Talk:Pacific Islander

Filipino = pacific islander?
Is Filipino classified as pacific islander? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.174.124.90 (talk) 00:49, 11 December 2004 (UTC)


 * You will not find a single person native to the Philippines that doesn't consider himself or herself Asian. TheCoffee 06:51, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)


 * Filipinos have never been classified as Pacific Islanders. The only people who believe this are Fil-Ams who use the excuse that the Philippines is a island nation in the Pacific Ocean. As if there are no other island nations such as Japan, Taiwan, and Indonesia that are considered as part of Asia. Why is it so difficult to understand that FILIPINOS are considered Asian ? which includes by both the U.S. and the Philippines. - Skillz — Preceding unsigned comment added by Skillz4Realz (talk • contribs) 02:33, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Filipino = asian?
Are filipinos classified as asians? Many filipinos consider themselves "filipino" with no strings attached, not "asian" not "pacific islander" just "filipino". If it is true, I'm not sure why these tongans, chinese or whatever are outraged, they should be greatful to be considered in a category that includes filipinos. :P — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.4.79.70 (talk) 04:06, 14 September 2006 (UTC)


 * It should be noted that both the Malay filipino and the pacific islander(polynesian, micronesian, melanesian, etc) are all closely related under the term austronesian.--Chicbicyclist 11:26, 16 September 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually most Filipinos consider themselves Asians .23prootie 17:19, 16 September 2006 (UTC)


 * I believe that the current information within the "Usage Dispute" is completely accurate. All the facts are there. It explains it perfectly. Just read it. -Anyonymous Filipino American, March 10, 2008, 8:13P.M. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.212.3.28 (talk) 01:13, 11 March 2008 (UTC)


 * If Filipinos didn't consider themselves with no strings attached, such as "ASIAN", why in the world is the Philippines apart of the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations). Many "ASIANS", also consider themselves by their ethnicity. To clarify, it's not Filipinos who wouldn't consider themselves Asian...it's mostly Fil-Ams who have a huge problem with the term "ASIAN", yet do not consider that both the U.S. and the Philippines acknowledge that Filipinos can and are considered "ASIAN". Fil-Ams for some reason have a huge problem with associating themselves with other groups, even Filipinos from the Philippines. Youtube the show, Speak Out: Filipino vs Filipino-Americans. -Anyonymous  —Preceding unsigned comment added by SkillzDatKillz (talk • contribs) 04:10, 27 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Chicbicyclist, you still fail to acknowledge that the Austronesian background can be found in other parts of Asia. How is that you only manage to mention the Malay Filipino being the only ones closely related under the term austronesian as compared to other Asians?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by SkillzDatKillz (talk • contribs) 00:46, 28 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Geographically the Philippines are located in South East asia, not Oceania. The People on the other hand, are of austronesian descent. Look up the history of the austronesian people and you'll discover that a lot of the Pacific Islanders originated from the same race. The Filipinos are indeed a very mixed race, we are still linked in blood from our Austronesian ancestors. Fil-ams have taken it far by saying we are Pacific islander, in fact Pacific-Islanders and Filipinos share the same common ancestor and race. The best we can do is link to the Austronesian-link between nations. It's even more evident in our indigenous peoples. The Philippines has the Negritos, NZ has the Maori, Indonesia has the Papuan's etc... Keep that in mind. Lovebus 15:26, 25 April 2008 (UTC)


 * austronesian people. They constitute the dominant ethnic group in Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, the Philippines, the Pattani region of Thailand, and East Timor inside the Malay Archipelago, in Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia inside Oceania, in Madagascar, and in the Cham areas of Vietnam, Cambodia, and China (the remnants of the Champa kingdom which covered central and southern Vietnam). The Philippines isn't the only country in Asia that has the Austronesian background, sounds like Fil-Ams who claim Pacific Islander do not know the history behind the word Austronesian. Just because someone is Austronesian doesn't mean they can't be Asian and are Pacific Islanders. The Philippines and other several SE ASIAN countries also share common ancestors and race. The majority of Fil-Ams who started to claim Pacific Islander began in Hawaii. They start claiming Pacific Islander because "HAWAIIN/PACIFIC ISLANDER" sounds cooler to them. I've met plenty of Fil-AMS who have admitted to this. IF these FIL-AMS knew anything about FILIPINOS, they would know that FILIPINOS from the PHILIPPINES have a lot of similarities with SE ASIANS...including race...so there is nothing wrong with FILIPINOS and the ASIAN label. PinoyFilamPride 18:26, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Austronesian VS Polynesian
I think this article has many flaws, its seems to be grouping Pacific Islanders that include people from Hawaii and Maoris as Austronesains, when they are in fact Polynesians. Malays from Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia are not Polynesians. Theyre respective languages though are classified under the Malayo-Polynesian family. --Jandela 03:09, 4 March 2007 (UTC)


