By Yiming Fu, Report for America corps member
Kids shrieked across the lawn with balloon toys and aunties sat together to catch up at a back to school Family Fun Day at Wailuku’s Iao Congregational Church Saturday in Maui.
The event provided Maui’s Micronesian families with free back to school materials, including backpacks, pencils, notebooks, crayons, shoes and milk formulas. Roots Reborn and Voices of Micronesia of Maui hosted the event. Roots Reborn is a nonprofit organization that serves migrants and immigrants on Maui. Organizations like Pacific Gateway Center, and Mālama I Ke Ola Health Center held pop-ups to offer free resources.
Anndionne Selestin, who is Pohnpeian, planned and MC’d the event with her co-worker Sue-Ellen William. As the first Micronesian person working at Roots, Selestin hoped Family Fun Day would bring Maui’s COFA community together.
Maui’s COFA community is composed of people from different islands across Micronesia. COFA, the Compact of Free Association, is an agreement that allows citizens from the Marshall Islands, Palau, and the Federal States of Micronesia to live and work in the United States in exchange for military control of certain land and waters.
Selestin was thrilled that people from many Micronesian islands, including the Pohnpeian, Chuukese, Kosraen and Marshallese, Yapese communities all joined. Selestin expected 50 kids, prepared 100 backpacks just in case, and distributed them all.
“It feels good,” Selestin said. “I know there’s a lot of us on the island, but we’re all in our own corner doing our own thing. For all of us to come up, enjoy, celebrate one another, I thought that was really awesome.”
While they all speak different languages, Maui’s COFA community shares similar features, values, cultures and traditions, Selestin said. An estimated 15,000 Micronesian people live in Hawaii, roughly 1% of the state’s population.
Selestin said she grew up in Maui feeling ashamed of her Pohnpeian heritage. For example, she said it was looked down upon to wear her Pohnpeian skirt in public. But at this event, Maui’s Micronesian youth wore their skirts proudly.
Lavana Marlik, 17, is a dancer and high school student who volunteered at the event. She said Micronesian people in Maui often face racist stereotyping and generalizations.
But Lavana’s proud of her heritage. Her dance group, FSU Girls, blends traditional dances with modern movements, and she makes it a point to turn up for her community events.
“Whenever big things like this happen, I love to help out,” she said. “Because it shows that we’re Micronesian. But it doesn’t mean we’re small.”
Queenie Selestin, Anndionne’s mother, said many Micronesian families on Maui live paycheck to paycheck and struggle paying rent and getting good healthcare. Everything they do is for their kids.
While she still feels like her voice is not heard, people from different islands are coming together, and there are many different organizations like the Voice of Micronesia and Roots Reborn forming that make her hopeful.
“I believe the more people that get together to help, then our voice will grow faster.”
(Yiming Fu is an AsAmNews reporter based in Maui assigned to follow the recovery from the Maui fire.)
AsAmNews is published by the non-profit, Asian American Media Inc.
We are supported through donations and such charitable organizations as the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. All donations are tax deductible and can be made here.
Please purchase your tickets to our fundraiser Up Close with Connie Chung, America’s first Asian American to anchor a nightly network newscast. The in-depth conversation with Connie will be held November 14 at 7:30 at Columbia University’s Milbank Chapel in the Teacher’s College. All proceeds benefit AsAmNews.
