Amata's Pacific Notebook: SAMOAN YOUTH: OUR FUTURE IS IN GOOD HANDS
July 19, 2008

by Aumua Amata

Reprinted from Samoa News

July 19, 2008



This past Sunday I had the honor of being invited by Reverend Aliioaiga Filoialii to be part of his CCCAS Church worship service in Faleniu. My role was to present to the parents of Andrew Pati Ah Young the Mortar Board certificate of induction he received in April on the campus of the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.

Established in 1918, Mortar Board is a national honor society that recognizes rising college seniors for excellence in the areas of scholarship, leadership and service. Mortar Board members represent the top scholars and leaders on their campuses. In its 90 years of existence, only fewer that a quarter of a million students have been initiated at 226 chartered chapters across the United States representing the top schools in the country.

Mortar Board provides opportunities for continued leadership development, promotes service to colleges and universities and encourages lifelong contributions to the global community. Additionally, Mortar Board offers numerous benefits and opportunities to members, including career networking, fellowships and awards. In short, it is a very prestigious group and we all can be proud that one of our own sons of American Samoa has become a member.

Andrew was valedictorian for the Tafuna High School Class of 2005 and is attending UNM on a Bill Gates Millenium scholarship he told me he found as the result of an application announcement I had publicized in the media that year. Andrew and I have remained in communication since then and by the sheerest of coincidences my husband and I were scheduled to be at a conference in Albuquerque the day he was to receive the award. So he invited us to attend and we gladly did.



As has been my custom over the years, whenever I am traveling to a new city somewhere on the Mainland, I try to find a Samoan community, however small it may be. I usually find that if I can locate one Samoan I can locate the community. Albuquerque was no exception. In the old days it was a matter of the phone book. These days the internet makes life so much easier.



Through a lot of telephoning and exchanges of e-mail messages, we rounded up a nice little group of Samoans, many of whom had not met each other before and following the Mortar Board induction, we brought the Samoan students together with other Samoan adults in the area and also an Asian American group in the area for a nice Chinese buffet dinner.



After dinner, Andrew asked me if I would take his certificate home to American Samoa to give it to his parents for safekeeping. I am glad Reverend Filoialii insisted we make a formal presentation at his church because Andrew's parents so much wanted to be in Albuquerque were unable to do so and I was happy to be able to represent them. So the presentation at the church closed the loop.



As I told Andrew and the other young people at dinner, we are all so very proud of all their accomplishments as they strike out on their own to see what life has to offer. If by bringing all our Samoans together with the Asian American community produces just one valuable and lasting connection, then the whole evening was worthwhile for that reason alone.



By the way, the coincidences did not end in Albuquerque. I was scheduled to head right back to the west coast and Hawaii but HC Su'a and Salote Schuster, who were at the same Albuquerque meeting, suggested I change my reservations and join them over the weekend in Salt Lake City for the General Conference of the LDS church. Although these meetings are held frequently, this one was particularly special because Fonoti Jessop was scheduled to be elevated into the Quorum of Seventy, one of the highest bodies of the Mormon Church worldwide. I could not resist taking an opportunity to witness one of our own respected Samoan leaders be selected for one of the highest offices in his faith.



It was great to see so many well mannered, well dressed Mormon youth attend the General Conference and thanks to Su'a, who is a bishop in the church, I was able to meet many of our Samoan Mormon young people who are living in Utah as well as others who came in for the Conference from other parts of the country.



Since I had to change my reservations to include Salt Lake City, I wound up with extra time in Los Angeles before my return flight to Pago Pago. Through an aiga of mine, I knew her daughter, Falelima Miller, was a student at UCLA and active in the Pacific Islands Students Association (PISA). As luck would have it once again, it just so happened that PISA was having a meeting the evening I was free in Los Angeles. So I went over to the campus to meet with the students.



Although this club is for students whose backgrounds are from anywhere in the Pacific, it seemed to me that Samoans dominated the group at least the evening I was there. They had a lot of great questions about what was going on back home and seemed genuinely aware of a lot that is happening here in government, politics and the canneries. Thanks to the internet, American Samoa no longer is an isolated island unto itself.



Somehow, I also managed to squeeze in a little business in Washington on this trip and once again coincidentally I just happened to be there when this year's Close Up Foundation group was in the Capital. I had a great couple of hours with those students, many of whom I saw again last month at various high school graduations around the island. I even found one senior at Leone High School who told me he is going to UCLA this fall and I put him right in touch with the PISA members, who will give him a warm welcome to the campus.



The point I want to make here is that from this small slice of young people in Albuquerque, Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, as well as the Close Up kids and all the graduating high school seniors this year who soon will be going off to Hawaii and the Mainland themselves, we all can take pride in our future. I am pleased to report that our Samoan young people can hold their own with anyone in 21st century America. They are getting the education needed to sustain them for the long term and they are leading productive lives in society.


Our job here at home is to redouble our efforts to find ways to tap into that energy and enthusiasm by devising ways to draw our young people back home to put their talents to use here. The raw material is there. We have to harness it. Our future depends on it.