For real, though. I’ve seen it here in Wellington, up in Auckland, and even in Brisbane, Australia. One time, my dad and I were at a bookshop and someone was giving out pamphlets. She asked us where we were from, and as soon as we said “Samoa” she was like, “Oh you don’t need one of these! You’re Christians. You people are so committed, it’s amazing. All your choirs and singing and music…” (girl, they’re the same freaking thing, ehka!).

She didn’t ask us. I feel like this colonial imposition of creeds, of ideals, of lifestyles, is still a predominant feature of (some) mainstream and non-mainstream interactions. Some, and not all. The thing is, it shouldn’t even be as much as “some” anymore. In a post-colonial world, some is A LOT!

I mean, dear person whose name I didn’t get, I can actually be brown and not be in the front pew every Sunday. And Pasifika people aren’t simply religious by default. To be religious is a choice. To not be religious is a choice. To have choice is a right. I want to sing in the choir and serve lunch at the pastor’s house after lotu because I choose to, not because some (outdated) colonial “go to church” standard expects me to.

One thing university has helped me stop saying is “should” — unless it’s in the context of “you should think for yourself.”

You really should.

I came here on my parents’ prayers And thousands in aid for air fares To the land of condescending stares / As I hid beneath the arch of the tatau

I came here to watch the blood in Hau’ofa’s kava bowl Flow like oratory; swirl and roll Leap and rave without control / From the lines that are my veins

I came here to wear my skin And the scars of where my ancestors have been That toss, and turn and stir within / To remember their names

I came here to be the woman in Makini’s dreams Even as my bilum dress is tearing at the seams Snipped at by labels and a lack of financial means / To be the daughter my ancestors suffered for

I came here to burn with the flame Teaiwa lit The day I learned exactly where I fit Like signet: each fibre, every bit / To be, and keep on being

I came here with the courage my people bequeathed to me I grew into this soil like the roots of a tree I am still here

And

I

AM

FREE.

— J. W. Collier (1853-1932), New Zealand-Australian Wesleyan Missionary to Samoa

I was in a taxi on my way to Willis Street a few months ago, when I first realised that I didn’t know what the word “representation” actually meant… or who it was actually “for”. The driver asked me where I was from. I told her I was Samoan, and she then asked me (with a laugh), “are you related to Sol3 Mio?” I thought, really? You’re going to take that (quite necessary) island tradition of asking about families and lineage for the purposes of identification and community, and turn it into a joke?! I mean, who the heck wouldn’t want to be related to their favorite opera singers but… only SAMOANS can ask me that! But of course, my Samoan manners kicked in, and I didn’t say any of that to her (way to fight for your rights, Jas!). She then asked me if I’d been to any of their concerts, and, very specifically, when they will be home. I answered, “They came home last year,” remembering their performance in Samoa over the Christmas period. I remembered them coming home, to Apia. But she asked again. “Are you sure they were home?” I was damn sure. I saw them there. I realised that she and I were referring to two completely different homes.

As a New Zealander, she said, she was proud of Sol3 Mio, and thought they were a fine representation of her and her country on a global platform. Meanwhile I, as a (very) proud Samoan, had always claimed them as a representation of me. I’d never given any thought to the fact that they might be seen by some as people who represent New Zealand. I knew they’d grown up in Auckland, but they always said they were Samoan at their shows, on social media, and basically everywhere they seemed to go. I felt that they were mine. Their art was mine. All the positive feedback they got was breaking stereotypes of me.

That same day, I asked myself: can they, as ethnically Polynesian, non-Māori entertainers, represent New Zealand? And since when was “white New Zealand” proud of us, and wanting us to “come home” to “their” space? We often ask if white people can represent us, but can we represent them? Do white people react better to us “representing them” than we do to them representing us?

That’s what the debate about representation is about, for me. Did I ever find the answers to those questions? Nah. There are no two-plus-two-equals-four answers, just more questions that keep adding on. I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, though. I believe that, in asking questions, even “silly” ones, we can do something better than finding immediate answers: we can develop better questions.

*

Australian comedian Chris Lilley’s Jonah from Tonga was taken off Māori Television after airing just one episode in July. I watched several interviews with Tongans, Samoans, Tokelauans, and other Polynesians who were on different sides of the spectrum about it. Some were saying “he’s really funny! I don’t mind it at all.” Others, quite a few others, called Lilley a “stupid fucking racist Australian in brownface” (hello, comments section!). Is Jonah from Tonga racist, though? I know, that’s a dangerous (hate mail-inspiring) question to ask right now, especially if you’re Polynesian. But I need to ask it, to myself, more than anyone else. I ask it because I feel that a lot of the time when we ask “is Jonah from Tonga racist,” we are really asking, “does a white Australian middle class male with a major media platform, in a society full of ethnic and racial tensions, have the right to represent underprivileged Polynesian non-citizens (and recent immigrants) against whom the ‘system’ is prejudiced and of which its opinions are hardly ever high?” That’s what I mean by better questions.

