Traveling Seed, a blog post from April 25th

I started this post back in April 25th and added to it today.

Tonight we went to see Cherrie Moraga, one of my favorite writers!, and Celia Herrera Rodriguez's mixed medium production, "La Semilla Caminante/The Traveling Seed: A Multimedia Performance Work," in a theater in The Mission. It was a play about ceremony, particularly the kinds of gatherings indigenous women in the U.S. deliberately initiate to heal together using indigenous medicines, art and knowledge.

The central narrative in this play was the story of a middle-age woman struggling with coming to terms with healing herself. She attends ceremony after ceremony and doesn't wake up to what her role is in the ceremony yet.

As a young Tongan woman growing up in Utah, my friends and I held tight to the idea of ceremony. We imagined and dreamed with all our hearts, with all our might to gather with other Pacific Island girls in Utah who immigrated to this new country, just like us and who knew so well, just like us, how lonely it was to grow up in the shadow of memories that happened in the homeland.

Meeting at an Eek-A-Mouse show, on the steps of the Liberty Wells Mormon chapel or the Indian Walk In Center, those nights at the parking lot of the 'Unuaki Tonga Methodist Church on 4th South. When we met, we always tried to seize the moment, to continue the ceremony that is always created when we meet at the same parking lot to drink, bump music from our cars, just to be with each other. The ceremony that will fill the empty void in our lives for a moment before we returned to our white suburbs, our poor working class neighborhoods, the tokenism of our presence in white schools, the colonial teachings of our churches, the letters from our brothers in prison. We lived for those nights when everyone around us was Tongan and the jokes were Tongan; the perfume, strong and heady, smelled like a Tongan; and the hot breath of desire on the nape of the neck spoke Tongan.

It was in these gatherings that I held ceremony with Tongan and Pacific Island sisters. We stood in circles, wearing heavy coats in winter and sweatshirts in summer, with Big Gulps of Rum and Coke, passing around joints or sheets of acid, laughing out loud at Yellow Man's advice, "Girl, you can't do what the guys do you know and still be a lady."
This kind of ceremony lasted all weekend, doing beer runs after using up everyone's money. We wanted to to prolong being together, the feeling of belonging together. Everyone worked hard to pitch in and take care of each other but the void we wanted to fill with each others' presence just grew larger. Soon enough the void was partying together with us, which is no fun. You don't want to party with histories of your own pain.

I wonder what kind of ceremony would have helped to fill the void of isolation and self hate that was so prevalent within me when I was in my early twenties growing up in Utah?

What kind of indigenous Tongan healings are there available for young people in Utah, the Bay Area, the homeland today?

What role does ceremony play in my life today?




An ongoing post I'm working on: Why do I want to go to Harvard Law School?


it begins with my dad. it begins with my dad for me. all the places and things that my dad began with, is also my beginning.
i was seven, weeding my cousin Hiu's and I's taro plants in the garden. we lived in Kolomotu'a in Tonga. I saw a man standing down the road watching my home, the two room house my mother and two of my sisters lived in. this is before the two youngest siblings were born.
the man stared intently at our house, so i knew he was my father. he looked like he felt he had to come back home but really didn't want to do it.

rest in peace Howard Zinn

howard zinn passed away today. i have always felt a warm reassurance that "A People's History of the United States" existed and that it was written by a caring, smart white American male historian.

when i lived in east boston in the mid-2000s, there was a rally for the U.S. to get out of Iraq almost every other week at boston commons. i remember howard attending many of these rallies. he was the tall thin man with beautiful gray hair, constantly surrounded by students. i think i marched passed howard at 3 different marches. there was always someone talking to howard and someone waiting to talk to him. not wanting to interrupt his conversations, i touched his back and thanked him quietly. he never flinched or shrugged away because he didn't know me. he always smiled and welcomed me.

i feel very blessed and humble that howard and his work was a part of my intellectual, cultural and spiritual development. i bought my son niko the "People's History" graphic novel last year. the stories in it helped niko, who is now 11, as he continues to shape and hone his consciousness of being a boy at this time in america.

i thank howard for giving his life to the struggle for people to live meaningful and equitable lives in this country.

with howards' passing, i think about my own life and what i will leave younger generations when i die. i've been thinking a lot about my calling in life.

