APEX Express – 4.11.24 – ConShifts Anti-blackness in the PI Community

KPFA - APEX Express

A weekly magazine-style radio show featuring the voices and stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders from all corners of our community. The show is produced by a collective of media makers, deejays, and activists.

Host editor Swati Rayasam continues to highlight the podcast Continental Shifts created by bi-coastal educators Gabriel Anthony Tanglao and Estella Owemma Church. They embark on a voyage in search of self, culture and the ancestors. Last time we featured the ConShifts podcast, Gabriel and Estella gave a quick introduction and talked about wayfinding in the context of their work. Tonight on the podcast they’re talking about anti-blackness in the PI community with Courtney Savali Andrews and Jason Fennel. Just a quick note that both Courtney and Jason’s audio quality isn’t the best on this podcast. So it might get a little bumpy. Enjoy the show.

Episode Transcripts – Anti-blackness in the PI Community with Courtney-Savali Andrews and Jason Finau

Opening: [00:00:00] Apex Express Asian Pacific expression. Community and cultural coverage, music and calendar, new visions and voices, coming to you with an Asian Pacific Islander point of view. It’s time to get on board the Apex Express.

Swati Rayasam: [00:00:35] Good evening everyone. You’re listening to APEX express Thursday nights at 7:00 PM. My name is Swati Rayasam and I’m the special editor for this episode. Tonight, we’re going to continue to highlight the podcast continental shifts created by bi-coastal educators Gabriel Anthony Tanglao and Estella Owemma Church who embark on a voyage in search of self, culture and the ancestors. Last time we featured the ConShifts podcast, Gabriel and Estella gave a quick introduction and talked about wayfinding in the context of their work. Tonight on the podcast they’re talking about anti-blackness in the PI community with Courtney Savali Andrews and Jason Fennel. Just a quick note that both Courtney and Jason’s audio quality isn’t the best on this podcast. So it might get a little bumpy. Enjoy the show.

Courtney-Savali Andrews & intro music: [00:01:32] These issues are fluid, these questions are fluid. So I mean, I had to go and try get a PHD just to expand conversation with my family .

Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:01:51] How do we uproot anti-blackness in API spaces? On today’s episode, we explore this critical question with two incredible guests. Courtney and Jason share their stories, experiences, and reflections on ways our API communities can be more affirming of black identity and black humanity.

Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:02:13] What up, what up? Tālofa lava, o lo’u igoa o Estella. My pronouns are she/her/hers, sis, and uso.

Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:02:23] What’s good, family? This is Gabriel, kumusta? Pronouns he/him.

Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:02:29] I have the great pleasure tonight of introducing our guest today, Jason Finau and Courtney-Savali Andrews. Jason is a social worker with a focus on mental health and substance abuse based in San Francisco. Courtney is an assistant professor of musicology at Oberlin College in Ohio. But I also want to be very intentional about not centering professions above who we are and who we come from. So I’m going to go to Jason first. Jason, please share with us who you are, how you identify and who are your people.

Jason Finau: [00:02:58] Hi everyone. Estella, Gabriel, again, thank you so much for hosting us in this space. My name is Jason. I identify as black and Samoan. My father is a black American from Mississippi and my mother is from American Samoa, specifically in the village of Nua and Sektonga. As a military, brat kind of grew up back and forth between Hawaii and Southern California. So I have a very strong love for the ocean and where my peoples come from. So, very excited to be on your podcast.

Courtney-Savali Andrews: [00:03:27] [Speaking Samoan] Tālofa lava I am Courtney-Savali Andrews from Seattle, Washington. I identify as an African American Samoan. My father is from Seattle, born and raised in Seattle, from Opelika, Alabama. That’s where his roots are, and my mother is from American Samoa from the villages of Nwoma Sitsona and Aminawe. And Jason and I are maternal cousins.

Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:03:59] I did not know that. [Laughs] Good to know. Actually, just for some context, Jason and Courtney, you were one of my blessings in 2020. I received an email message about a space called Black + Blue in the Pacific, and it was a flier for a Zoom gathering with other black Pacifica peoples and I jumped on the call, not knowing what to expect, but it was only one of two times I can remember in my entire life feeling truly seen as black Samoan, and not having to separate those two or shrink any part of myself or who I am. So Jason, can you please share what the space is about and how it came to be?