For me, personally, the way Polynesian males are represented is a much bigger problem than the fact that they are being represented in this particular genre. This question was easier for me to answer than the one about Sol3 Mio. Mainstream (white) society can — and does — have Polynesian characters in its films, books, and whatnot (hey, Shortland Street). The problem with Lilley’s representation is that we have a white guy, who’s never been stared at suspiciously in a store or at an airport, wearing a fake tan and mimicking a certain accent that Polynesians are “supposed” to have. A lot of his fans have said that he’s “not trying to be Polynesian or represent Polynesia.” That may well be true. But the thing is, whether or not he means to represent us, his “Polynesian hair” wig and darkened skin do provide a representation of us. Jonah is a “Polynesian” character. He has to be based on something. Chris Lilley makes himself a type of representative of us, even if he doesn’t necessarily want to be.

Polynesian society is community-based. We are defined by who our parents and grandparents are. The sense of “my” is very strong, and is definitely why I was so quick to use it on Sol3 Mio. Many Polynesians who don’t appreciate Lilley’s satire watch Jonah from Tonga thinking, “My father is not like that! My brothers are not like that! My uncles are not like that! My grandfathers and their fathers were not like that! I AM NOT LIKE THAT!” Polynesian legends and chants represent Polynesian masculinity as regal, intelligent, courageous, industrious, and visionary. However Lilley meant the interpretation of his sketches — social commentary, comedy, or who the fuck knows — it has been primarily negative among Polynesians because many cannot, and will not, accord Chris Lilley the right to represent them.

The Polynesians portrayed in Jonah from Tonga don’t like to read or write. That’s a far from  accurate representation of our people, though. The late Dr Teresia Teaiwa’s groundbreaking scholarship is testament to that. Albert Wendt’s novels are testament to that. Sia Figiel’s Where We Once Belonged is a painful but necessary testament to that. Konai Helu Thaman’s poems are testament to that. Epeli Hau’ofa’s writing is testament to that. Lani Wendt-Young’s Telesa trilogy is testament to that. Tusiata Avia’s performance poetry is testament to that. Ruperake Pataia’s collections are testament to that. New Zealand Poet Laureate Tusitala Selina Marsh’s work — which went as far as Buckingham Palace — is testament to that. Never seen some of these names on a mainstream bookshelf? That is testament to the lack of support for our representation of ourselves.

Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island is everywhere (as he is). His short story Beach at Falesā, which has weird native characters speaking an inaccurately re-created form of “Samoan broken English” is everywhere. Rupert Brooke’s diary and letter accounts of pretty brown Samoan bodies with no traces of “black” are everywhere. Margaret Mead’s exposé about Samoan women’s sex lives is everywhere. Derek Freeman’s “defence” of the poor misunderstood natives is everywhere, too. To be Polynesian means having very little direct and correct literary representation. You can’t read about Polynesians unless you purposely decide that you will go looking for information. And if/when you do, you’ll find mostly whitewashed, white-centric accounts from decades ago. Being represented primarily by white writers is like meeting someone and who wants to know a bit about you, but in order to do that, they ask the person behind you. Then they ask the people around you. Then they start calling out “does anyone know who this person is?” while you’re right in front of them. They don’t ask you. If someone in the crowd tells them your name — but it’s not your name — you just have to smile and get over it (because your actual name is too hard to pronounce anyway).

My main problem with the lack of our own representations is the way non-Polynesian representations of Polynesians have infiltrated Polynesian education systems and even mainstream modules that teach about Polynesians. Growing up in Samoa, the “good” books, in terms of quality of content, were always texts by white authors. Katherine Mansfield, Alan Paton, Robert Louis Stevenson, Rupert Brooke. You name the white, well-to-do, dead author. I read their work. I was always told that these would teach me “good, civilised values.” And where were Albert Wendt, Sia Figiel, and Lani Wendt-Young? They didn’t appear until my final years of high school, but not without reluctance from some of my teachers. To quote someone who saw me reading When Water Burns by Lani Wendt Young: “That book has too much sexuality and teaches kids that it’s okay to be like that. That’s trash!” Basically: your representations of your own self are trash; unimportant.

