Just another Pasifika poet

I am just another Pasifika poet

a token, a sound bite

No matter what I write

my words cannot stand

on their own

because I am not quite white.

I am just another Pasifika poet

so I must speak in iambic pentameter

    or you will conclude

I don’t know what that is

and I learnt my craft on youtube

You will say I must be copying Def Poetry Jam

Because you know

We are

both brown.

You

who have never heard the beauty

of a tulafale’s words

unfurling in full flight

   dipping and soaring

on wings of light

                      the sound of a gafa

melodious and sweet

                                                and deep

a dangerous lullaby

that can rip you apart with its teeth

and

you

who

would not understand

anyway

you say

I am just another Pasifika poet

On a search for identity

As if I don’t know

my entire geneaology

you say I am obsessed with the other

because I do not talk about you

as if Aotearoa is not part of the Pacific

and Pasifika

does not belong here too

and the most disturbing thing is

you didn’t even

seem

to realize

that what you were saying was offensive

or how it was a stereotype

you truly seemed to believe

you 

were

reporting

facts.

because you are

palagi

(I assume…

like you did)

and your words

stand

on their own.



and I

I 

am

just another 
Pasifika poet

No matter what I write

My words cannot stand

on their own

Because I am not quite white
and this

this

is just another sound bite


I hope it rips you apart

with its teeth.

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Author's postscript:  I was not going to dignify an 'article' that was published in The Big Idea with a response.  I went instead to SUP and performed a couple of the poems (Denial and A Lament -that are already up on this blog) in solidarity.  But it was not enough.  Too often we look the other way.  As evident by the title of this blog-  I normally live in Sydney.  I have lived in Australia for more than 10 years now.  As an Australian (as well as a Samoan and a New Zealander) I own that Australia has issues with racism.  Popular culture tell us that New Zealand is more accepting, a place that truly embraces its Pacific heritage.  I was looking forward to this change during my 'gap year' (as I am referring to it so I can sound youthful like that). So I have been somewhat shocked that New Zealand hasn't quite been the utopia of multi-cultural respect that I fondly recalled.  I can honestly say that I have had moments since arriving in Auckland where I have listened to people speak, or read an article such as this one, and thought that I have never felt more brown.  This is my response.

Fire, Feagaiga and Feminism*

…Or why this white looking wanderer went home to get her malu

I was really excited when I was first asked to speak about my malu.... 

My very first thought was- I wonder if I can pretend that THOSE are MY legs.  But I think even liberal references to photoshopping wouldn’t work- damn you reality! I really really really want legs like Stacie!

My second thought was about how very personal this discussion would be.  While in Western society- the question ‘who are you’ is a chance to delve into deep philosophical questions about our humanity, the equivalent question in Samoan, ‘o ai oe’ can be a deep insult and a challenge.  Because we are all supposed to know anyone who is anyone, and all of their ancestors, way, way, way back to Tagaloa.  Speaking about my malu, will answer that question, which in Samoa can be so taboo to ask- it will tell you who I am.

When I was 16 I wanted a malu. I didn’t think they were particularly beautiful (probably because I didn’t have legs like Stacie). But (like every Samoan) I was well aware of my bloodlines and felt it was my birthright.  My parents thought I would feel differently when I got older.  They said 'ah but you want to be a lawyer and that is a very conservative profession’. My mum worried about how it might affect my ability to wear minis and my dad warned me about the gang affiliations of tattoos in the West. Of course I obeyed- in Samoa we don’t rebel- we just get musu (this is where you are rebelling quietly to yourself so you don’t feel that salu lima).

So over a decade later, when I was living in Australia, working in that conservative profession and occasionally flaunting my vae taamu (for the palagis, I just compared my legs to a particularly thick root crop), when my cousins called to tell me they were having their tatau done, despite not having any money or holiday time, I was on the very next plane to Samoa.

Why was I so eager to feel the bite of the 'au? Especially given the pain is legendary and it leaves you with bruises like these.

Perhaps it was because even after all this time overseas, I realised that it was the values of my culture ingrained so deeply in me, that had empowered and enabled me to succeed so far from the shores of Samoa.

The Samoan culture I grew up with is fiery. There is a passion and a power in excelling and in being the best.  This was always expected of me. Particularly academically.  The way you achieved reflected not only on you, but on your entire family. Some of you may not know this but Samoans are well known, especially across the Pacific for being just a bit arrogant.  I think that is because the pride we take in ourselves is not individual, it is pride in who we are as a collective, as part of a family, as a reflection of something much bigger than ourselves.

The  culture I grew up with was feminist.  It was the type of feminism that didn’t name or declare itself loudly- it just was.  Both men and women can become matai or chiefs.  And we treat in-laws who stay with the family- nofo tane and fai ava- with equal disdain whether they are men or women. In my own family, my Grandma ruled supreme.  She didn’t need an iron fist- she had razor intellect and was known to promptly put anyone in their place (though since I never saw anyone actually disagree with her- I never actually witnessed that. In Samoan culture, people take the first name of their father as their last name- this makes it easier to ‘tala le gafa’ or tell genealogies.  My father took his mother's and his father's first names.  It wasn’t a statement- it was just who he was.  I was brought up believing that I could do anything that my brothers could- though I did feign female weakness when it came to taking out the rubbish.

