Association for Asian American Studies 2026 Annual Conference

Our 2026 AAAS gathering in Hawai‘i coincides with a series of anniversaries that present a timely opportunity to consider the promises and limits of Asian American Studies from the belly of the U.S. imperial beast. Here we’re especially thinking about how 2026 marks the semiquincentennial of the United States’ declaration of independence from the British Empire and the birth of its own world historic imperial vision that extended its reach from the Atlantic into the Pacific; the 50th anniversary of the first “landing” that liberated the island of Kaho‘olawe from decades of U.S. Navy live-fire bombing, a Kanaka Maoli-led effort that helped spark the modern sovereignty movement; and the 80th anniversary of the Great Hawai‘i Sugar Strike, an island-wide, interethnic, working-class shutdown of the plantation industry.