with missing the law school application deadlines last year and receiving a low lsat score, i've been thinking, "what if law school is not for me?" i should just be a poet. i'll put more time to writing poetry and tour as a poet rock star.

my son said to me, "but you are already a poet mama." "oh, hmm," i thought. in his prayer tonight he asked the gods, "please help my mom find out what she wants to be."

on saturday night, my sister fui and i were part of an asian artist showcase. at this event, i met a classmate from my lsat prep class last year. he's vietnamese, an undergraduate student at cal and he will be graduating this spring 2010. when we met at our lsat prep class, we were very nervous about the class expectations and the test and we talked about where we wanted to go to law school. this friend told me that he wanted to get a high score because he planned on going to columbia university. at the event on saturday, i asked him how his applications went and he told me that he was accepted to columbia and is waiting to hear from harvard. wow, this was great news from my classmate!

i thought about his great news when i came home. i did think about our differences: he's a traditional student, he's doing his undergrad at a top school, and I assumed that he does well on standardized tests. i also remembered how kind he always was to me, an older woman in the class. he is always genuine in conversation and talks to me when we run into each other in public. when i first met him, he seemed awkward to me and shy, but as i see him more, i realize that he's young and still coming into himself.

i saw my own reflection in my young classmate. i saw that i too, although much older in age, am awkward in this process of applying to law school. I am very nervous and am still coming into myself in my journey to get to law school.

talking to my classmate on saturday woke me up from my stupor of self criticism and self doubt. my classmate shared his news with me with kindness and by doing this, he allowed me to imagine myself in his own accomplishments, that his great news is an example of great news that i will receive one day too.

i'm still a little beat around the edges and my heart is still broken from not making last year's law school application deadlines, but, after hearing from my classmate that he's going to the school of his choice, i remember the great joy i felt when i realized i wanted to become a legal advocate. i'm feeling that great joy coming back. i'm scared to capture all that joy back again though because, since recently being disappointed with myself, the self doubt comes back and i say, "what if you don't do it again." sure, i guess there's always that risk that i may not apply again this year, but there's a promising possibility that i can do it and that i will get into the school i want, just like my classmate! i must choose to pursue joy, not failure.

i remember a fellow americorps legal intern i talked to back in 08. he was a young man like my classmate, but he was italian/irish from the historically irish southie neighborhood of boston. he was finishing his senior undergrad year when he applied to 50 law schools. no one accepted him. then he served as an americorps legal intern, retook the lsat, finished undergrad. and applied to 37 schools, including his dream school, bc (boston college). he got accepted to 7 schools, including his dream, bc, where he is starting his second year. it's an inspiring story!

i'm really proud of my classmate and am grateful for how his example of kindness, hard work and commitment, helps me in my struggle to pursue joy in my life.

i think of howard zinn and how his work brought joy to people, how he made it easier for us in this country. how did howard find his calling in life?

my calling for right now is to wake up to myself, my kind and hard working, committed self. to greet myself in the morning and when my heart sinks and shrieks away from the everyday chores of living and hides away from the law school process, i will hold my heart and carry her steadily with my own hands. each day, my strength will return and, each day, i will forgive myself and trust myself again.

while i do these things, i will not hate and blame people around me who see that I am engaged in a fierce struggle with myself. i will not be angry at them because they see that i am vulnerable and exposed and that they offer to help me. i will not dismiss them because i am ashamed that they witness on a daily basis how difficult it is for me to return to my own joy. i will let them help me to stand up. i will find joy in transforming my self hatred to reflect, instead, the great love my companions have for me.

disappointment, postponement and continuing the path

Yesterday, after tough conversations with my sister and thinking deeply about where my life is at, I wrote to my undergraduate professor, Dave Stanley, and said:

Hi Dave,

I'm so sorry that I had you working on my letter of rec. I kept pushing myself to apply this year (for law school) but, after many conversations with current law students and a few law professors, I have decided to postpone my application until this fall, Fall 2010.
My LSAT score was low (145 out of 180) and I am going to retake the preparation class and retake the test.
I do want you to still write a letter of rec for me in September 2010.

I am very sorry for putting this extra stress on you Dave. Thank you for all your support throughout my attempt.
I look forward to your continued support this year and, together, we will make attending law school a reality for me!!!

Dear readers,

I apologize for not writing on my blog. I thank readers for congratulating me on taking the LSAT and wishing me luck on my score. I thank all of you for your encouragement.

