from Hawaiʻi and to be able to resonate with them and to find commonalities between our two island cultures, both under the brute force of military occupation.”

Yoshida arrived in Gangjeong in the midst of the commemoration of a full decade of organized resistance to the construction of the $1 billion Jeju Naval Base atop the Gureombi Barrier Reef. Like a miniature version of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, Gureombi rings the southern coastline of Jeju and, historically, made the village of Gangjeong the thriving fishing hub that it was. It also provided a vital ecosystem to hundreds of species, many of which are currently endangered. Ten years in the making, the base was finally completed in early 2017.

“They just packed it right on top of the coral,” Yoshida says shaking her head. “The contractor is Samsung.”

As the final touches on the base were being made, the resistance movement was struggling to transition and remain solvent. “The movement has been very intense—a lot of arrests and a lot of contact between the military and Korean police forces and the villagers,” Yoshida relates. “That stage had kind of passed, and so people were asking, ‘What’s next?’”

While many questions remain, Yoshida was inspired by the energy and vitality that the youth in Gangjeong possessed. “And many of the young people who are participating in this struggle are not even from Jeju. Many of them are actually from Seoul,” she says. “I think a lot of them came because they were fed up with the crazy, superficial, Samsung-owns-everything corporate lifestyle that is so dominant in South Korea. I think a growing contingent of Korean millennials are sickened by the prospect of needing plastic surgery on your face to get a better job. So, instead, they’re checking out of that system and coming to Gangjeong to participate in this struggle.”

Jeju has a deep culture of shamanism, of music and dance, and of storytelling. Through this vibrant island culture, Yoshida reports a powerful wellspring of art-as-resistance bubbling up around Gangjeong. “Even though the military base is built, and we really can’t do anything about that, the people of Jeju are determined to find the spaces that they can control, and to reclaim those spaces through their culture and their connection to the land. So it was inspiring to see young people farming and building their own homes; singing and dancing, and participating in their community.”

Yoshida spent a lot of time going through historical materials during her first visit to Jeju. She came across a poster of a young, indigenous activist named Yang Yong-Chan who self-immolated on November 7, 1991, in protest over the development of Jeju that he was witnessing. The front of the poster depicts Yang’s face; on the back is a quote that reads: “I aspire for Jeju to be a place for our lives and a nest for our livelihood, rather than a second Hawaiʻi.”

“Maybe he saw through the manufactured idea of paradise that Hawaiʻi had become, or maybe he just had the insight to see that the direction South Korea is taking Jeju was wrong. Whatever it was, he died for his homeland,” says Yoshida. “That hit home. I realized that there are such strong correlations between Hawai‘i and Jeju. We’re a future version of them. What lessons can we divulge to them so that they can make the right decisions?”

Before leaving Jeju the first time, Yoshida gave a PowerPoint presentation to a group of indigenous activists about Hawaiʻi, showing them images such as a houseless camp in Waiʻanae juxtaposed with luxury high rise construction in Kakaʻako. But she also showed them images of the resurgence of indigenous agriculture in Hawaiʻi and the movement for Hawaiian sovereignty.

“They were blown away by the parallels in development, and also by Hawaiians taking back these spaces, getting back into the loʻi and revitalizing that tradition,” says Yoshida. “It was inspiring on both ends. But Jeju still doesn’t know about Hawaiʻi. Hawaiʻi doesn’t know Jeju.”

But that has already begun to change. One of the young activists approached Yoshida after her presentation and said, “It is my request to you to work on bridging our two homes, please.”

The Ripple Effect

On her return to Jeju, after visiting Okinawa, Yoshida linked up with a group of students from Byeopssi School at an annual peace march held at Gangjeong to protest militarism and nuclear proliferation. Similar to Hawaiian immersion charter schools, Byeopssi places a strong emphasis on cultural resurgence through art, language and reconnection to the land itself.

“They live together in a stone house for a year; they cook together, clean together and they farm,” says Yoshida. After returning to Hawaiʻi, Yoshida received a message from the Byeopssi students: “Naomi, we want to go to your village in Hawaiʻi.” Springing into action, Yoshida organized housing, transportation, educational outings and recreational opportunities for the students to spend an entire month in Hawaiʻi, with almost no budget.

“They paid for themselves; every penny,” says Yoshida. “They’re 15-year-olds, so they either worked in farms or at family restaurants, which just made me fall in love with them even more.”

Every year, the graduating class from their school goes to a different country. Past years have included Denmark and China. “They’re very aware of the rest of the world, but still I think they were shocked to see how big of a city Honolulu is, considering the parallels between Jeju and Hawaiʻi. It was like a glimpse of what could happen on Jeju.”

