In celebration of International Women’s Month, Leeward Community College Library hosted Gender, Tradition, and Skin: A Female Batok Practitioner’s Voice at the Waiʻanae Moku Campus, bringing together students, faculty, and community members for an afternoon centered on Indigenous knowledge, gender, and ancestral practice.
The event was a meaningful success, welcoming approximately 20 attendees who gathered to learn from guest speaker Natalia Roxas, a female batok practitioner who shared her lived experience and cultural knowledge surrounding Indigenous Filipino skin-marking traditions. Her talk highlighted batok not only as an art form, but as an intergenerational practice rooted in ancestry, lineage, and identity, also particularly powerful for Filipinos in the diaspora seeking pathways of cultural reconnection.
Across the Pacific, Indigenous tattooing traditions have long served as living archives of history, place, and belonging. Roxas’s presentation emphasized how reclaiming these practices today can forward deeper understandings of family histories and ancestral ties, especially within contemporary contexts shaped by migration and colonial disruption.
The program was spearheaded by Leon Florendo, Associate Professor and Counselor at Waiʻanae Moku, in partnership with Hauʻolihiwahiwa Moniz, Hawaiian and Pacific Resource Librarian at Leeward Library. In conjunction with the talk, the library curated and displayed a selection of books from both the Waiʻanae Moku and Puʻuloa libraries. These materials explored Filipino experiences in the diaspora, Filipino feminist theory, Indigenous Filipino tattoo practices, and Filipino culture within the broader Pacific Islander family, offering participants opportunities to further engage with the themes discussed.
Two custom magnets were also created specifically for the event. One featured historical context about Las Islas de los Pintados, referencing how early European chroniclers described the Philippines after Ferdinand Magellan’s arrival in the early 16th century, when heavily tattooed Indigenous peoples led Europeans to call the archipelago “the Islands of the Painted Ones.” The second magnet showcased a watercolor scene depicting Kahuna Kā Uhi Keliʻi Makua hand-tapping a vision, reinforcing connections between ancestral knowledge, ceremony, and practice. Informational displays also highlighted tattoo traditions across the Pacific, with specific focus on the Philippines, Hawaiʻi, and Samoa, allowing attendees to see both the distinctiveness and interconnectedness of Indigenous tattoo practices across Oceania.
Participants were also invited to enjoy halo-halo, creating space for informal conversation, reflection, and community connection. The gathering affirmed the importance of centering women’s voices, Indigenous expertise, and cultural continuity within academic and community learning spaces.
Gender, Tradition, and Skin: A Female Batok Practitioner’s Voice exemplified how libraries can serve as sites of cultural dialogue, education, and celebration, honoring the enduring connections between skin, story, ancestry, and living Indigenous knowledge.
