Celebrating ‘Afakasi Identity for Pasifika Youth in Lani Wendt Young’s Telesā Universe

Abstract This chapter examines negotiations of Pasifika (i.e., peoples Indigenous to Oceania, but often living in diaspora) youth identity in Lani Wendt Young’s Telesā universe. Across the novels, Young layers characters, settings, and contemporary issues that underscore the complex negotiations Pasifika youth must undertake in order to establish new cultural identities in colonized and globalized contexts that establish what Albert Wendt (1976) calls a “New Oceania” that is “free from the taint of colonialism” (p. 76). Analyzing Young’s work through an Indigenous framework based on an expansion of the Samoan concept of ‘afakasi, or mixed race, can account for the complex negotiation of Indigenous and Western influence on youth identity formation. Young’s normalization and celebration of contemporary Pasifika youth culture expands the greater field of Pacific literature by establishing a compelling subfield of young adult (YA) literature that is both culturally and politically relevant as well as physically accessible to new readerships throughout the Pacific diaspora.