I always felt my culture valued me as a  woman. This was encapsulated in the concept of feagaiga- the sacred relationship between a brother and sister.  In Samoan we say- 'o le tuafafine o le ioimata o lana tuagage'- a sister is the very pupil of her brother’s eye- she is the centre of his being.  It is my brother’s duty to protect and look after me, it is my duty to guide them.  In the distribution of gifts and titles, mine will be the final say among my brothers, as my grandma’s was the final say among hers. A sister has traditional spiritual power. It is this most special of relationships that is signified by the stars of the malu.  It signifies that a sister is a guiding light to navigate by.  And woe be to the brother who invokes his sisters curse- you’ve read about telesa powers so you might be able to imagine….

All over the world I have been stopped in the street and asked about the symbolism of my malu.  I  am proud to explain how the vaeali- the feet of the head rest- symbolise that it is on the service of the untitled that the chiefs heads rest.  That the pattern with the intersecting lines represents the intersection between the matai- the chiefs, the aumaga- the untitled mens group and the aualuma, the young womens group led by the taupou.  That the aveau, the starfish represents aiga, family and the central role that family plays in our culture.  And that the malu itself, the centre of the entire design, the diamond, represents being protected and to protect.  That a woman is the protecter of bloodlines and of knowledge and the bearer of children.

So while 16 year old me wanted a malu, I’m glad I waited till I was 27- till I could reflect on what my malu really meant to me. It is more than a birthright, for me it signifies my culture and all of its fire, feagaiga, and feminism.

Faafetai, faafetai tele lava

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*I was very grateful to the amazing Lani Wendt-Young and Griffith University (the lovely Glenda Stanley) for inviting me to speak for 5 minutes at the Brisbane launch of 'The Bone Bearer' about my journey in getting the malu. The above are the short speaking notes for the presentation I gave. 

While these notes are about my journey with my malu, I want to write a short postscript about Lani's journey.  One of the things I have really admired most about her journey is how all along it, Lani has encouraged and empowered so many other people.  While writing her books, I have watched from afar as she has encouraged artists, photographers, models, dancers, poets, comedians (take a bow fabulously funny Gau Siaki) and fellow bloggers and writers.   In turn, all these myriad of people have supported Lani. It has been a real lesson in the power of positivity. It has been my great privilege to be one of those people to have been encouraged by Lani, and to have been able to give back in this smallest of ways.

Denial

They say diabetes is a silent killer
a thief in the night
that creeps up to you like a moetolo
embracing you against your will 

but I saw him coming
in the WTO siusiu pipi and mamoe
and 5 cans of coke I had
before lunch

I saw him coming
but in my Samoan pride
I scoffed.

laughed like it was a fale aitu

and said

aga ou te le fefe i le oti.

They say diabetes is a silent killer
so we don't say much about him
as we shovel suka into our koko alaisa
and sneak off to shove a needle in our stomach

and when he strikes
and takes my eyes
                      my teeth
                               my legs

I will say

the Lord works in mysterious ways

and be praised

for my faith.

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Postnote
I don't have diabetes. Yet.  But when I hit 99kg I knew I was staring at it, and a whole lot of other heath problems, down a barrel. 99kg is severely obese for someone who is 5'6.  And no amount of telling everyone, especially myself believing that I have 'big bones' or that the BMI is different for Polynesians is going to change that.

Sia Figel's bravery in speaking out about her very personal struggle with diabetes showed me how we all have to speak out and own that our health statistics are a tragedy. It also showed me that I have to take action to not be one of them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HXVx-4HeIc

Sia was brave enough to put this harrowing and very personal video on youtube, to show us her very roots, literally.  I watched it.... right through. Because if some is brave enough to share this sh@#, to say 'F%#$ pride, this my friends, is diabetes, take a good hard look', I will honour that, by watching it right through. I hope you will too.

An unshakeable sense of self

"Life in plastic, it's fantastic"

Is there anything more powerful than a parent's love? I remember reading Lemalu Tate Simi's seminal poem "Identity"* when I was in school. Even then, well before I had imagined what it would be like to have a child, to have someone hold my whole heart in his chubby little hands, to lie in the dark, listening to his breath heavy with sleep, and hope for everything for him, even then, one of the things that touched me most about Lemalu's poem, was that it was written for his eldest son. That poem captures a parent's love and the prayers and plans we make for our children. 

Perhaps I recognised in those poignant words, a reflection of my own parents love, and what they strove to give me.

My parent's chose to bring me and my brothers up in the bosom of my family and fa'asamoa. Yes the full fa'asamoa. The 'leave-you-very-lucky-to-eat-elegi-because-we-have-to-give-every-sene-for-your-father's-great-uncle's-cousin's-step-son's-saofai-and-smile'fa'asamoa. The 'you-better-be-paying-attention-because-we-all-automatically-assume-you-were-born-knowing-how-to-ta'i-sua-and-fai-folafolaga' fa'asamoa. The fa’asamoa that emphasises the fegaiga between brothers and their sisters, and brings families together. The faasamoa that we all know and love to whinge about because it's a way of life, a way to look at life, and an integral part of who we are.