I am not applying this year. My score of 145 is below the average. I was going to apply anyway to a program that would accept my score because I didn't want to repeat the grueling and painful experience of retaking the preparation classes, studying constantly at the library and the anxiety of retaking the test. I really wanted to avoid all this.

I spoke with a recent graduate of UCLA Law School who was a student representative at UCLA's Law School Admissions Committee and now working as a Public Defender. He challenged me to take the LSAT again to improve my score. A current Boalt Hall Law School student advised me to retake the test too and to apply no later than Thanksgiving. I didn't want to hear this advice.

My mind was preoccupied with my apps. I worked on my personal statement and applications but I didn't feel inspired and motivated anymore. I hit a brick wall with trying to finish my personal statement. I couldn't even write on my blog. I felt very disappointed with myself in receiving a low test score and I couldn't look beyond my disappointment. I started to feel depressed and became very angry and put my anger unfairly on my sister and my relationship with my girlfriend.

I did not spend time with myself to think about my disappointment, to evaluate what happened. I did not thank and acknowledge myself for working hard and earnestly. I judged myself harshly and buried myself in work.

I received a consulting job in late October to help City of Oakland planners to designate neighborhoods in order for these neighborhoods to more readily receive regional funding. Although the research for this project spanned two months, it took me three days to finish the document I was contracted for. I marveled at how fast it took me to finish this City of Oakland document compared to the months upon months I have taken on my personal statement.

Throughout this time, I insisted on applying to law school anyway. I felt that I had to be committed to my goal to apply in 2009 for the 2010 school year since that was my original plan.

On Friday, my sister Fui and I were driving to the KPFA Community Radio Station to do an interview on the Hard Knock Radio Show about an anthology we are helping to edit called, "Uso's on Freeways: An Anthology of Pacific Island Writers from/in the Continental U.S."

That morning I woke up angry. I didn't know why I was angry, but like many times before, the anger was just there. I felt very uncomfortable with the anger that was in my bones and that filled each cell of my body. I have felt this anger for most of my life. Although it brought great discomfort and hurt, I never talked to anyone about it before.

My sister tried to talk with me about ideas for the radio interview and I found it difficult to just chill out and enjoy myself. I became very critical of her suggestions and I exuded uncomfortable vibes.

On our drive to the KPFA studio, a feeling of great anger came upon me as I sat next to my sister. My sister felt it and could not understand why I would be so angry at her, especially when she secured this interview for the anthology and treated me kindly. She began to cry and she postponed the interview because we weren't in good terms. She told me to go home, but then called me a few minutes later to talk about what happened. I immediately changed my attitude because I could see how I hurt my sister. For the first time in my life, I took the anger that was inside me and held it outside of myself so I could see it, so I could look at it as something that I had carried but I do not have to carry for the rest of my life.

Fui asked us to try to solve our differences, particularly since we promised my son Niko that we were going to watch Avatar 3D for the first time that night. We didn't want to create family drama for Niko, and also, for ourselves.

I told Fui about the great anger that I carry. It was the first time I had talked about the anger itself. An immense anger that is a burden on me but that I have carried since I was a young child. Fui (and Elisa, my girlfriend, has said this too) said that the anger I carried helped me to survive in the past, but it now hindered my development to find joy and happiness.

I looked at the gigantic, calloused and hardened ball of anger I held away from myself and let it go. It melted like snow and flew away like dust. The memory and habits of the anger I carried for so long, returns many times and I have to put it outside of myself again and give it to the universe.

In my conversation with my sister, I found out that my ball of anger was full of my disappointment of my low LSAT score and the fact that I didn't apply to law school this year. I wept out loudly and horrific screams wailed out of my mouth as I came to terms with the reality of my law school process. I received a low LSAT and I did not apply to law school in 2009.

The reality of my law school applications is also the reality of what happened with the rest of my life, because my law school application does not exist in itself, it is part of me and I am part of a family, a community and a world.

As I wept in disappointment and shame for not having applied to law school in 2009, I cried out angrily and said, "I'd give up coming out queer this minute if Harvard accepted me right now." When I feel great anger boil in me, I blame and become distrustful of things I love the most and those who love me the most, like my sister, my family, and, as I cursed out, my girlfriend.

