Perspective: Embracing two cultures

Alex Cochran

Susi Feltch-Malohifo’ou skilled an id disaster of types when she encountered Pacific Islanders in faculty in San Francisco in 1981. She was Polynesian, too, however raised in a white household. She was 3 years previous in 1966 when a pair working in Tonga for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints adopted her and introduced her to the USA, the place she lived what she calls a privileged life. Her dad was a choose in Vernal and her grandfather was a Utah legislator.

Her of us cocooned her from ideas like racism, she says. She didn’t surprise if she belonged or query her place on this planet. Later, when she discovered about racism, she noticed new which means in feedback that as a baby she’d simply chalked up as “bizarre.” Her ethnic neighborhood handled her as “fia palangi,” which interprets as “wannabe white.”

Questioning the place she slot in, Feltch-Malohifo’ou received considerably misplaced as a younger grownup. She was arrested for auto theft in Texas in 2000 and convicted of a decreased felony cost, theft of providers. Trying again, she thinks there aren't any errors except you by no means be taught from them. She’s used her missteps as constructing blocks to craft a satisfying profession, targeted on accepting and assembly others the place they're.

In 2015 she co-founded Pacific Island Data 2 Motion Assets, a nonprofit targeted on violence prevention and schooling, financial affect, and preserving and celebrating Pacific Island arts and tradition. The group is a pressure past her ethnic neighborhood, connecting Utah enterprise house owners and entrepreneurs, convening a nationwide violence prevention convention, and even launching its personal movie pageant.

Throughout the first yr of COVID-19, she co-chaired the Neighborhood Well being Staff Part for the Utah Public Well being Affiliation, serving to her hard-hit neighborhood navigate the pandemic. In 2021, Forbes included Feltch-Malohifo’ou, 58, on its 50 Over 50 Impression Record. And in 2018, she gained the FBI’s Director’s Neighborhood Management Award for Utah — “a little bit of redemption for an ex-felon to say that folks can change,” she says.

Deseret talked to her about why cultural sensitivity issues in lifting communities, the place leaders miss the mark by ignoring tradition variations and “code-switching,” the place folks alter their identities in trade for honest remedy and alternative.

Deseret:How onerous is it to navigate two cultures?

Susi Feltch-Malohifo’ou: Salt Lake Metropolis is the primary place I’ve ever lived the place there are plenty of Pacific Islanders, and I didn’t slot in at first. I used to be invited to sit down on the board of an ethnic Tongan nonprofit and — wow, that was a studying expertise. I discovered to cease discounting myself as a Pacific Islander, as a result of the blood that runs by way of my veins is 100% Tongan and it’s OK that I’m not typical.

Deseret:What led you to the nonprofit area?

SFM: After a few years of school in California, I got here again to Utah and have become a sufferer of home violence and sexual assault. That took me down a path of therapeutic, studying and self-reflection. I began volunteering at shelters and it made me really feel good; company work was not so fulfilling. On the identical time, I had gotten a felony, so I might now not maintain the job that I had.

So I turned an entrepreneur out of necessity. I used to be attempting to determine the best way to generate income and survive but additionally do what felt proper. So I began to volunteer with nonprofits and acknowledged that they weren’t run like a enterprise. That was an issue in my thoughts. That’s the rationale they’re not surviving and don’t ever have any cash.

Deseret:You’ve mentioned that outdoors organizations usually fail to assist ethnic communities. Why?

SFM: There was plenty of schooling, however not culturally related schooling that empowered folks to maneuver themselves ahead. Until folks discover the solutions inside themselves, it doesn’t stick. You'll be able to’t change lives for good by simply filling a room and paying any individual per head to show sure ideas.

As soon as, some Polynesian younger males requested me for recommendation on operating their small companies. I really helpful a counselor, who met with them and mentioned they'd an amazing session. However the younger males instructed me, “We didn’t perceive a phrase.” Did they even go to the identical assembly? He couldn’t make his materials related to them, however their tradition taught them it was disrespectful to ask elders questions, in order that they couldn’t let him know.

I acknowledged that what we had been lacking was cultural translation. It’s one thing I might see as a result of I’d spent a lifetime code-switching — altering who I used to be to suit into two cultures.

Deseret:What’s misplaced when folks don’t perceive cultural variations or the best way to handle race?

SFM: What if we let folks deliver their entire selves to the desk? Do you perceive what they undergo each day? Are you able to see by way of their eyes? When COVID-19 hit, nobody within the Pacific Islander neighborhood understood the phrases getting used to speak about it. The messaging was not proper. We would have liked infographics. To at the present time, the COVID numbers in our neighborhood haven't improved. We're No. 1 or 2 in deaths and hospitalizations.

Deseret:Inform us in regards to the anti-violence program your husband, Simi Poteki, began.

SFM: Nothing had been carried out about home violence in my ethnic neighborhood within the 30 years since I used to be assaulted. How might that be? I took my husband to a nationwide convention on home violence in San Francisco. He got here again to our resort room and mentioned, “I’m going to start out speaking to Tongan males about violence in our neighborhood. The rationale that that is nonetheless a problem is as a result of the boys are usually not holding one another accountable.”

He got here again to Utah and began KAVA Talks. KAVA stands for Data Above Violence All the time. He received seven Tongan males licensed as home violence advocates and off they went. Then ladies began calling, so we began a ladies’s empowerment group. And we — my husband, me and a detailed buddy, Cencira Teo — launched Pacific Island Data 2 Motion Assets to tell folks the place they may go for assist.

Deseret:What are the group’s priorities?

SFM: First, remove violence. Second, improve earnings for Pacific Islander houses by way of enterprise creation and assist. Third, assist folks to remain grounded of their constructive Pacific Island roots.

After I go to excessive colleges, if I ask youngsters what makes you Tongan, what makes you Hawaiian, they usually don't have anything good to say about themselves that's concrete. It’s at all times issues like, “we’re humorous” or “we’re good athletes.”

We've got related talks in our ladies’s empowerment group. You'll be able to seem like you’re white. You'll be able to costume such as you’re white. You'll be able to stay in neighborhoods which might be white. The reality is, you’re not. What’s mistaken with being happy with who you might be? Our ancestors navigated the oceans broad. Our job now could be to be taught and navigate methods for ourselves, our households, our communities and others that want it. Everybody once they come to this nation wants the identical issues: a roof overhead, meals, a job.

On the identical time, our group is multicultural. We've got served as many white folks and Hispanics as we've got Pacific Islanders. We consider you meet folks the place they're, give them dignity and hope, and empower them with schooling and the assets they should prosper. You grow to be their cheerleader. They’re going to maneuver ahead as they see match.

Deseret:Why begin a movie pageant?

SFM: This comes again to my very own background, and that concept of id. And I didn’t see us on movie. Our youngsters, do they see themselves and establish? They’re rising up in a white society, attempting to make sense of their very own conventional tradition that mother and pa are retaining, anticipated to be a technique at house and one other once they exit. How do youngsters survive that? I really feel like I didn’t survive that myself, and I didn’t need them to stroll the trail that I did. Illustration helps. Movie is the simplest method to have wealthy conversations about concepts that problem tradition with out hitting folks over the pinnacle with it. I used to be speaking to a younger man who was a filmmaker and mentioned, why don’t we present all Pacific Island movies?

Deseret:Any final phrases?

SFM: Please be a part of me in working collectively so everybody feels valued and accountable for what occurs in our communities. Everybody performs a vital function in our holistic wellness.

This story seems within the March .