Excerpts from
A C H I N G _ F O R _ M A N G O _ F R I E N D S
by Jacinta Galea'i • 2006 • $10
Design by Yoko Hattori

From Grandma's Corner

Our airplane is in the air now, leaving Pago Pago International Airport, flying over the pua tree next to our blue house, where Fale, John, and Mataio play lakapi Amerika and where my father will preach to people wearing pajamas inside the Lyndon, B. Johnson Hospital Chapel next Sunday. The airplane is flying higher now, so I cannot see Pele who had water in her eyes when I told her I was returning to the place in America I had left three years earlier when I first met her under the mango tree.

Jacinta S. Galea'i was born in American Samoa and grew up in the Pacific Northwest and Samoa. She received her B.A. from the University of Washington, and her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Hawai'i. Currently, she directs the University of Hawai'i-Manoa GEAR UP Project, which aims to improve the college-bound rates of under-represented students in Hawai'i. Her work can be found in Chain, Bamboo Ridge, Tinfish, and Women Writing Oceania: Weaving the Sails of Waka.