Jason Finau: [00:04:42] Sure. That warms my heart that that was your reaction to participating in that space. So this was kind of born out of all of the protests against racial injustices across the country, especially with George Floyd and the other countless, unfortunately, countless deaths of black men and women at the hands of police brutality. And EPIC, which is the Empowering Pacific Island Communities, a nonprofit organization out in Long Beach reached out to me to kind of talk about how we can address anti-blackness within the Pacific Island communities in speaking with Tavae Samuelu, who is the executive director of EPIC and Teresa Siagatonu who is an amazing creative poet, artist, everything. We got together, started talking about like, well what was the real purpose for this group? Why are they reaching out to me specifically in the work that I do? And I think that part of that came from the fact that I am a licensed clinical social worker and that I do have a background in mental health and working in trauma, generational trauma and looking at how we as human beings look to take care of ourselves in a community that we as black human beings look to take care of ourselves in a community that doesn’t value who we are and what that looks like for those of us who belongs to two different communities, one being the black and then the other being the Pacific Island community. And then even, you know, bringing that down even further to the, within the Pacific Island community, being in the Polynesian community and then being specifically in the Samoan community.

So in talking with that, the first person I thought about when they asked me to facilitate a group where we can gather other individuals who identified as being black and Pacific Islander, the first person I thought about co-facilitating this group with was my cousin Courtney-Savali Andrews. Just given the fact that she has done so much in research and education and understanding about PI cultures, with the work that she’s done here in the States, as well as out in the Pacific, out in New Zealand and Samoa, and I’ll let her talk more about that, but this is another part of the reasons why I thought about her instantly, and also because she and I have had these conversations about what it means to be black and Samoan, and to identify as both, and to sometimes have to navigate being one over the other in spaces, and even in spaces where It’s a white space and having to figure out like which one are we like code switching between. So in thinking about this group and in thinking about this space, you know, one of the larger conversations that came out of those who engage in this group, that we have every second Tuesday of the month is that representation of seeing other folks who are also black and Pacific Islander who aren’t related to us. And so these are the conversations that Courtney and I have had. I’ve had the same conversations with other first cousins who also happened to be black and Samoan, but I’ve never actually have met like one hand I can count on how many times I’ve met another person who identified as black and Pacific Islander. And so being able to host this space and to focus it, to start off that focus on anti-blackness and to talk about how we’re all working to deal with what it means to say Black Lives Matter when someone who visually presents as Samoan or someone who visually presents as Tongan or any other of the Pacific Islands. Like, what does it mean for them to say Black Lives Matter, when those of us who identify as both black and Pacific Islanders aren’t really feeling how that message is as substantial as they may be trying to, to come across.

Being able to gather in a space where we see other folks who look like us, who shared experiences that were so similar to what we have shared and what we have gone but also very different. And looking at how, you know, some folks grew up identifying primarily with the Samoan culture, whereas other folks grew up primarily identifying with the black culture and not being able to reconcile either one. So seeing that spectrum of experiences was able to provide us with an opportunity to grow for each other, to support each other, and to learn from each other. I was very thankful and grateful for having, for EPIC being able to step in and seeing that as an organization that does focus on empowering Pacific Island communities that they understood that when we look at the micro communities within that larger macro level of a PI community, looking at that individual black and PI cohort and understanding that that experience is different than the general experience. And so they wanted to make sure that we’re facilitating those conversations, that we’re holding safe spaces for those conversations, and that we’re encouraging those conversations. So I really do appreciate them so much for that, and not taking it upon themselves to tell us how we should be engaging in these conversations, how we should be feeling, and asking us what we should be doing to get PIs to understand the impact of anti-blackness, within the, in the PI community for us personally.

Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:09:29] And as you were talking, I was laughing at myself thinking, yeah, I can count on one hand too, aside from my brothers, the other black Samoans or Polys I know, and I had an experience in college as a freshman, Cal State Northridge, in my EOP cohort. I met another Leilani, Leilani is my middle name, I met another Leilani who happened to be half black, half Samoan, also from South LA. And we saw each other and ran to each other like we were long lost siblings or something [laughs] and we just knew, and it was the first time I had seen someone who looked like me that was not The Rock. [Jason laughs] Like, the only person to look to, that was yeah. I don’t know, it wasn’t enough to have, you know, The Rock as my only representation. I appreciate him, but definitely wasn’t enough. And shout out to EPIC and Tavae, because I think I mentioned earlier, being in Black + Blue was, it was like the second time in my life. I can say that I felt seen and one of the first times I felt seen as Samoan was at 30. I happen to be in a workshop led by Tavae on organizing PI communities. That was the first time I met her, but I left her session like in tears because I felt a whole part of whatever was happening in the conversation, the festivities, I could be like my full self.

Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:11:00] And those spaces are so important for us, right? To have that community, to be able to connect. So Jason, I appreciate you sharing that origin story of Black + Blue. And my question for Courtney actually, to bring in some of your experience into the space. Why was it important to create or forge a space such as this one with Black + Blue?

