Co-sponsored by the NYU Native Studies Forum, the NYU Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and Asian/Pacific/American Studies Program in the NYU Department of Social & Cultural Analysis.

The year 1898 has conventionally been regarded as the American “imperial moment,” when the United States acquired and occupied a number of island nations, both in the Pacific and the Caribbean. One hundred twenty years after the Treaty of Paris, which ended the Spanish-American War, as well as the alleged annexation of Hawai‘i, what have been the legacies and ongoing effects of this “imperial archipelago”? How did the distinct but overlapping colonial practices of Spain and the United States shape social and cultural life? What has been the formal legal and political status of the Philippines, Guåhan (Guam), Cuba, Puerto Rico, Samoa, and Hawai‘i?

This half-day symposium ends with a screening of the award-winning documentary Call Her Ganda and Q&A with filmmaker PJ Raval (University of Texas, Austin). The film follows the fight for justice for Jennifer Laude, a Filipina trans woman who was murdered by a US serviceman in 2014. The screening is co-sponsored by the NYU Center for the Study of Gender & Sexuality.