THE SALTY HISTORY OF UTAH

By Sia Figiel


Photography: Steve Greenwood, VisitUtah.com

To really understan dis place, u need to know da struggle of da Saints. How dey perseviah & enduah to reach God’s country, said Aunty E. After prayers on Pioneer Day. A month after we, da gentiles first arrived from American Samoa.

Uncle M, w spirited enthusiasm exclaimed
“Football 
Is going to love 
These boys!” 
He said it in Samoan. 
Like a Ute warrior 
Bowing before the Wassattsi Range
“Talosia le fanau.”

The following year
Nephew J invites 
Us to Utah Pride Parade
Hundreds of 
Men & women
Of all ages & sizes 
& color in glitter
& rainbow banners
MORMON MOMS
4 = RIGHTS!

Later,
We drive to Iosepa
SKULL VALLEY
Once a thriving community
Of Hawaiians and Samoans
We taste Ocean
Streaming down our faces.

Sia Figiel, mother to two sons, is a Samoan American diasporic poet, translator and award-winning novelist. Sia has written four novels, a collection of prose-poetry and “Terensia,” performance-poetry with the late poet and scholar Teresia Teaiwa. She is working on “Manuvao: Wild Beasts In Paradise,” a biopic of the Scottish writer Robert Louis Stevenson.