I say "chose" because by the time I was born, my dad had almost finished his PhD, and my mum was one paper away from finishing her Masters, so they both had options and opportunities overseas. Instead they went back to the struggle that living in Samoa can be. I have always been unbelievably grateful for that decision. Particularly to my palagi mother, who left her friends, family and her country, to raise me in mine.

So I don't say 'even with', but rather because I had a palagi mum, who loved me and wanted me to have a strong sense of identity, and who sacrificed so we could grow up in Samoa (and because I had a Samoan father stubborn about serving his country, and a close and loving aiga who never treated us differently), I grew up never thinking of myself as anything but Samoan.  I have read many touching stories about Samoans searching for identity.  I was not one of them. I have never struggled with who I was or where I came from. I know how fortunate that makes me.

But I also know it doesn't make me any better than people whose parents chose another path, who moved overseas, so often motivated by that very same love. Samoans whose parents or grandparents often worked in factories and freezing works, hard and heavy work, but welcome because it was a way of securing good schooling, of seeking opportunities, and of forging a future for their children.  The legacy of those parents' love, those parents' choices, those parents' sacrifices should never be undermined by pejorative remarks that their progeny is "plastic" or "too palagi".

That kind of prejudice within our own society perplexes me.  I remember when I first went back to work in Samoa I was somewhat surprised when a lawyer I knew said she wanted to be the first Samoan woman to be Attorney-General. Now obviously that ambition, in and of itself, wasn't surprising.  Rather what shocked me was that she somehow didn't think that that  particular milestone had already been achieved. Particularly because, at the time, we had a Samoan woman as Attorney-General.  I voiced my puzzlement.

“No, I mean a real Samoan, you know, from Samoa”

I didn't know. Was the AG at the time, a "fake" Samoan? Was her "palagi-ness" going to pop out at any second and surprise us? Or was it rather, that having nothing of substance to use to undermine her with, she turned to bigotry and bias to try to belittle this brilliant colleague.

I still don't know why we differentiate and discriminate amongst ourselves the way we do.  It saddens me, and it is not just against Samoans who live or grow up overseas.  Oh no, there are so many more levels.

 I remember being honestly confused when I was in school and someone said “We better get to Apia Park early… you know how those Samoans are”.

I questioned, “What are you talking about? We’re all Samoan”

There was a rolling of eyes. “Oh you know what I mean! Samoan Samoans! Like from the village!”

“Hmmm… I find that offensive. I’m Samoan, my father’s Samoan, my family is Samoan and I’m from a village, several actually”

More rolling of eyes “Se don't be a drama queen; I didn’t mean it like that”. There seemed to be general agreement that I was ruining a perfectly pleasant day by pointing out the prejudice.

I didn't escape this type of silliness on leaving school, or on leaving Samoa. Years later when I went to University in Auckland, a friend who was also on scholarship from Samoa, cajoled and convinced me into going to an Asosi meeting with her. "It will be sooooo  fuuuuun." Her  wheedling won but we weren’t exactly welcomed.  While it was a Samoan Asosi, it seemed like we were just a little too…. wait for it…Samoan. Our fabulous fresh-off-the-boatness was just obviously not for everybody. “Don’t worry” said one of my Samoan law school buddies sympathetically, “Didn’t you know you’re not allowed in that Asosi if you’re less than a size 18”.  Though he was perpetuating the stereotypes I'm now railing against for my amusement, I have to admit at the time... I laughed.

I could tell many more such stories- more recent and each more ridiculous than the next- and I'm sure every other Samoan could too- but I only recount enough to reflect the cross-section of prejudices that we subject ourselves to within our own society. Whether it's because you're "too white" as Leilani Tamu recounts in her opinion piece "White, but not quite" or "too Samoan", or for whatever reason, it's really just such a waste of time. We should be better than that. Isn't that what we should really want for our children? A strong enough sense of identity they don't feel the need to stereotype and stigmatise.

Now that I am a parent myself, I plan and pray about what is best for my child.  My son is Samoan, lo'u toto, ma lo'u ivi (oh, and that's right, and his dad is Samoan too, that may have something to do with it...). While I know that I don't need a salu lima, or to raise my son in Salailua to show he is Samoan, a large part of me still longs to give him the childhood I had. Surrounded by warmth and beauty, family and faikakalas.  I, like all parents, worry about whether we are making the right choices.  I suppose at the end of the day, whether we are in Sydney or in Samoa, I just want to give him what my parents gave me- an unshakeable sense of self.



*Identity
by Lemalu Tate Simi

Educate yourself enough
So you may understand
The ways of other people
But not too much
That you may lose
Your understanding
Of your own
Try things palagi
Not so you may become palagi
But so may see the value
Of things Samoan
Learn to speak Samoan
not so you may sound Samoan
but so you may
feel the essence
of being Samoan
Above all
Be aware and proud
Of what you are
So you may spare yourself
The agony of those who are asking
“What am I ? “