 * Polynesian is a subgroup of Austronesian. From what I gather, "Malayo-Polynesian" is a lingual subgrouping, whereas Austronesian is a term not restricted simply to linguistics. Adrigon 23:40, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Borderline vandalism
An anyonymous user or users who apparently take issue with Filipinos not fitting the definition of "Pacific Islander" have once again taken the liberty of not only removing text which mentions the reasons for why that is the case, but also removing any mention at all of the others (Oceanics and Asian-identified Filipinos) who take exception to Filipinos calling themselves "Pacific Islander". The content the person or persons have replaced it with uses weasel words to make a POV statement about why the deleted content was irrelevant. And as it stands, the sentence in what remains of the paragraph, which reads "It should be noted however that both groups are closely related ethnically..." no longer makes sense without the context provided by the material which they removed. I think this is not only poor editing, it's also borderline/possible vandalism and should be reverted to the last revert made by user Gadfium on March 6, 2007, which was itself a reversion of similarly-motivated revisions. Adrigon 07:08, 10 March 2007 (UTC)

Unacceptable entry
I would be very keen to see this article reviewed. Facts and poleic are intertwined, it appears to be without citations, and is full of personal opinions. Is there anyone here who would care to comment before I tag this for review? docboat (talk) 11:35, 30 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Based on editing patterns, this article, beginning on January 5, seems to have been hijacked by one person who appears to be unconcerned with Wikipedia's standards regarding encyclopedic tone and use of citations.
 * Their additions since then have meandered into a rambling grey area outside the subject of this article. Thanks to those additions, the majority of this article has become dominated by the Filipino identity issue, which prior had included only succinct mention of its relation to this article's subject.  This person's additions may be worthy of inclusion on Wikipedia, but if so, their additions should go elsewhere, in an article of their own expounding on that subject specifically, or perhaps added to the Filipino Americans article, since this is apparently a Filipino American issue.  If their material is moved, it will still need to be cited properly, and probably significant reformatting.  In my opinion, this article's content should revert to the way it was at the time they decided to begin editing it, and maybe have a "see also" link from this article to their relocated material.Adrigon (talk) 22:51, 30 March 2008 (UTC)


 * The Usage dispute relates to the Pacific Islander usage dispute which even in the beginning mentions the Filipinos, so how is it a rambling grey area? When the usage dispute has always been there.
 * There was actually more information to this article but there have been anonymous users who continue to delete all the information as mentioned above. All the information in the usage dispute should be acceptable because the usage dispute does in fact mention the Filipino-American identity that is in connection with the Pacific Islander usage, not necessarily Filipinos. However, if it is indeed moved to the Filipino-American section of Wikipedia, don't you think people would go back to the Pacific Islander section to check information that relates to if Filipinos are Asian or Pacific Islanders? so they can see the information regarding Pacific Islanders. - Skillz   —Preceding unsigned comment added by SkillzDatKillz (talk • contribs) 02:34, 31 March 2008 (UTC)


 * The pre-existing Usage Dispute section is about islands which border the Pacific and why their inhabitants are not defined as "Pacific Islanders". It mentions that many Filipino Americans apparently see themselves as an exception to this, a possible explanation about why that is, and the subsequent reaction.  And it goes on to mention the historically shared cultural roots of Pacific Islanders to others.  It was pretty concise, especially in comparison to what you've been adding.
 * Looking at the current version of your revisions, your content tends to stray from the subject of Pacific Islanders, the subject of this article. For an article about one subject, you go into a tedious amount of detail about others, such Austronesians, which is a broader subject with its own article where such information would more appropriately appear.  You write about Filipinos/Filipino Americans, and their perceptions of themselves.  You write about Asians.  You don't cite your information properly if at all.  You repeat things found earlier in the article.  And you've been editing it for over the past two months as if it were your own personal never-ending rough draft.  You come off either like a teenager who may be interested in the general topic but is kind of just messing around, or a saboteur with a lot of time of his/her hands who is trying to drag down the quality of the article, which, whether with actual ill intent or not, is what you are doing.
 * It's a grey area, because some of your additions are related to this article's subject and some of its content, without actually being about this article's subject. It's meandering because your edits have steered it in such a direction, away from the topic of actual Pacific Islanders, and most glaringly, in a way which regarding this article's central topic seems very verbose and unfocused.
 * I'm not sure I understand exactly what you're trying to say or imply in the final sentence of your above reply, but it comes off as perhaps indignant, as if people visiting this article to find out more about "Pacific Islanders" after visiting the articles on related topics would be somekind of overbearing incovenience, and therefore a reason not to move/remove/reduce your additions. I hope I'm not the only person who would find that to be a somewhat bizarre excuse not to do so. Adrigon (talk) 04:37, 1 April 2008 (UTC)