Courtney-Savali Andrews: [00:11:22] Well, I will say that I’ve had the privilege of a different experience having met several African American and African Pacific Islanders in Seattle through my experience in the US. And I mean, this goes all the way back to my childhood. I went to a predominantly, and this is going to sound pretty interesting, but in the 70s, I went to a predominantly Filipino-Italian parish that was budding a Samoan congregation and that particular congregation was connected to the Samoan congregational church that my mother was affiliated with. So, of course, this is family based, right? But growing up in that particular setting, I was affiliated with many cultural dance groups, particularly Polynesian dance troupes and such, and through those various communities I would run into many particularly Samoan and African American children. So that was something that was pretty normalized in my upbringing. On the other side of that, my father’s family was very instrumental in various liberation movements, affiliations with the Black Panthers. And so I also grew up in a very black nationalist leaning family. So, I mean, I couldn’t run away from just anything that had to do with considering identity politics and what it meant to be “both and” so the wrestle started really early with me. I also want to say that because I was indoctrinated in so many questions of what it meant to be whatever it is that I was at the time. Cause you know these issues are fluid and the questions are fluid. So that extended all the way throughout even my educational journey having pursued not just a musical degree, but also degrees in cultural studies. It was the only place that I could really wrestle and engage with literature that I was already introduced to as a child, but to, you know, have opportunities to deep dive into that literature, highlighting certain figures, engaging with the writers of these literature. So by the time I got to college, it was piano performance and Africana studies for me. In the arts, through my music through musical theater performance, my Polynesian dance background, it all just kind of jumbled up into this journey of always seeking spaces that allow for that type of inquiry.

So, after undergrad, this turns into a Fullbright study and then eventually a PHD in Music and Pacific and Samoan studies. In that journey, I did not think that the outcome would be as rich as it became. I did seek out one of my supervisors, who was Teresia Teaiwa. A very prominent poet, spoken word artist and scholar, and she was the founder of the Pacific Studies program at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. So I went to study underneath her. She actually is African American Banaban so from the Kiribati islands and amongst her like astounding output of work, she reached out to me and four other African American Pacific women historian artists, like we all share the same general identities to start an organization, or at least an affinity conversationalist group, called Black Atlantic, Blue Pacific. This was back in 2014 when she started the conversation with us again, I had an opportunity to now, across the world, connect with other African American Pacific peoples that were rooted in other spaces. So I was the one who was, you know, born and raised in the US But then we had Joy Enomoto an African American Hawaiian who’s based in Hawaii. Ojeya Cruz, African American [?] and LV McKay, who is African American Maori based in Aotearoa. So we got together and started having very specific conversations around our responses to Black Lives Matter as it was gaining much momentum in 2015. And it was my supervisor Teresia, that said, “You have to open up about how you feel,” and particularly because I was so far away from what home was for me, she offered up a space for me to not only explore further what my response to the movement was, but also just my identity in tandem with the rest of them. So we actually began to create performance pieces along with scholarly writing about that particular moment and went to this festival of Pacific arts in 2016 which was in Guam and pretty much had a very ritualistic talk. It wasn’tinteractive, it was our space to share what our experience and stories were with an audience who did not have a chance to engage with us on it. It was us just claiming our space to say that we exist in the first place. And that was a very powerful moment for me and for the others. So to connect this back to four years later, when Jason reaches out about Black + Blue in the Pacific, the name of this group actually came from the publication that we put together for that 2016 FESPAC presentation. It really was a moment that I actually didn’t think would extend out in the ways that it has, but it also felt like a duty to extend that conversation and Teresia Teaiwa has since passed, but it felt like, you know, this is what, this is the work that, that I’ve given you to do. So it just felt very natural to join with my cousin in this work and realize what this conversation could be across the water again, back home in the US.

Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:18:09] Listening to you I was I don’t want to say envious, but I didn’t have that same experience growing up. And, you know, oftentimes I wonder where I would be in my identity crisis, which seems like it has lasted for so long, if I had shared in similar experience as a child. I grew up in predominantly black communities and all black apostolic school and I just, I didn’t have other, I mean I ran up to the one girl I saw as a college freshman and squeezed her. So that tells you a lot, but I shared similar experiences as an undergrad or in college in majoring in black studies, majoring in theater, musical theater and that being the space where I got to at least express some of who I am or who I want it to be, but definitely trying to create what you experienced or had for my daughter now, trying to make sure that she gets to be as pro black and black and proud as she wants to be rocking her Angela Davis fro while also wearing her Puletasi, trying really hard to make sure that she has all of that. Growing up, I never felt like I was welcomed in Samoan or Poly spaces or fully in black spaces either. I felt like folks had to make a point to other me or erase part of my identity for their convenience. And it’s only now that I am learning who my Samoan relatives are, what are our namesake or the villages that my family comes from and reconnecting with aunts and uncles and my grandparents through the powers of Facebook. But over the years, it’s been a long like push and pull. And it’s because our last names are, our names are very distinctive. And so when you put that name in there suddenly like, “Oh, I found all these relatives.” Like I didn’t have to do the ancestry thing because you put the name in on Facebook and all of a sudden you find all your cousins and you’re seeing childhood pictures where like your own kid can’t tell who’s who so I know we’re related. You know what I mean? But anyway, like over the years it’s been this like back and forth of me deleting relatives and then, you know, letting them come back because I don’t know how to broach the conversation about their anti-blackness. I don’t know what to tell them when they post something that is very racist and absolutely not okay. And I don’t know what to do other than, you know, I’m just going to delete you and then maybe 2 years from now, I’ll, as you as a friend, again, we could try this one more time. And I have one aunt in particular, a great aunt who there was just a misunderstanding. I didn’t respond to a message right away after not seeing her since I was maybe 5 or 6. I can’t remember. But in my 20s, I’m getting married, she’s sending me messages and I didn’t respond right away. And the response I got included her calling me the N word. And so then I’m like, “Oh, okay.” I was like, trying to open up and let you all back into my life. And here we are again. So I’m done. And so I spent a lot of time, like picking and choosing who I was going to let in or not and so I’ve started this journey at 30. I want to learn my language. I want to figure out who is in my family tree. Who are my people? Where do I come from? And be selective about who I choose to actually grow relationships with. Like I can still know who they are, where they come from, where I come from, what my roots are, and also make choices about who gets to be in my life. And I’m only just now realizing that at 32, as I try to learn my language and reclaim what is mine, what belongs to me. All of that aside, can you relate to any of that? And if so, is there an experience that you feel comfortable sharing?

Courtney-Savali Andrews: [00:22:00] I absolutely relate to that, to the extent, I mean, I had to go and try to get a PhD just to expand conversation with my family and I had to do it across the water. I got to a point where, just asking questions, about, you know, cultural matters, or even trying to navigate my way through a family event, while I’ve had many wonderful experiences, just trying to, again dig deep to understand why are we who we are, why are our family issues what they are those kinds of things, I would always hit a particular wall that was met with either like, “Why do you even care?” Or “Oh, that’s not important.” But it was, this is not important for you. And I, you know, took that with a lot of like, “Well, what’s that mean? I can learn anything.” And then again, that, that comes from this, like I said, black nationalist attitude of I am wholly wonderful, just in my skin as I am. Therefore, I’m smart. I’m, you know, all of those kinds of things. So it became a learning quest for me to say, not only am I going to go after learning as much as I can. I’m going to get the highest degree you could possibly get in it only to now reach a point. I mean, I’m 10 years into this program and it’s been the one-two punch all the way through. And now I’m on the other side of this journey, realizing that even in that quest, this really doesn’t change many of my conversations if I go back into my family, nor is it really looked upon as a notable achievement, which is to be questioned because it’s like, I’ve done everything that I possibly can. But at the same time, it really does feel like this is the black experience as it connects to respectability politics. On another side of thing I suppose, try to aspire to be a race woman for the Pacific and specifically the Samoan identity. And that’s just a really, really tall order. Right. All that to say, yes, I absolutely identify and realize that my conversation can only be had with those who are open to have it. I think that right now in this particular moment, we have more Pacific peoples and more people in our families that are willing to at least sit at the table and have conversation because they have new language around what they are wanting to know and what they would like to see for their own community. So that’s really, really refreshing and inspiring.

