Am I like a Samoan? Besides professional wrestling, I had never met or seen a Samoan person until I was in sixth grade. Seeing men like the Rock and Rikishi wrestler), or various other members of the Anoa’i Family, caused me to believe that all Samoans had larger than...
Every year on March 26 in the State of Hawaii we celebrate the birthday of Prince Kuhio. But who are we celebrating? He was known as a fascinating, internationally educated, charming, passionate man who spent the majority of his life serving his people – who he...
My oldest grandson is a mix of a lot of ethnicities–he is, on one half–Maori, Tongan, Hawaiian, Chinese, Samoan with traces of Fijian and on the other half a European mix from Norway to the Netherlands. His name reflects this mixture, influenced by his...
Discovery in that, I find I am woefully ignorant of what makes up Polynesia. Polynesian Triangle? Check. Six largest cultures? Hawaii, Tonga, Samoa, Maori, Tahiti and Fiji. Check. And then there are the Cook Islands, Easter Island, Kiribas, Niue, Tuvalu and Pitcairn...
That’s me – afatasi, a Samoan word describing someone who is part Samoan and part something else. It literally means half of one. My grandmother comes from the village of Nu’uuli on the island of Tutuila in American Samoa. Here at the Polynesian...
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