If you are trying to find traces of the United States’ long and layered ties with the Pacific Islands in Washington D.C., you need to look hard. Apart from the names of iconic battles chiselled into the Washington Mall’s second world war memorial, evidence of America’s complex Pacific history stretching back to the beginning of the Republic is not there.
Until very recently, this absence was replicated throughout Washington’s institutions, where the Pacific Islands have been at the back of mind since those epic battles were fought 80 years ago.
