An open letter to Ellie, the leader of the Pacific Island sisters in Chowchilla Women's Prison

Dear Ellie,

Wassup, howz it going sis?

What a great opportunity it was to finally meet you last week! I felt that I knew you already when we met because a photo of you and other women in Chowchilla that Maryann sent us is up in our kitchen. We show that beautiful photograph to everyone who comes to our house.

Our homies in the photographs I sent you have seen your photo and now they connect your photo to the stories Fui and I tell them about Chowchilla.

The program you and the women set up was beautiful Ellie! The dance performances showed that you practiced hard and the bright costumes were well coordinated. Those of us from the outside were amazed at how y'all gave us so much: so much joy, so much beauty in the dances, costumes and music; and so much courage in sharing your knowledge with us.

I thought of how you spent hours together trying to remember those Samoan, Hawaiian and Tahitian songs and dance movements. You all were on your own, depending on memory from perhaps dancing at church and with sisters and cousins, moving your bodies to a familiarity you grew up with that may not be available anymore since you entered prison. When Fiji's E Papa started playing and the young butch black sister D softly sang along on the microphone, while another sister performed a beautiful hula, I began to cry and I had to look at the floor.

I was overwhelmed with the memories and the meanings that surfaced as this Maori song played with all of us sitting in that hall, "E papa waiari/ taku nei mahi/ taku nei mahi/ he tuku roimata." When I was a child in Tonga Ellie, we learned this song in class 2, when I was about 7, and we did a stick dance to it. My aunt Salote, who passed away when I was a teenager, helped my mom to make me and Fui's dance costumes. I think of my aunt Salote, who cussed a lot and loved us unconditionally. She passed away due to cancer, and my dearest cousin Hiu, her eldest son, still a teenager then, was left to care for his three younger siblings.

E Papa is like my family's theme song because it's about a hard life. When it comes to heart aches and difficulties Ellie, I think that you and I, and our sisters in Chowchilla, have a lot in common. E Papa will be our song. It's our Pacific Island/ Oceania family theme song. In the beauty of it's storytelling, it reveals the heartbreak we have lived and the love we hold onto to live this life. I don't speak Maori but I know Tongan and I can pick up the essence of the meaning of the song. This is my translation of its essence: e papa waiari/ my love/ taku nei mahi, taku nei mahi/ there is only sadness/ he tuku roimata/ no end to the tears.

E aue, aue/ oh lord! oh lord!/ ka mate ahau/ i will perish/ e hine hoki mai ra/ woman come back home to me.

When I heard that song at Chowchilla Ellie, my heart jumped. I was lifted back to Salt Lake City, hanging out with my oldest brother, drinking and playing cards, and chopping onions and cilantro to garnish the tacos his wife prepared. Before the tacos turned cold, a threat of infidelity would escalate to the cops knocking on the doors. I was back in Glendale, Salt Lake City, huddled in blankets during winter in yet another house we were squatting at with my homegirl Nia, who passed away in a car accident, reading Sonia Sanchez poems. This was before her three boys and my son. In between poems and hits on a joint, Nia would smile and say, "that ones kool."

It reminded me of the time my sister Fui and her ex-husband Mo were living in Sunset in San Francisco. E Papa would be bumping from the speakers of Mo's Ford, while he was driving through the Mission to pick Fui up from work at New College. Niko and I would be along for the ride. All of us would feel safe and proud that our Oceania music was so gorgeous and could evoke so much feeling. On Friday nights, Mo and Fui drank wine and listened to E Papa, talk about Cal football and the Raiders. Now on Friday nights, my sister still drinks wine and while E Papa plays, she feels something that brings her to tears.

E aue, aue, our Oceania music reminds me of this struggle that is life. It is being true to our hearts during the struggle that will deliver us back to our true love, to our true homes. Being true, because it requires us to sit everyday with our ordinary, vulnerable selves, will give us our freedom.

Today I am struggling to write a personal statement for my law school application. I am in the process of applying to law school right now. I get so hard on myself for not being able to write a perfect statement that I give up. The personal statement has to show who I am and why I want to be a lawyer and why I think I will do well at law school. I get so frustrated with having to write about all my failures Ellie that I give up.

Well, this gives me an idea! I will no longer spend all my time explaining about failing high school, failing college, failing jobs, failing relationships.

I'll focus the personal statement on the work I did that led me to envision my becoming a lawyer and focus on the work that I'm currently doing that shows how I will do well in law school. That will be a better way to write my personal statement.

I regret that my sister Fui wasn't able to make the visit to Chowchilla with me. I'll make sure that she will attend all our visits from now on.

Please give our love to all the sisters, including Chi, Good, Carol and Mapa. Tell them that we love them. Thank you so much for the beautiful candy leis!

I will go and visit Sala and get to know her. It was a great opportunity to meet her in San Francisco when she brought all the food for us to take. I hadn't eaten taro and green bananas in a while. Man, that pulu masima (that's what we call salted beef in Tongan) was hella good. I wish Rudy let us know that we could take food so we could've added more to the food Sala brought.

I love you Ellie. Follow the beat of your strong heart.

'Ofa lahi atu,

Loa, Fui and all the homies