My surname was taken from my great, great-grandparents’ idol, who said the unflattering epigraph for this piece and was published in the Sydney Morning Herald. He, like his good friend Stevenson and many other non-Polynesians who lived in Polynesia, felt they had the right to write about us, and that what they wrote about us was all the representation we would ever need. Early European settlers and explorers assumed that we had no “records” or documentation of our histories and concerns. They often discounted our style of recording. We had chants. We had songs. We had myths. We had legends. Even a great deal of our tattoos were in fact chronologies and genealogies, passed down from our ancestors. By speaking for us, the writers of what we have been taught to call “our history” wrote over us, and our voices continue to be overwritten in favour of theirs.

Does merely living somewhere entitle you to represent that place? Does taking the illiterate children of natives under your wing, letting them bare your name and establishing them well in their society mean that you’ve “paid enough” to be a representative of them?

Can I, knowing this family history, still “represent” Polynesians the way I (try to) do?

Ka’ilo, se.  

The questions come, change, and disappear. Representation itself is one of the most complex notions in the world. I don’t have many sure answers, especially not for my own questions. But as I sit here waiting for my laptop to die before I finish typing this, I think I have an (though not the) answer. Non-Polynesians can talk about me. I know I talk about them. They can write about me and paint about me. But I don’t want them to claim that the images and sounds on the screen and paper are all there is to the complex, intelligent human beings depicted (I know I must stop doing the same to them). That, to me, is the greatest form of misrepresentation, and a major misappropriation of what it means to be a human being.

I was at home (Samoa) during the pre-celebrations and my mum, being from PNG, took us with her. Listening to the speeches and examining the intricate knitting that went into the hundreds of bilums* I saw, I was reminded of how far we’ve come as a country.

When decades of Australian colonisation finally ended in 1975, we took the helm of our own canoe, as numerous other Pacific states have done. As the news reports have probably reflected, we’ve had our issues. Scratch that — we’ve had LOTS OF ISSUES. Our recent elections probably came to mind when I said that. I’ve been asked, true story, how the heck we’re still independent, still a state, still… alive (yes, some people go there)?

They feel sorry for us, generally. I’d be an absolute liar if I didn’t say that half the time, I end up feeling sorry for myself, and staring at the Bird of Paradise on my passport wondering why we named it that!

But then, self-pitying or not, we still live.  

We still literally climb mountains, wade through rivers, cut through bushes, and go to work and school each day. Like any other Pacific nation with its trials and triumphs, we still fly our flag. Because, despite everything around us, we still can.

*Traditional PNG bags

…until it’s your cultural practices and indigenous art forms that are being degraded.

That’s how I felt last week when I was watching videos of traditional Melanesian dance routines. I grew up in Polynesia, and therefore my knowledge has, until now, not included a lot of the amazing, vibrant, creative art forms of my mother’s side of the Pacific. There I was, trying to learn, when comments like “cover up!” and “put some on, gals!” appeared. For those of us who might not be too familiar with Melanesian rituals: a myriad of them do not require women to cover their breasts. This is simply because, unlike in the West, women’s chests were not seen as “sexual” in much of the Pacific for several hundred years. These comments came from people who still think it right to ethnocentrically superimpose their “Western”, “educated”, “civilised” blah, blah, blah ways on dances, chants, legends, paintings, and ceremonies that have deep spiritual, familial, and historical roots.

Reading comments about “these women” made me feel like my culture wasn’t mine anymore. I could no longer define it or choose what it was (and wasn’t) about.

But our Oceania, Pasifika, whatever you want to call our region, belongs to us. The social and cultural narratives that it abounds with are our stories, about our lives. Our traditional tattoos are about us. Our costumes are about us. Our languages are about us. Even our freakin YouTube channels are about us!

Our lives are about us. It’s time we started reclaiming them

As the aircraft steadied itself at cruising altitude, the guy beside me got his laptop and a trillion other things out of his bag and proceeded to… watch rugby. Not real rugby though. It was animated rugby like in my little brother’s video games. I was like, okay, you do you… but also there’s like zero space in economy so please don’t move so much!

Then I saw him writing in his notebook. He had several lists, and on the opposite page, in capital letters, he was making extensive notes about the game on the screen. One word that I picked up was STABILITY. I realised he was writing some sort of game plan, neatly assembling all the players in even sections and thinking, very carefully, about how time could be best spent so that the team could score as many tries as possible and. ultimately, win the game. He was looking at what was worth a try, and what was a waste of their (limited) time.

