Coming to America...or Am I? Part 1

I'M HERE!

(Where exactly is here?) 

If we could edit each other's dreams, what would we change?

Well, that was a pretty ominous epigraph. It's making me want to write some kind of poem. 

Alright, so...I caught my first ever flight to Honolulu on a hot Friday afternoon. Sweat was in my hair, on my neck, even on my memory-deprived OPPO A3 phone. I had no time to reflect too deeply on anything. To appreciate that I was going somewhere I had never been before. I had a few moments whilst packing. I slipped my mum, dad and grandma's memorial pins into my makeup case. One can't be too sentimental when one has a big trip to the Free World coming up. 

The six hour flight from Samoa to Hawaii was by no means the longest or most stressful I have ever experienced. Remember, I endured the world's fourth longest flight (17 hours, whew!) twice in the space of, like, five days last year. But...I was still a little anxious when the cloud pockets started moving us around as we approached the Northern Pacific. One thing I immediately figured out is that there's a lot of turbulence around the Hawaiian archipelago. I would experience heaps more of it, flying out to D.C, and even leaving, towards Fiji. 

On the flight, I was seated next to one of my soon-to-be RPIL colleagues from Fiji. Ironically, she would end up being my roommate during our D.C field immersion. Life is cool like that, I reckon. Halfway through the plane ride, she asked if we could switch seats. This gave me her window seat, and I was so so soooo excited because I could now take a video of us landing in Hawaii. The beautiful ocean, The tops of palm trees. The...people. 

Ah, but all dreams must die. Mine did, quickly and quite hilariously. As we touched down in Honolulu, it was drizzling, the turbulence had made us tired, and...I could not see a THING! Just, nil. There were the usual orangey-red lights on the wings of the airplane as we descended, and I could just about make out the shapes of buildings in the nighttime haze. But that was it! I'm ashamed to admit (but I have to- won't learn if I don't) that I had for so, SO long ascribed to the colonizer's gaze. You know, Pina Coladas and alo'a shirts...It's pretty stupid, really. I'm Samoan, for heaven's sake. We have so many of the same darn problems. In the first week of our fellowship, we learned that any person from a colony or former colony inherits a colonial legacy. That often includes the colonizer's worldview, wherein native people are "subjects and objects" (a former boss of mine once gave us that wording as she tried to describe this phenomenon). We allow ourselves to be subjected and objectified, before (sometimes unknowingly) subjecting other indigenous people to this brand of objectification. 

Very quickly, I established that neither Hawaii nor this fellowship was here to play. Someone once wrote that when she was getting her malu tattoo, she wanted to look at the tufuga before the actual process started. She wanted to ascertain that he meant her "pain". That he was going to test her physical endurance and mental fortitude. I took one look at the graffiti in the last tunnel we passed through as we drove to Manoa Valley, and knew that this place and its people had weathered centuries of pain and suffering. I knew I would not leave here without having seen and felt it too, even in the smallest possible measure. 

New Year, New...Hair?

"I Got My Hair Straightened", and other Ways to Say the Media Wins This Round

CONTENT/ TRIGGER WARNING: Mentions of racism, colonialism, sexism and mental health issues 

"I am not your expectations."- India Arie

Well, it's 2024! 

Five days into the new year and I am thinking about new beginnings. A new beginning can be as vague and non-dramatic as changing your usual alarm time from 6:40am to 6:45am. Or, in my case, it can be as chemically charged and appearance-altering as permanently straightening your signature long, frizzy, thick hair. Yes. I am that overly concerned person when it comes to my hair, skin, clothes and really anything that is part of-or comes in direct contact with- my body. Someone once told me flesh is a prison, and we are all prisoners. If that's true, I want to decorate my cell with things that make me feel good. Or at least, make me feel less bad. The world is a negative enough place already. Call me vain or conceited, but human bodies are politicized structures and spaces. This is particularly true of human cis-gendered female bodies of colour. We are politicized from the moment we are born. As a person who, since birth, has ticked 'yes!' to several of these so-called 'minority' criterions, I think about my physicality a hell of a lot. How can I not. We are reminded, every day of our lives, even in the most subtle ways, that we are 'other' and 'alternative'. Never the default. 'Political' is only an umbrella term. There are subsections to this 'otherness'. Colonialism, imperialism, colourism, classism, sexism (specifically, misogyny). 

