Being the only one: exploring tokenism, marginalization, and resilience among native Hawaiian STEM students

Abstract In science and STEM education, silence is often misread as disengagement. For many Native Hawaiian students, however, silence can be a deliberate act—one of protection, discernment, and cultural survivance. Drawing on narrative inquiry and Indigenous methodological sensibilities, this research examines how ten Native Hawaiian students navigate academic spaces structured around Western epistemologies. Through the concept of strategic withholding , the findings illuminate how participants withhold aspects of identity or knowledge not out of reluctance, but as a form of epistemic agency. Three themes: Staying Quiet to Stay In , Seen but Not Understood , and Carrying Two Worlds. These themes reveal how participants resist tokenization, preserve cultural integrity, and create space for multiple ways of knowing. These narratives challenge symbolic inclusion and call for structural transformation in science education, particularly in a political moment when DEI commitments are under threat. Supporting Indigenous students requires more than access. It demands a reimagining of what counts as knowledge and whose voices are valued.