I think uni life is like that. Sometimes you gotta take a step back and think about everything. When you do, you realise how much potential you have, and how big the field that is student life can be. I believe there’s room to score tries (like acing this trimester!) and of course, if you get tackled, be patient with yourself and try again (note to self: no more all-nighters!)

P.S. turns out this guy is an Actual Rugby Player which I found out when the flight attendant recognised him. He’s Samoan so yeaahh, here’s to that growing Pasifika representation that keeps us all going!

Truth is, in regards to sexual orientation and gender, before I came to New Zealand, I didn’t know — and wasn’t allowed to know — much about any person, idea, lifestyle, or preference that was “outside” of the (so-called) “normal” one-man-one-woman-who-have-biological-children ideal.

Is this a cultural ideal? A religious ideal? For me, it was a bit of both. I grew up literally living next door to a church and, of course, that place was an exclusively heteronormative space wherein it was A-Okay to say things like “he’s so gaaaaaaay” as a joke. I know because I used to laugh at that. I laughed because I was taught to laugh. Anyone who didn’t laugh (no matter what their reasons) was supporting whoever was being made fun of. Looking back, I realise how little opportunity I, and a lot of other Pasifika people, are granted to think and reason for themselves. “That’s bad/weird/unnatural” because “it just is.” You don’t get to ask why, and stuff even considering saying “I think you’re wrong and we’re all equal!”

I also feel like the knowledge void that I’m still working to fill was/is a result of years of colonialism, and all the walls, rules, and standards that such a long period of oppression has engrained in a lot of Pasifika societies. Of course, the decolonisation process is ongoing, but I believe we are living in a time where we have increasing opportunities to learn to accept each other and ourselves.

I’m writing this as someone who wants to learn, and who has no excuses anymore for being ignorant.

I need to change.

“Mama told me tie my hair back all the way…” — Grace, “Dirty Harry” (2015)

A lot of Pasifika people can attest to the fact that we get lots of advice growing up, especially if we’re girls.

I’m from two of the Pacific’s regions — Melanesia (on my mum’s side) and Polynesia (on my dad’s). One of the things I feel this issue of Salient is about is opening up and continuing discussions about the way the various identity hats that women wear impact who they are and who they’re allowed to be. At least, that’s one of the things I hope this issue can do.

I’ll be listing here some of the shocking, “funny”, troubling, and most 18th century reminiscent words of er… wisdom that have been said, very nicely, to Pasifika women about how they should live their lives. I’ve also written how I wish I had responded when I first heard them, had I’d not been prevented by cultural respect.

So, in no particular order:

1) “Who should lead our committee? That one’s amazing because he’s very practical, that other one’s good because he’s business minded, and that female one is good because she doesn’t swear. A lot of other committee members swear, but she knows how to talk like a proper lady.”

If four letter words aren’t your thing (or three letter words in Samoan, hah), then I respect that. If you don’t want swearing at your meetings, celebrations, and so forth, that’s okay. Sometimes you just know what kind of language the people coming to your events will not tolerate. However, being “female” shouldn’t warrant applause for not swearing, while being “male” earns someone annoying praises of “he’s the maaaan” when they cuss. This is just one step away from saying, “If you swear, you are not a woman anymore.” If you don’t like women swearing, tell the guys to change their language, too. I mean, how can you say… (runs out of words) …know what? If you’re going to keep taking the initiative of determining who can say what, you seriously need to just F-U-C-K-I-N-G LEAVE OTHER PEOPLE’S VOCABULARIES ALONE!

2) “This lady is so annoying! She won’t stop talking, eh! She needs to be raped properly.”

She needs to be raped. Properly.

I mean… wow! So it’s messed up enough that a woman talking warrants rape, but here we have someone who went to the trouble of specifying exactly how this woman needs to be raped. So it’s not good to leave anything half-done, right? So… rape her so brutally that she will never again have the audacity to say more than five words per conversation, right?

What’s majorly messed up is the owner of the comment thought they were on my side. You saw that I was annoyed with her for talking on and on about math. Thing is, I was irritated because I failed it (miserably), NOT because she’s a woman. I’m am also a woman, and you weren’t being “on my side” by talking like that.

3) “Moana is the perfect representation of all Pasifika women and you should be proud of it!”

As a Polynesian woman, a Samoan woman, a descendant of high chiefs and navigators, I AM DAMN PROUD of this animated film! It speaks to me, it inspires me, and don’t even judge me for knowing all the words to the songs. Malo lava, and fa’afetai tele lava to Disney!