Would I really give up loving and accepting my queer self, which is the difficult work I did in 2009, for a place at a law school?

My commitment to become a lawyer for disenfranchised people and things comes from having grown up as a kid who honed a keen understanding of power disparities from being treated unfairly and silenced by people who were uncomfortable with my "weirdness."

I am humbled that I will become a queer lawyer one day.

Lawyers are legal advocates for people and things. On my journey to become a lawyer one day, I must be my strongest advocate. That's why I must set aside the ball of anger that has festered in my life. I must let go of my anger, which includes my shame, my embarrassment and my disappointment. All these things stop me on my tracks from continuing to reach my goal.

I am applying for law school again. I learned many things from my first attempt that were important lessons. I also have a bigger and stronger posse to help me on this journey. I thank the members of my posse who are present all the time, in body or spirit, and are committed to seeing this journey through with me.

2010, what a great year to try again for law school!!!

law school workshops for people of color, that's us!!!

For People of Color. Org Law School Workshops

go to forpeopleofcolor.org to register

Tomorrow, October 10, 2009 (I'm going to this one!)

8:30-4:00pm.

UC Hastings School of Law

200 McAllister Street

San Francisco, CA. 94102

Saturday, October 17, 2009

8:30-4:00pm.

UC Davis School of Law

King Hall

400 Mrak Hall Drive

Davis, CA. 95616

Saturday, October 24, 2009

12:00-3:00pm.

UC Merced

5200 North Lake Road

Merced, CA. 95343

Halloween is coming up and my friend Tiffany is having another one of those infamous garage parties at her house! For those of us applying for law school this year, Halloween signals, "get your application the f in now!! or you're going to miss out on your top choice schools!"

For prospective law students, we have the people of color law school workshop parties coming up!!! These are the For People of Color.Org (FPOC) workshops where we meet other folks who come from immigrant, poor and working class families and families of color and we listen to motivational speeches and make new contacts and new friends. We also get free lunches!

My first FPOC workshop was in LA in April. I was blown away by Anthony Solano's, FPOC's founder, speech. This Latino man, who grew up in East LA and was the first to graduate from college in his family, breaks it down for us. Through his speech, Anthony told me that I have a place in the courts and legal field in this country and in my homeland of Tonga as an attorney or a judge, not just as an accused prisoner. Me, a Tongan queer woman, who finally finished her undergraduate degree at the age of 32.

I attended an FPOC workshop a few weeks ago at Berkeley's Boalt Hall. Same thing. I received the courage to keep going on my application and I witnessed that thousands of students are going through the same struggle that I am. I love seeing older people like myself at these workshops because I can relate to what they're going through in this process. Young, traditional age students always seek me out and ask for my advice and I pretend to be wise.

If you're thinking of going into law and wondering about law school, come join the party. They say you're suppose to register but they don't take names at the door or the lunch lines.

This is the party to go to this fall people! No heart aches at this party, only motivation and healing to get you going on your goal to become a lawyer!!!

life after taking the LSAT

Wow! I feel so much weight taken off since I took the LSAT on Saturday. For the newcomers to this blog, the LSAT is the admittance test for law school and it can determine which law schools will accept you. But, there are other factors too that can be just as important.

It's the Monday after and I'm so relieved that my relationship with LSAT is over. I sat closest to the door at the testing center and when the folks who administered the test excused us, I flew out the doors faster than Flash Gordon. I was like, "f lsat!!!!"

Since March, my life was devoted to LSAT. Even when I wasn't doing logic games and logical reasoning problems, and partying instead with my friends, my mind and my heart was with LSAT. Dramatically true. I posted my ideal score on my bedroom wall as my daily affirmation. The heavy LSAT prep books cluttered my room. I stepped on used and unused answering sheets on my way to the bathroom. In the recent past, I loved watching videos, but when I started preparing for the LSAT, my appetite for watching films waned. I even went to the video store today to rent the Che movie with Benicio Del Toro that I told myself I would enjoy watching when the LSAT was over, but, I held the video in my hand and then put it back and walked out of the store. After meeting LSAT, some of my hobbies and patterns , like avid video watching, have changed.