Jason Finau: [00:24:46] I agree. I definitely [have] a lot of experience and feeling in feeling othered and feeling that my black identity was conveniently left out in a lot of conversations and a lot of learning lessons, I think, growing up. In contrast to Courtney’s upbringing, I was born and raised on the Samoan side. It was everything Samoan related. My first language was Samoan. My mom stopped speaking Samoan to me at home because she recognized that I was struggling in school early on like in pre- k, kindergarten, first grade, because I couldn’t keep up with the other students and they didn’t have ESL for Samoan speaking kids. So, I think as a protective factor, my mother just started to distance me from the Samoan language in order to excel in school. And I think that a lot of having been able to grow up in a very large Samoan family and engaging in a lot of the traditional activities and cultural practices and doing the dances and going to a local [?] church. Having that has always been great but I think that seeing the way or listening to the way that other Samoans would refer to their own family members who were black and Pacific Islander or black and Samoan in those families, a lot of the times the language is just so derogatory, but they, that language never used to, or was never directed at me. And I think that part of that was because that people knew who my mother was and they knew who my grandparents were and I think I was insulated from a lot of that negative talk, negative behaviors against those who identified as black and then like the children that were products of those Samoan and black relationships. I reflect on that quite often because I think that when listening to a lot of the stories that I’ve been able to bear witness to in our black and PI group. You know, like I mentioned before that we are seeing like two different, two different upbringings, two different ways that people experience their lives as being black and Samoan. And for me, it was like, because I was wrapped in that Samoan culture, that black identity of mine was never really addressed or talked about. That then it made me feel like I just, I’m a Samoan boy. I don’t identify as someone who was black. I didn’t identify as someone who was black or was comfortable with identifying as someone who was black until my 20s. Late 20s, early 30s, you know when I introduced myself, it was always Samoan first black second, everything that I did, instead of joining the Black Student Union group, I joined all the Asian and Pacific Island groups at any school that I went to again, as I said, being a military brat, I went to a lot of schools growing up before college. And then in college a lot of different universities. And when I went to those programs, like in high school and junior high, I’d always be, I would always join the Asian Pacific Island groups because I didn’t feel comfortable being a part of the black, any of the Black Student Unions or any black affinity groups, because again like I said my for me internally, I was Samoan and that’s where I wanted to be. I didn’t recognize for myself because I could see it in the mirror that I presented as someone like a black male and I think that part of the reason why I also steered more towards Asian and Pacific Island groups was because I wanted people to see me as this black guy walking into your Asian and Pacific Island group, who also is Samoan but you don’t know that until I tell you. And that was for me to share and for me to just sit there for them to stare at me until I made that truth known. And that was my way of addressing that issue within the PI community. But it was also a way for me to run away from that black identity to hide from that black identity because I wasn’t, I didn’t want to be identified that way when I was in the API group. It’s because I wanted to be identified as Samoan and not black, even though I presented. So in thinking about how a lot of those conversations went, I think one situation in particular really stuck out for me. And that’s when I did a study abroad in New Zealand during undergrad and, you know, there’s this whole thing about the term mea uli in Samoan to describe someone who is black and Samoan and that was the term that I remember using and being told. As a kid, growing up, my mom used it, didn’t seem like there was an issue. All family members, everyone in the community is using it. So I just assumed that is exactly how it was. I never had the wherewithal to think about how to break down that word, mea uli, and think of it as like a black thing. So I was in New Zealand studying abroad and I met some students, some Samoan students in one of my classes. They invited me to their church, the local [?] church. I was like, oh great, I’ll go to church while I’m here. Satisfy my mom. She’s back home in Oceanside, California, telling me that I need to go to church, that I need to focus on my studies. So I do this. I go with them. And as they’re introducing me to folks at their church, when I describe myself as mea uli I mean, you can hear a pin drop. It was like, these people were I don’t know, embarrassed for me, embarrassed for themselves to hear me use that word to describe myself. It was just, I was, I don’t think I’ve ever been more embarrassed about my identity than I was in that one moment, because then my friend had to pull me off to the side, just like “Oh, we don’t use that word here.” Like she’s like, schooling me on how derogatory that term was for those Samoans in New Zealand who identify as black and Samoan. And mind you, the friends that I was with, they were, they’re both sides of the family are Samoan, and so this is a conversation that they’re having with me as people who aren’t, who don’t identify as black and Samoan. And so then when I, I brought that back to my mom and I was just like, “Did you know this? Like, how could you let me go through life thinking this, saying this, using this word, only to come to this point in my adult life where now I’m being told that it’s something derogatory.” That was a conversation that my mom and I had that we were forced to have. And I think for her, very apologetic on her end, I think she understood where I was coming from as far as like the embarrassment piece. But from her, from her perspective and her side of it, she didn’t speak English when she first got to the United States either. She graduated from nursing school in American Samoa, had been in American Samoa that whole time, born and raised, came to the United States, California, didn’t speak a lick of English, and was just trying to figure out her way through the whole navigating a prominently white society and trying to figure out English. And so I think language was one of the least of her worries, as far as that might have been because it’s just like coupled on with a bunch of things. I mean, this is a Samoan woman who doesn’t speak very much English, who is now in the military, in the Navy. So, in an occupation that is predominantly male, predominantly white and predominantly English speaking. And so, for her, there was a lot of things going on for herself that she had to protect herself from. And I think she tried to use some of those same tactics to protect me. But not understanding that there is now this added piece of blackness, this black identity that her child has to navigate along with that Samoan identity. And so, we’ve had some really great conversations around the choices that she had to make that she felt like in the moment were the right choices to keep me safe, to get me what I needed in order to graduate high school on time unlike a lot of our other family members, to go to college, you know, again, being the first one to have a bachelor’s degree and the first one to have a master’s degree, within our family tree. And so, a lot of the successes that I’ve had in life to be able to get to this point and have these conversations and to facilitate a group like black and PI, Black + Blue in the Pacific and to be on a podcast with all of you, were the sacrifices and choices that my mom had to make back.