Why did I straighten my hair? To make it more manageable. A simple enough reason. To me, a good enough one. And yet, as with most things in our communal Pacific societies, I had to answer a few questions from people who wanted to know whether my decision was a 'statement'. And by that, some of them meant to ask, have I given up 'the fight'? The fight, of course, is the 'resistance' that our region must put up in order to continue decolonizing our minds, bodies and natural environments. It is not unlike the resistance that formerly colonized peoples of colour everywhere have had to put up, and continue putting up, even decades after the end of political colonization. For women of colour who have textured hair, keeping that hair in its natural state is often regarded as an important part of resistance. We are, after all, resisting the editing, whitewashing and otherwise 'altering' of us into anglicized forms that comply with the dominant majority's perceptions of beauty and worthiness. 

I don't consider the questions about my 'new' hair to be nosy, or overly inquisitive. I welcome them. They give me a chance to do something that I have always felt should also be an important part of 'the fight'- to speak FOR MYSELF, AS MYSELF. It is my belief that the constant over- homogenization of entire, distinct racial and ethnic groups drowns out the voices of the individual HUMAN BEINGS within them. It is yet another colonial ploy to keep us small and voiceless. We will never win that way. 

And so...this is my answer. I 'changed' my hair because I wanted to. Because I'm busy and don't have three hours every morning to comb and brush and moisturize and wash and dry and gel and style my hair. I have less migraines now that my hair is lighter, and I don't have to go around everyday with so much moisture (conditioner AND shampoo) on my head. My hair smelled bad (fact!) and often felt bad too. I made a decision that gave me an easier, happier, less expensive life. It is MY decision, for my body, and it has served me the way I had hoped it would. If THAT is not resistance, I don't know what is. 

What's In a Name?

I AM VASHTI

"But the queen Vashti refused to come at the king's commandment by the eunuchs. Therefore the king was very angry."- Esther 1:12

Who are you named after? 

In Samoa, names are super important. And we don't necessarily get named after important people. A lot of folks I know are named after places, months of the year, body parts, numbers, weather patterns, colours (not just the traditional ones like Brown and White), and even movies! I actually once met someone called 'RoseTitanic'. We, as a people, are super invested in the stories (and details!) that catch our attention and impact us deeply. Names are a crucial part of the fabric that makes up Samoan (and Polynesian) society. We are, first and foremost, story-tellers. Words are of the essence. Your name has to be a word that means something, and that shows the way back to where you come from as well as forward, to where you're going. 

I've listened to many debates about names before a child is born. My gosh, I've even heard people argue over prospective children's names mid-way the wedding planning process. I know of many people, even those in my age group (mid-20s) who still choose to go the traditional Samoan route and give an eldest child a name from the father's side of the family. Whatever people choose, one thing's for sure: In Samoa, it's not our custom to give a child a name 'just because'. Your whole fa'asinomaga*, or the whole history of your parents' or grandparents' love story, usually has to be in there somewhere. 

I've heard it said, even, that a name can either be a curse or a blessing. I don't believe that, but I do find it interesting. They say people often become what you treat them like, or what you say they are. Super fascinating that sometimes it is possible to trace 'failure' and 'success' back to the most common thing we get called every day: our names. 

My paternal grandmother, Vasati Ulaula La'ulu-Tafuna'i, was born on May 12, 1939. This was twenty-two years before Samoa gained independence from the British Empire, and only twenty-one years after the deadly Influenza Epidemic. It killed at least twenty percent of Samoa's population. When my grandmother was born, Samoa was right in the middle of its independence struggle, and Eurocentric values as well as customs had infiltrated almost all spheres of life. Christianity, with its long dresses and even longer prayers, was the staple religion by then. Christian names were the norm for children born in those years. And not just any Christian names. If you were born into a God-fearing family, you would be given the name of a brave hero or an exceptionally obedient heroine. Think Joseph (Iosefa), Miriam (Miriama), Moses (Mose) or Esther (Eseta). For reasons I still don't know, my great-grandmother gave her eldest daughter the name Vasati. Translated, it is 'Vashti', the name of the defiant Persian queen whose disobedience cost her her marriage, her family, her home and her reputation. 