 * There seems to be a number of reasons why this article needs to be radically re-written. Firstly, it lacks citations and references to facts. Secondly, it seems to be written from the perspective mainly of US Americans - which is strange, because the US view of other nations may not coincide with those nations opinions of themselves. Why - for example - would there be so much emphasis on Hawaii? It is not the major part of the Pacific Islands. Thirdly, this is an article about the Pacific Islanders, and should NOT be about those who consider themselves - or not - to be Asian or a Pacific Islander. The PC sensibilities of emigrants to the US do not constitute a charter to redefine nationhood. I shall start to make some edits - a radical pruning, more like - and look forward to building concensus. docboat (talk) 11:36, 1 April 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, I have pruned - removed the debate about Filipinos in Asia (irrelevant to the topic - the topic is the Pacific Islanders, and they are a clearly defined region which does NOT include the Philippines) and irrelevant US-centric data. The article now seems more focused on the topic. Comments? docboat (talk) 12:04, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Usage Dispute
Seems like whoever deleted the Usage dispute, probably took exception to why Filipinos are not considered Pacific Islander. There's tons of information as regards to why Filipinos aren't Pacific Islander and are in fact, Asian. However, the current information regarding the definition of Pacific Islander is enough and there should no longer be a need for a usage dispute. Anyone who thinks so can visit here. - Anonymous Filipino American, April 1, 2008 3:00P.M. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Skillz4Realz (talk • contribs) 22:17, 1 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, anonymous Filipino American, you yourself removed that material - again. But let it stand. You have been informed that removing talk page content is deprecated, and you seem to be a new user - perhaps not used to the norms of Wikipedia. The debate is over, I hope? The problem seemed to lie around the lack of clear definition of the area. The Philippines do not lie within that clearly defined area, so any attempt to describe Filipinos as "Pacific Islanders" is quite wrong, as you point out. Many thanks for that support. I look forward to seeing you blossom as a regular Wikipedia editor! docboat (talk) 00:30, 2 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, I never removed the "Usage Dispute". I only removed the "Unacceptable Entry" part of the talk because all the information regarding the "Usage Dispute" has been removed or added to the Pacific Islanders Wikipedia entry. So why keep the "Unacceptable entry" when the information has all been deleted and understood from both parties? Get It? It's clear how a Pacific Islander is defined. Any information regarding Filipinos should be removed, as it has been said that the discussion is not relevant to this topic. The debate is over, any debate regarding Filipinos being Pacific Islanders should not be placed on the Pacific Islander section. Anyone who feels otherwise, should discuss this in the Filipino-American discussion board. That is understood. If anyone feels otherwise, they are more than welcome to discuss that here, correct? And thank you for the welcoming Docboat. I also look forward to having any further discussions with anyone who would like to share more information regarding anything on this topic. -Anyonymous Filipino American, April 1st, 2008, 1:13P.M. — Preceding unsigned comment added by WikiXpress (talk • contribs) 00:45, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

recent revert
This article is - or should be - about Pacific Islanders, not about how American-Filipinos may, or may not, consider themselves Asian. The geographic area is clear. The Philippines does not belong there. Any discussion to the topic surely belongs on a page devoted to Filipino attitudes within the USA. docboat (talk) 10:48, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Categories of ethnicities on Standardized Testing
Why are filipinos in a different category on Standardized Testing? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.62.155.146 (talk) 00:32, 2 May 2008 (UTC)