There's a tight knot, right at the top of my spine at the back of my neck, that, when I press on it with my finger, I yelp in pain. I felt it yesterday, Sunday, right after the Saturday LSAT test. I feel like I was waiting for the Blue Line at State Street and the train hit me up against the wall. My body feels bruised, fatigued. All the excitement in me burned dry. I feel crabby and grouchy. I wish I could sleep for a whole week. Maybe I can. My post-LSAT blues. I am relieved I took the test but all the stress and anxiety I had all these months are manifesting as illness.

All I got for taking the LSAT was this lousy sore throat and a cough.

Now's the next round in the law school apps process: getting the applications in. I'm now working on my personal statement, addenda, resume, diversity statement and I'm gathering my letters of recommendations from professors who I know for sure like me and don't mind lying about my abilities. Hehe.

The personal statement, that's what's as important as the LSAT score. The personal statement, I've been told, is what can save me and get me into a top school, although my grades and LSAT scores aren't perfect.

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

getting back on the lsat path

OLO (One Love Oceania, Oceania queer women's group) at San Francisco Dyke March, June 2009. Jean, in the middle, designed and painted this banner.

Displaying this banner in San Francisco, against Prop. 8, was crucial to OLO members. We wanted Pacific Island people to know that it's possible to be against Prop. 8 and still have a PI community behind you, and we wanted mainstream media and the white gay press to see that Pacific Islanders are critical, political people who are also very capable of organizing social justice movements for ourselves and our communities.

It's been a while. I've gotten off the lsat studies and thinking-about-law-school path for over 3 months now. It's almost September, the month when most law schools begin accepting law school applications. September, the month that I envisioned turning in my own application.

I didn't take the June 7th lsat exam because my score was still low. And I haven't studied since June 7th either.

June and July were turbulent, scary and exciting months. There were the events of my sister and her husband, my roommates, separating. I worked together with friends to create a Bay Area Oceania queer women's organizing group called OLO, One Love Oceania. A lot of our organizing required eating, drinking and partying together to create support and trust. I attended some queer women of color events that challenged and shifted the heteronormative narratives I had for my own sexuality and the ways that I identified myself as a woman. These included Pride week events, the Queer Women of Color Film Festival and events that OLO organized.

At the Queer Women of Color Film Festival in San Francisco, I met a queer Chicana woman who I am in an intimate relationship with now. This is my first intimate relationship with a woman but I feel that I've known this way of loving and living all my life. To me, being a woman who is in love with another woman and the everyday acts of caring and being responsible for each other, is what I've learned and practiced my whole life as a loyal confidant to my sister Fui and a friend to my sisters Moana and Amelia; befriending and taking care of my brother David when he was young; being a daughter of my father Tangata and a daughter of my mother Litia; being a hard working and chaste wife to my ex-husband Filipe; struggling hard to be a decent caretaker to my son Nikolasi. I know the everyday survival of queer, gay, dyke loving well. I've been fighting to love and live on my own terms since I was a kid growing up in over developed Tonga and Mormon Utah.

The London Missionary Society and its Wesleyan counterparts, the trillion-dollar-profiting Mormon Church, prevailing White Supremacy and omnipotent Patriarchy could not kill the dyke in me. I wasn't studying my lsat in June 2009, but I reclaimed my queer, beautiful, handsome dyke self! If I can reclaim my dyke self as a dyke who spent almost 40 years growing up as a heterosexual woman on this planet, as a Wesleyan girl and woman in Tonga and a young Mormon woman in Utah and can still be humble and courageous enough to accept queer love, then I will, steadily, one day at a time, turn in strong, solid law school applications.

I would not have been able to recognize this love if it were not for the strength of my sister Fui, my son Niko, my sisters Moana and Amelia, my dear OLO homegirl/boys, my fellow thunder beings Tree and Venus and facebook friends Luisa and Sangeeta, my mother's relentless joy and hard work in challenging the status quo although she feels defeated today, the spirit of my grandmothers and grandaunts who have past, my father's allegiance to the arts and creativity, and that matter-of-fact dyke who follows her intuition, Elisa.

I wish my relatives and Tongan colleagues, both Wesleyan and Mormon, could be shocked by this, but they've known I've been pequeerlier all my life. I feel that for most folks, they're relieved that I've returned to myself. I called my mother and told her about my girlfriend. She was "very happy that you're happy." She said, "So you don't want to be a lawyer any more?"

at QWOCMAP picnic. laura, elisa's sister; loa; elisa; emily