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.