I say all that because those, the choices that she had to make, she wasn’t able to make them in an informed way that would have promoted my black identity along with my Samoan identity. And so having to navigate that on my own. I didn’t grow up with my dad, so I don’t have any connection. I didn’t have any connection to the black side of my family. And so I didn’t have, and then growing up in Hawaii and in Southern California, primary like San Diego, in the education piece, like the majority of my teachers were white, or in San Diego, a lot of them were Latin, Latinx, and then in Hawaii, a lot of them, they were either white or they were some type of Asian background like a lot of Chinese, a lot of Japanese teachers, but I didn’t have any, I never had a Polynesian teacher, Pacific Islander teacher, and I never had a black teacher until I got to college, and then seeing that representation also had an impact on me. I think one of my most favorite sociology professors at California State University in San Marcos. Dr. Sharon Elise was just this most phenomenal, eye opening, unapologetically black woman. And it was just like the first time I was ever able to like be in the company of that type of presence and it was glorious. And I think it was part of the reason why I switched from pre med to social work. In thinking about, and going back to your original question about an experience of being othered or feeling like your black identity is erased in that company. Like I said, I walk confidently amongst and within Samoan communities, but not nearly as confidently as I do in black spaces. And even when I’m in those Samoan spaces, I’ll walk into it, but then the first thing I’ll do is share my last name. And then the moment I say my last name, then it’s like, okay, now we can all breathe. I’ve been accepted. They know who I am because of who my family is based on the name that I provide. When I go into a black space, I don’t have that. I don’t have that convenience. I don’t have that luxury. And so I think that’s another reason why I was okay with allowing that black identity, my black identity to be ignored, to be silenced, to be othered because it was just easier. I think I had a lot more luxuries being on the Samoan side, than being on the black side. And now where I am today, both personally and professionally, a much, much more confident conversation can be had for myself, with myself about my identity. And then having those same conversations with my family and with my friends and in thinking about hard conversations with family members around anti-blackness, around the use of derogatory language, or around just the fact like, because we are half Samoan that we could never fully appreciate the Samoan culture and tradition. But I look at my cousins who are full Samoan, who barely speak the language, who barely graduated from high school or like are in situations where they aren’t able to fully utilize an identity that can bring them the fullness or richness of their background. I’m like, all right, well, if you want to have conversations about someone who was half versus full, and then looking at those folks who are back on the island and what their perception of full Samoans are on the continental US and all of those things, like, there’s so many layers between the thought processes of those who consider themselves Samoan or even just Pacific Islander, and what does that mean to them based on where they’re from. And then you add that biological piece, then it’s like, okay, well those who are on the continental US or outside of American Samoa or the independent nation of Samoa, what does that mean for them to be Samoan [unintelligible].

Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:35:15] One of the things that you said that really resonated with me was when you were sharing the story of how your mother had, as you said, tactics to protect you as she navigated in these predominantly white spaces. That reminds me of a quote by Dr. Cornel West, who talked about having our cultural armor on. And when Courtney was sharing her story, I was thinking about how there’s also educational armor and linguistic armor, and we put on layers of armor to protect ourselves in these white supremacist institutions and spaces. So both of you sharing your story and journey really was powerful for me, and also grounding it in the formative years of your educational journey and your race consciousness journey. One of the pivotal factors in my evolution and my race consciousness was being a part of the Black Student Union in my undergraduate school. And I’m Filipino, my mother’s from Manila, my father’s from Pampanga province. And it was actually the black community that embraced and raised my consciousness around my own liberation as an Asian person, as a Filipino person. So I’m a student in many ways, and my intellectual and spiritual evolution was really informed by the black liberation movement.

Swati Rayasam: [00:36:43] You are tuned in to APEX Express on 94.1 KPFA, 89.3 KPFB in Berkeley, 88.1 KFCF in Fresno and online at kpfa.org. Coming up is “March 4 Education” on the Anakbayan Long Beach May Day mixtape.

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Swati Rayasam: [00:37:03] That was “Find my Way” by Rocky Rivera on her Nom de Guerre album. And before that was “March 4 Education” on the Anakbayan Long Beach May Day mixtape. And now back to the ConShifts podcast.

Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:44:12] So this is all very powerful and grounds us back in the topic that we’re trying to unpack. So I have a question for both of you on how do we begin to interrogate anti-blackness in Asian and Pacific Island communities, specifically among Polynesians, Asians, Micronesians. How might we uproot anti-blackness in the spaces that we find ourselves?