 * This could be because of the relationship between both the U.S. and the Philippines. Remember the Philippines was once colonized by the United States of America. If it makes any difference, I have seen this mainly in California which makes sense because of the large population of Filipinos. I have also seen Chinese, Korean, Japanese, and Vietnamese receive their own ethnic categories. Remember these tests can bring scholarships and grants. In California, some of the universities have students of Asian descent that outnumber other groups. PinoyFilamPride 03:43, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Dubious statements associated with Usage of term in Australia
I have removed the previous text associated with the use of the term in Australia. They are unsupported by a citation and do not seem to be supported by the coding under Australian Standard Classification of Cultural and Ethnic Groups (ASCCEG). At the very least a citation needs to be provided for the assertions to be reinserted. --Matilda talk 02:16, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Palau
Why is Palau not included in the list at the beginning of the article? The other Caroline Islands (FS Micronesia) are included. I didn't want to edit it myself because there might be some reason which I'm missing. 80.123.210.172 (talk) 13:36, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

The map
The regions' context is missing from this map. Someone who doesn't already know that they're located in the south/southwestern Pacific would find no help from the map. Context could be provided by showing the western neighbors of the -nesias — Australia, Papua N.G., Indonesia, Philippines — at least in an inset. SamEV (talk) 12:02, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Name Ambiguity
user:150.210.231.30 has in the last days been editing this page and the Pacific Islands page. The edits are unreferenced and written so badly that I can't workout what the editor is actually trying to say. Below is his/her reply to my reversion of the edits copied from my talk page. As you can see it makes very little sense and includes a severe reluctance to add references...


 * Concerning your recent reverts in Pacific Islander, please be open to Wikipedian routines rather than asking other to add references where it's not applicable. You can refer the article Dai people: when mentioning some words in certain languages, it's usually good not to add any reference to make the article look better. Imagine if I edit the article Dai people this way: the term Dai at least within Chinese usage is an umbrella term[225] and as such has no equivalent in Tai languages[226][227][228]...[280] who have only more general terms for 'Tai peoples in general' (e.g., Tai Lue: tai˥˩[281], but this term refers to all Dai people, not including Zhuang[282]) and 'Tai people in China' (e.g., Thai: ชาวไทในจีน'[283]), both of which include the Zhuang[284][285] for example which is not the case in the Chinese[286] where [226][227][228]...[280] contain dozens of dictionaries and wordlists for every single Tai languages... Do you think this should be the way we edit Wikipedia? --150.210.231.30 (talk) 03:36, 13 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I can add some reference to depict how ancient Austronesians are similar to each other, but I do not agree your idea to refer something for every single word we write in this article. --150.210.231.30 (talk)


 * By the way you have already made two reverts in the article Pacific Islander. By WP:3RR, you can only make one more revert in that article. --150.210.231.30 (talk) 03:42, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Specifcally - the problems I see are..

"In English, the umbrella term Pacific Islands refers only to those islands covered by the political geography concept of Oceania. " is a statement that is just simply not true from my standpoint and I doubt there is a dictionary that defines Pacific Islands in this way. Which is why I asked for references.

and fortunately already deleted by another editor "Even islands in the Pacific Oceans comprised by the Austronesian nations are significant larger than the Pacific Islands; for instance, one can hardly tell the differences between an islander of Guam and an islander of other Pacific Islands." There is no such thing as Austronesian nations - austronesian is a language group showing shared origins and no more. And the "you can't tell Pacific Islanders apart" comment is simply bizarre (showing a total lack of knowledge of the subject) and essentially racist.

Andrewgprout (talk) 20:35, 13 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Thank you for addressing your concern. Unfortunately it doesn't make a few sense to me:


 * 1) As described in the article Oceania, explicitly describes that Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia are part of Geopolitical Oceania, so the Geopolitical Oceania, thus it's a well-established fact that Pacific Islands refers only to those islands covered by Geopolitical Oceania. The Islands of the Pacific Ocean in general is more consistent with the Wider Geographic Oceania as defined in the same article, though it's not limited to the islands covered by the Wider Geographic Oceania. As described in this name ambiguity section, I didn't define the Pacific Islands as those islands covered by Geopolitical Oceania but simply state the fact that those islands are covered by Geopolitical Oceania. So I don't see the reason why you're looking for a dictionary that defines Pacific Islands in this way. I'll add a reference to this claim.
 * 2) I have completely no idea why that user or you or both claim that that sentence is "essentially racist". Can you or that user show me what kind of "racism" did I commit? Was that Mongoloid supremacy or Australoid supremacy? Also I didn't see any problem with Austronesian nations. We have Indo-European nations, we have Turkic nations, we have Tai-Kadai nations, and we have Native American nations. How come that when it comes to Austronesian nations you refuse to accept it and accuse me "racist"? Who is actively practicing discrimination against certain nations here? --150.210.231.30 (talk) 00:55, 16 December 2014 (UTC)