My great-grandmother was a pastry chef at one of the early Chinese eateries in Apia (Fong's, I believe it was called.) In many ways, she was a woman swimming against a stubborn tide. 

Smack-dab in the middle of colonial Samoa, at a crux between two major value systems, Leoi Baice did what women all around the world were still being discouraged from doing in the 1910s and 20s: she had a career. She is one of many strong Samoan women of that era who dared to dream, and dared to live those dreams to the fullest. Whether this influenced her to name her daughter Vasati, instead of Eseta, I will never know for certain. But I do know that my grandmother lived up to her name, and that I wouldn't be where I am today if she didn't.

Vasati had fourteen children, all of whom she raised and put through school despite various seasons of widowhood and divorce. She worked no less than three jobs at a time, beginning when she was a teenager (1940s) and only retiring a few years before I was born (1990s). Vasati's ultimate dream was to become a playwright, musician and actress. She wrote stories and songs which only ever got performed for the missionaries and people of her village. She learned to read and write in English, the colonial language, and made many friends, both Samoan and non-Samoan. One of her best friends was a German woman named Moola, who became like a sister to her. My grandmother never talked herself down, or displayed self-depreciating behavior in the presence of non-Samoans. She believed she was just as good as any woman OR man, black or white. She dared to think that. That all people were created equal. 

Whenever I hear the name 'Vashti', in Bible study or on television, I remember a story my grandmother told me when I was a kid:

"I was working at a guest house- reception, housekeeping and that sort of thing. It was just a few years after Samoa became independent, so there were still many rules in place. Tourists and locals alike had to abide by them if they stayed at our guest house. No cursing, no littering, no public nudity or inappropriate behavior or words. We were trying to balance things between fa'aSamoa and also Christian teachings. Be respectful to everyone, you know? Well, one night, these fine European gentlemen came in. They bought some beers and sat together chatting for a while. At first, everything was fine. Then, towards midnight, they started talking very loud and saying some very silly things. It was mainly us girls on duty and you imagine it- three or four Samoan girls and a whole lot of drunk men. My colleagues felt so nervous, especially because the men were breaking the rules of our guest house. I asked them what we should do and they said, 'just leave it. They're white. They'll make a fuss and get us kicked out of work.' I wasn't going to just leave it, though. I went and asked them nicely to please make their way to their rooms if they weren't going to order any more beers. They did go. But they didn't go to sleep. No! They went to the showers, threw their used towels all around the hallway, went into one room, and continued making noise. They acted like they owned the place, and our manager had already gone home for the night. I went straight to that room, carrying their wet towels, banged my fist on the door, and called them to open up. They were so shocked. I threw their towels right at them, and threw my big cleaning broom in too, then told those boys: "you better fold your towels and put everything away before the manager comes in at 6am tomorrow. Then, pack all your bags and leave. And there's the broom- sweep your room before you go." 

Yeah, my jaw was on the floor too, hearing that story. That's not even the end, though. She told me, "they packed their little suitcases faster than I've ever seen anyone pack anything away, threw all the bed-covers into neat piles, tossed their towels in the laundry area and rushed out. It took less than an hour. I've never seen grown men rush away like that before. But they left. And the floor was spotless too."

Whenever I hear the name Vashti, I think of independence. I think of being a strong woman in a dis-empowering world. I think of reclaiming ME, the way my country reclaimed itself in 1962. First in the Pacific to be independent, my Samoa. 

Esther is a beautiful name. My grandfather's mother was named 'Eseta'. Esther is courage, gentleness, and sacrifice. But Esther is also a figure that is weaponized by patriarchal narratives. She is used, and misused, against the demonized 'other' figure of Vashti. And yet, both are important. Vashti's refusal to be put on display like an object ushered in the era of Esther, without whom the people of Israel would not have been saved. In a world where docility and passiveness are idolized as 'feminine', sometimes, you have to dare to live outside the mould. In a world of Esthers, sometimes you have to be a Vashti. 

My grandmother, Vasati, in her late 30s, I believe.  

*fa'asinomaga: traditional heritage (a combination of your genetic ancestry, villages/districts of origin, and titles/ social privileges associated therewith)