Courtney-Savali Andrews: [00:44:36] I think we need to start with identifying what blackness is in these conversations before we get to the anti part. Are we talking about skin? Are we talking about, you know, cultural expression? Are we talking about communities, black communities within our own respective nations? So one of the things that in thinking through this, today’s conversation, you know, I was thinking that, you know, starting with identifying our indigenous black communities at home, you know, in pre-colonial times. And even as we have the development of the nation state, just seeing where people are in their understandings of those communities would be a wonderful place to start before we even get to the drama that is white supremacy in the US and how that monster manifests here and then spreads like a rash to the the rest of the colonial world. I would really start with like, what are we talking about in terms of black and blackness before we go into how people are responding in a way to be against it.

Jason Finau: [00:45:52] Yeah, that was solid Court. Definitely providing that definition of what blackness is in order to figure out exactly what anti-blackness is. Kind of adding to that is looking around at the various organizations that are out there. When we go back to the earlier examples of being in API spaces, but primarily seeing more Asian faces or Asian presenting faces, thinking about, and I’m just thinking about like our Black + Blue group, like, there are so many of us who identify as black and Pacific Islander or black and Asian. And yet the representation of those folks in spaces where nonprofit organizations, community organizations are trying to do more to advance the API agenda items to make sure that we get more access to resources for our specific communities, whether that’s education, healthcare, employment resources, all of that. When we look at those organizations who are pushing that for our community, you just see such a lack of black and brown faces who are part of those conversations. And I would have to say that for those organizations and for the people who will participate in any of those activities that they promote. To look around and not see one person who presents as black and may identify as black and PI seems kind of problematic to me because, you know, I used to think that growing up in the 80s and 90s that outside of my cousins, there were no other black and PI people. I’m learning now as I get older and again with our Black + Blue group, that there are so many of us, I mean, there are folks who are older than I am. There are a number of people around the same age. And then there’s so many young kids. And so for none of those folks to feel, and that is another, that was a common theme, from our group was that a lot of the folks just didn’t feel comfortable in PI spaces to be if they were black in and Hawaiians might be comfortable in the Hawaiian space to speak up and say anything or in whatever Pacific Island space that they also belong to is that they just didn’t feel comfortable or seen enough to be a part of those. I think you know, once we identify what blackness is within our within the broader API community, we can also look at well, you know, why aren’t there more people like us, those of us who do identify as black and PI, why aren’t more of us involved in these conversations, being asked to be a part of these conversations, and helping to drive a lot of the messages and a lot of the agendas around garnering resources for our community.

Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:48:18] One of the pieces that’s really present for me, when you started asking the question on how we define blackness before we begin the conversation around anti-blackness reminded me of Steve Biko learning about the black consciousness movement in South Africa and the anti apartheid movement. I had the opportunity to travel to South Africa for global learning fellowship and started to learn more about the anti apartheid movement. But when Steve Biko discussed black consciousness as an attitude of mind and a way of life, it got me thinking in one direction while at the same time in this conversation that we’re having here, when we talk about colorism with post colonial society, the Philippines being one of them, how does colorism show up? I’m wrestling that. So I just appreciate you bringing that question into the space.

Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:49:05] So Black + Blue, it’s an affinity space for black Polys and I need to just say thank you for providing the space. It has been therapeutic and healing and again, everything I knew I needed and had no idea where to find. So I appreciate it so much. So I’m wondering, I guess, how do we create similar spaces for other folks? Or is there a need to like, does Black + Blue just exist for us? And is that enough? Or do we need to start thinking about doing more to create similar spaces for other folks? And I’ll leave that to whoever wants to respond before my final question.

Courtney-Savali Andrews: [00:49:45] I’ll just jump in and say that I think that, you know, any opportunity for folks to gather to create and wrestle through dialogue is absolutely necessary at this particular point in time with social media and a fairly new cancel culture that exists. It’s really a detriment to having people understand how to connect and even connect through disagreement. So I think that there should always be space made for people to have tough conversations, along with the celebratory ones. So I’m always all for it.