Yoshida exposed the students to Hawaiian cultural practitioners, farmers, artists and activists, including the Mālama Mākua Hui. The members of the hui took the students with them to Mākua Valley, another sacred space that has been militarized, on the one day a month that the United States military lets them enter the valley to care for it. But because the students are foreigners, the military guards that control access to the valley denied them entry.

“What a teachable moment,” Yoshida reflects. “These kids know militarism. It’s a tragically ingrained part of their learning and here they were, in Hawai‘i, witnessing the exact same thing: ‘You are not allowed to enter this place.’”

The students pulled out their hand drums and began to dance to a measured rhythm, a beautiful and peaceful act of resistance. And then they each took turns sharing their manaʻo—just the same way they would if they had been Hawaiian. And even though the members of the hui might not have understood a single word those brave, young men and women said, by the time they finished, there was not a single dry eye in the group.

“They made all of us cry,” says Yoshida. “It was clear that they understood what that denial was, what that represented, and the pain that comes with being cut off from the land, because they experience the same thing in their home.”

Then came opening day of the 2017 Hawaiʻi State Legislative Session. For Hawaiian activists and their supporters, opening day of the legislature marks Kūʻē at the Capitol, an equal parts celebration and protest. Each January, as elected representatives of a colonial state begin the task of creating laws in occupied Hawaiʻi, indigenous youth from Hawaiian language immersion schools around the archipelago converge on the Capitol building to pound poi, perform hula and to kūʻē—to make a stand for self-determination and to remind politicians that this is still Hawai‘i, and the movement for sovereignty continues.

Yoshida brought the students from Jeju to bear witness to this cultural event and to forge connections with Hawaiian activists their own age. “They watched Hālau Kū Māna perform hula and really connected with the students from that school,” she says.

The next week, they attended talks at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa on the topic of Standing Rock, North Dakota, and got to meet Ann Wright and Christine Ahn, both major anti-militarism activists with special interest in Jeju and Gureombi.

“They’re pioneers,” Yoshida says of Wright and Ahn. “Women activists who came before me and laid the groundwork for solidarity in the Pacific.

In Gangjeong, there is a long tradition of matrilineal care-taking responsibilities. The history of Jeju is all too familiar with the colonial trope of indigenous men being shipped off to war. The same thing is true of the Chamorro people of Guam: the U.S. territory ranks dead last for per capita Veterans Affairs funding, despite having the highest concentration of military veterans among U.S. states and territories.

Diving for shellfish and abalone, a primary means of income for the people of Jeju since the 5th century, was an exclusively male profession up until the 17th century. Because Jeju men had almost entirely been conscripted into navies and fishing fleets, the Jeju women took over the responsibility of collecting this income for their families. The haenyeo—sea women—some of whom are upwards of 90 years old, are now world famous for free-diving almost 100 feet down into frigid water, and for holding their breath for more than 3 minutes in some cases. This has resulted in a matriarchal shift in Jeju society.

The students listened to Wright, a former U.S. Army Colonel and State Department official who resigned over the Iraq War, give a talk about Palestine, and they visited with Ahn and her daughter, whose name is Jeju, at their house in Mānoa.

“Everyone who met these kids—everyone—could just feel their genuineness and their deep desire to learn and, for me personally, having them here reconnected me with my own community and with the land,” she continues. “Now I’ll go back to the loʻi every chance I can and work there.”

There is a Hawaiian metaphor about the U.S. military as a heʻe, or an octopus, with Hawaiʻi as the head and the tentacles spread out to the different island corners of the Pacific Rim: to Okinawa, Guam, the Philippines and, of course, to Jeju.

“You have to go to these places to see it in front of your face, and to see the concrete and the money that’s moving,” says Yoshida. “We don’t know if there’s going to be war, but they’re sure planning like there’s going to be one, and they’re covering the land and the coral reefs and destroying communities in the process. Pacific solidarity is crucial. We must continue to build with each other, to keep connecting these island communities and island spaces together. Because right now we’re at a critical moment in history.

“I think Hawaiʻi can lead that movement too. I think it has to. We have to understand what’s happened here in Hawaiʻi; we have to be able to articulate what these islands and the people here have gone through,” she continues. “There’s knowledge and value to share with places like Okinawa and Jeju. That’s the greatest loudspeaker for the next generation.”

As for the students, they returned to Jeju shortly after their protest at the South Korean Consulate in Nuʻuanu. But they returned with the knowledge that they are not alone in their struggles against militarism. They know now that, in Hawaiʻi and across the Pacific, the same struggle is taking place, and that—even as naval bases are built and warships moved into positions of strategic military importance—the movement for peace is spreading like ripples across the Pacific among the young activists of the world.