The Long Struggle: Alika Bourgette Studies Native Hawaiian History

Alika Bourgette, assistant professor of History, is a native Hawaiian (Kanaka Maoli) with genealogical ties to the Waiʻanae Coast. Having spent his entire life between Hawaii, California and Washington state, Bourgette's move to Durham marks his first experience living on the East Coast. 

Bourgette’s research focuses on twentieth century Native Hawaiian history and the long struggle for land and water justice along the urbanized Honolulu waterfront.  

When he was younger, Bourgette would travel back and forth by bus to see a visiting uncle at The Royal Hawaiian Hotel in Waikiki. Bourgette learned the bus routes and developed a mental map of what he thought he knew about the area. Later, through investigations of his own, he discovered that before the Waikīkī was a hotel district, it was a native Hawaiian community with vibrant aquaculture, fishing and farming. 

The more he learned, the more invested he became in the history of the Honolulu waterfront and the adjacent neighborhood, Kakaʻako. 

“I started researching the ways that fishing, farming, schools, teaching, midwifery and mothering brought the community together against efforts to remove us to prison institutions and schools. I looked at the ways that generations of Native Hawaiians worked together to keep the community intact.”  

Bourgette’s research documents Indigenous history and resilience against institutionalization and colonization. His research in Native American and Indigenous studies encompasses themes of environmental justice, gender and sexuality and labor rights. He is the fourth scholar hired at Duke as part of a sustained, multiyear commitment by the Trinity College of Arts & Sciences to increase the expertise in and representation of Native, Indigenous and First Nations people of the Americas studies across core departments.  

This fall, Bourgette is encouraging Duke students to connect their personal experiences with Indigenous narratives in a new Trinity course being taught for the first time, Indigenous Storytelling and Histories of Place, offered as part of the first-year Constellation: What is the Cosmos?.  

Bourgette is excited about the interdisciplinary nature of the Arts & Sciences Curriculum and its potential for creative projects.  

“I’m guiding my students through Native storytelling from the point of view of nonfiction written by native folks — essays, artwork, short stories, poetry — and coupling that with what I call ‘creative engagements’ of their own,” Bourgette explained.   

“In one writing craft lesson, I ask students to think of a place that’s sacred to them. What does it sound like? What does it smell like? What does it feel like? Tell me everything about it, except what it looks like. I'm encouraging students to link their own past and connections to place with indigenous stories that we're reading in class that are very place-based. It allows them to realize that they, too, have a deep connection to the places that they're from and a reason to care about and protect them.”  

Bourgette’s research also extends to the canoe movement and its culture. He participates regularly in Tribal Canoe Journeys in the Salish Sea with the Shellhouse (č̓away̓alt) Carvers’ Camp Canoe Families and intends to further explore Indigenous canoe movements across the Pacific Basin as part of an ongoing project.