As a Melanesian woman, a Papua New Guinean woman… *crickets*

I feel that in order to truly appreciate films like Moana, it is essential that we acknowledge them for exactly what they are about, but also what they are not about, and who they don’t represent. Moana is about a Pacific young woman, yes. But there are Pacific women — two regions full of them, actually — who are not like Moana. The Pacific has Micronesian and Melanesian women, too. They have their own struggles, questions, and, of course, victories, which are so often left out of Polynesian-centric narratives. The word “Pacific” (or, as I prefer, Oceania), does not mean just Polynesia. Next time, you need to, I don’t know… choose your words wisely.

4) “I know you’re upset that he hit you for staying out late, but he’s just being a ‘good’ brother. It’s his job to keep you safe. You’re too young to think about boys. He only wants to protect you.”

And in order to do that he hit her?

Straight up, though: if you think it’s some kind of gender prerogative of yours to hit your sister for dating, or hit the guy she’s dating just because he’s dating her, you are not being a “good” brother. You’re being abusive, hypocritical, and chauvinistic. I’m so sick of this! Every time I say “oh, so I like this guy…” people always follow that up with annoying questions such as “does your brother know?” and “what does he think?” Whether he knows or not isn’t my main concern. I don’t owe him (or any other man) an explanation of anything in my life.

5) “We’re so proud of you! You’re successful, ambitious, and beautiful. You deserve to marry a pālagi (white guy).”

As I type this, I feel all the energy being somehow drained from my fingers.

This comment was supposed to be synonymous with things like “you deserve to be happy” and “you deserve someone who will treat you well.” I mean, thanks for the well wishes but, seriously? Why is “white” always elevated much higher than not white? This sounds as if “white” is some sort of prize that only a select few can win. Anyone who is not white (especially when “not white” means black), has to prove themselves worthy by, I don’t know, not dropping out of high school? Thank you for telling me I’m “good enough” but…THE WORLD IS ROUND AND NOT FLAT and I will be with whoever the heck I want.

…also, you are objectifying pālagi guys by talking about them like this and I don’t think any human being should be treated like a trophy, “earned” by those who “deserve” them.

6) “Medicine? Really? Look, you are a girl! If you study that it will take at least seven years, and by the time you’re halfway through your second year, you’ll be already wanting to get married!”

This friend of mine was 17 when her search for advice about university applications earned her this “warning.” The worst thing about it was that the person who said it thought they were helping her. They genuinely cared about her future. They believed, thanks to culture (and church, let’s be honest), that this was the best thing you could tell a high school student who had big dreams.

Not everyone takes this kind of “good advice”, though. My friend is now in her mid-twenties, a university graduate, employed, and not married.

***

There’s a lot of encouraging and empowering advice that Pasifika young people, Pasifika young women especially, are given. I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the words that can get me out of bed at 3.00am to finish my last-minute essays so I won’t be penalised. I’m proud to be a Pasifika person: Melanesian and Polynesian, on a bridge between two very different parts of the biggest ocean on earth.

However, I know that I can’t let that pride stop me from contributing to the discussions that we must have about the gender and sexual inequalities that still exist within the region. They are real problems that demand real solutions which cannot be reached if we bring the colonial ideal of silence into the rest of the 21st century with us. In order to ensure that we don’t do this, we must be prepared to tell real stories about real people who are feeling real pain, and making real progress.

O itū lelei (the good):

• They emphasise the fact that our languages are legitimate, learnable, even lyrical (Samoan metaphors, uce, gotta love those!)
• They raise national, even regional awareness that a lot of Pasifika languages have been made into “second class” dialects.
• They’re not just about languages. All the myths, legends, chants, and art that colour Oceania are also celebrated. In doing this, language weeks give people from other cultures the chance to explore and appreciate these gems.

O itū e fa’alēlelei (the bad):

• They can sometimes make you feel a bit… not so good, if you’re from the country being celebrated but don’t speak the language fluently, especially when people ask you to teach them a line or two in your language and you have to tell them that you’re “still learning.” Or when people talk to you in the language and you say “hmm” every five seconds so they know you’re listening, and hope they won’t notice that you are avoiding embarrassing yourself by answering in full sentences.

Having parents from two different countries, I grew up speaking English (yay, colonialism). Before I started high school, my Samoan sounded like that moment in Laughing Samoans when Tala says, “e lele-leeeiloa e auuu faaaSamowaaa.” A lot of the #realSamoans I knew would get so mad at me for even trying. However, I still love language weeks, and I believe that our celebration of our languages should not be limited to seven days, once a year. Oi and I don’t think there should be such a strict criteria for being a #realSamoan or #realWhateverItIs that we’re celebrating.  

Fa la’ia!

* “know-it-all”