 * Hey come on my friend the two "problems" you found are about the article Pacific Islands and has nothing to do with the name ambiguity section in Pacific Islander. Why did you put it here? --150.210.231.30 (talk) 01:16, 16 December 2014 (UTC)


 * To quote : 150.210.231.30
 * " Again please instead of using a vacant accuse of OR, point out the issue you concern in the discussion page. Be a constructive editor."
 * in relation to my deletion of the following section.
 * "Pacific Islanders form one of the several "races" officially recognized by the United States, and are closely related to the Asians who come form East Timor and Eastern Indonesia and more broadly Maritime Southeast Asia.  Originally, the Austronesians and some Papuans share similar cultures until the Spread of Islam in Southeast Asia of and the European colonization of Oceania. As with some other officially recognized race groups in the United States (See the classification of Arab, Irannian and Indian American), the term Pacific Islander at least within American usage is an umbrella term and as such has no equivalent in either Austronesian languages or Papuan languages who have only more general terms for 'hometown', 'ocean', etc. (but those terms might be applied to all islands in the Pacific Ocean, not excluding the Philippines and Indonesian) and more specific terms, for their own island(s). Therefore the word Pacific Island(er)s, like with the aforementioned White American (for Arabs and Iranians)/Asian American (for Pakistanis and Afghanistanis), is a Euro-American political concept which has now been adopted by other languages such as Fiji Hindi, Turkish and even Indonesian with English loan words (see respective Wikipedias). As a solution in corresponding indigenous languages, a transcription of English word Pacific Island(er)s may also be applied to this English concept.
 * "Although they are officially recognized as a single race by the United States, these Austronesian and Papuan people consists of both Mongoloid and Australoid races. Even in one language family, two peoples with similar culture could be from different race (e.g. see Ati and Cebuano people)."
 * And in answer
 * I'm Not sure why it matters or needs to be mentioned that the US has this ethnicity in its Census data. But if it is relevant it should probably say something like "The US census includes "Hawaiian" or "other Pacific Islander" as an ethnicity in its data". Anything more is Original Research. Please read the definition of OR' carefully picking general vague statements and then making up your own conclusions or implications of these is Original Research.  And without sensible references it is hard for anyone to verify that what is written is not OR.
 * Now the next whole bit I am still struggling with even more. Firstly when I asked for references I wanted references that actually and directly support what you are writing I am unconvinced that these reference do anything to specifically support your additions - a general webpage about tattoos in the Philippines may indicate a cultural similarity but no more.  It is not controversial, in any way, that the peoples who expanded into the pacific were from an east Asian origin [] covers this admirably.
 * If I put my big "mind reading head" on I think what all the next bit is trying to say is that a particular group of Pacific Islanders have (or probably had (my interpretation)) no word for Pacific Islanders as a whole.  This is sort of obvious and quite typical of small isolated groups.  For instance the Maori had no unified word for themselves or for the land they lived on before European contact.  The additions are completely unreferenced and wander broadly to totally unrelated topics (turkish?). This is enough to remove the additions, but also most of it makes no real sense.  Can you explain to me what this sentence means and more importantly why it relates and adds to the article and so why this should be kept.
 * "As a solution in corresponding indigenous languages, a transcription of English word Pacific Island(er)s may also be applied to this English concept." It looks to me to have been produced by some random postmodern sentence generator' !
 * Also I'm unsure about your statement about "Mongoloid and Australoid" races. I would need some convincing "Australoid" is commonly thought of as a "race" rather than a language group (Austronesian).
 * As I offered before - if I can work out what point you are trying to make and this can be supported by proper references I would be glad to reword your additions into more readable English. However it is up to you to communicate and back up your additions.
 * Thanks Andrewgprout (talk) 22:26, 25 December 2014 (UTC)


 * I don't have enough time today and will read it and write my opinion next time. However, can you tell me what English problems it has? In order to make it grammatically correct, I referred another article, which seems to be written in good English. --150.210.231.30 (talk) 00:42, 12 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Tenses not matching and incorrect subject-verb agreement were common errors. But overall, the content does not belong. The content was not encyclopedic, and you did not properly attribute the material to the sources. Also, please refer to the guidelines on reliable sources. 2600:1001:B028:9D69:E08A:280E:1579:C70B (talk) 02:38, 17 January 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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Why Nauru isn't included in micronesia
I suggest adding Nauru in the micronesian headline 2600:1702:3930:5AC0:2D4E:6BAF:9D59:9793 (talk) 01:50, 6 July 2022 (UTC)