Jason Finau: [00:50:23] Yeah, I would agree. I think if I’ve learned anything out of being able to facilitate the Black + Blue group that there is just such a desire for it and unknown and even an unknown desire. I think people, you know, didn’t realize they needed it until they had it. And I think it feels unique now it being a black and Blue space, Black + Blue Pacific space. But I can see that need kind of going outside of us. How do we take the conversations that we’re having with each other, the learning and the unlearning, the unpacking of experiences, the unpacking of feelings and emotions and thoughts about what we’ve all been through to share that with the broader Pacific Island community in a way that can steer some people away from some of the negative, behaviors that we find that can be associated in speaking of people who identify as black or African American? But I can see that as not just for those who identify as black and Pacific Islander, but also for parents of children who are black and Pacific Islander, and for the youth. So like right now our Black + Blue group is geared towards the adult population of those who identify as black and PI. But then also thinking about like the younger generation, those who are in high school or in middle school or junior high school, who are also maybe going through the same things that we all went through at that point and needing a safe space to have those conversations and kind of process those things. Because they may have a parent who may not understand, you know, if they only have their Pacific Island parent, or they’re primarily identifying with their black side because they don’t feel comfortable with the Pacific Island side, whatever their journey is being able to provide that for them, but then also providing a space for parents to understand where their kids may be coming from, to hear from experiences and learn and potentially provide their kids with the resources to navigate very complex ideas. One’s identity journey is not simple. It is not easy. It is not quick. And so it’s hard. And that is not something, I mean, and I don’t expect every parent, regardless of what their children’s ethnic background is, to understand what that means like for their kids. But to be able to have a space where they can talk it out with other parents. But I also see that for our Latinx and PI community. I see that for our Asian and PI community, those who identify as both being Asian and Pacific Islander. For me, that just comes from a personal experience because my mom is one of nine. And I think out of the nine, three of the kids had children with other Samoan partners, and the rest had either a black partner, has a Mexican partner, has a partner who identifies as Chinese and Japanese, and has another partner who is white. But I have cousins who are in this space, and so we can all share in the fact that, although we may not all physically identify or people may not be able to physically recognize us as Samoans, that is what we all share in common. So having that for them as well. And then, you know, right now we’re in COVID. So it’s been a blessing and a curse to be in this pandemic, but I think the blessing part was that we were able to connect with so many people in our group who are from across the states and even across the waters. Once we’re able to move past this pandemic and go back to congregating in person, being able to have groups within your respective cities to be able to go and talk in person, whether it’s in Seattle, Los Angeles, New York, you know, folks out in Hawaii and like in Aotearoa. Who wants to continue engaging with other folks that they feel comfortable identifying or who they also identify with. Do I think that there is a need? Absolutely. And I can see it just across the board whether people know it or not, I think once we put it in front of them, that is where they’ll see like, “Yeah, we need that.”

Courtney-Savali Andrews: [00:53:57] I just wanted to also highlight, you know, a point of significance for me with this group and hopefully one that would serve as a model for other organizations and groups that may develop after this, is modeled off of cultural studies, which is the process of actually remembering and relearning things that we’ve things and peoples that we’ve forgotten and with Black + Blue in the Pacific, it’s really important to me to also include, and keep the Melanesian, the black Pacific voice in that conversation to model for other peoples of color to reach out to black peoples at home, or regionally to understand and again, remember those particular cultural networks that existed in pre colonial times and even sometimes well into colonial times, as current as you know, the 1970s black liberation movements to highlight Asian and Pacific and, and, and, and other peoples that were non black, but very instrumental in that fight for liberation as a whole, but starting with black liberation first. So, I think this is a really good time in an effort towards uprooting anti-blackness to highlight just how old our relationships with black peoples and black peoples in relationship with Asians and Pacific peoples, South Asians, Southeast Asians, it just goes on and on, to say that we’ve been in community positively before, so we can do it again.

Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:55:52] That is the most perfect way to wrap up the episode in reminding us to remember, and reminding us that all of our liberation is definitely tied to black liberation that they’re inextricably linked together. Thank you, Courtney. Thank you, Jason. Fa’a fatai te le lava thank you for listening.

Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:56:13] Salamat thank you for listening.

Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:56:14] We want to thank our special guests, Jason and Courtney, one more time for rapping with us tonight. We appreciate you both for being here and really helping us continue to build the groundwork for Continental Shifts Podcast.

Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:56:24] Continental Shift Podcast can be found on Podbean, Apple, Spotify, Google, and Stitcher.

Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:56:30] Be sure to like and subscribe on YouTube for archive footage and grab some merch on our website.

Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:56:36] Join our mailing list for updates at conshiftspodcast.com. That’s C-O-N-S-H-I-F-T-S podcast dot com and follow us at con underscore shifts on all social media platforms.

Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:56:52] Dope educators wayfinding the past, present, and future.

Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:56:56] Keep rocking with us fam, we’re gonna make continental shifts through dialogue, with love, all together.

Estella Owoimaha-Church: [00:57:02] Fa’fetai, thanks again. Tōfā, deuces.

Gabriel A. Tanglao: [00:57:04] Peace, one love.

Swati Rayasam: [00:57:07] Please check out our website, kpfa.org backslash program backslash apex express. To find out more about the show tonight and to find out how you can take direct action. We thank all of you listeners out there. Keep resisting, keep organizing, keep creating and sharing your visions with the world. Your voices are important. Apex Axpress is produced by Miko Lee, along with Paige Chung, Jalena Keene-Lee, Preeti Mangala Shekar, Anuj Vaida, Kiki Rivera, Nate Tan, Hien Ngyuen, Cheryl Truong, and me Swati Rayasam. Thank you so much to the team at KPFA for their support and have a great night.

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