Pausa Kaio “PK” Thompson

MY ANCESTORS ARE the Indigenous people of the Samoan Islands in the Pacific Ocean. The island chain is now separated by its colonial legacies: At one point, Germany and New Zealand controlled what is now the Independent State of Samoa, and the United States remains in territorial control of American Samoa.

The consequences of that history forced me to turn inward and clearly hear the lamentations of my ancestors. I think many Indigenous people with similar colonial wounds would agree we just want to heal from our pain. And the only appropriate remedy is justice.

But justice, in the Western sense, does not exist in the Samoan language. Samoans say amiotonu: Amio means “behavior,” and tonu means “right,” so amiotonu means “right behavior.” Indigenous Samoan ways of living and communicating with each other did not include Western concepts such as “yours” or “mine” and instead used terms such as “ours” — matou — and “everyone” — tatou. In short, “right behavior” is steered by how one interacts with the community and not just one’s own family or interests. You are accountable to everyone, and everyone is accountable to you. When an individual is wronged, the wrong is felt by the community.

My pursuit of amiotonu led me to liberation theology — a pathway that I believe was Jesus’ primary framework of ministry. Naturally, to do liberation work, one must cultivate a hermeneutic of suspicion. Unfortunately for me, most Samoans don’t like to stir the pot. In fact, many of my colleagues in ministry interpret my suspicions — either my theological suspicions or the activism and political views that grow out of those suspicions — as an offense to the opportunities given by the United States to Samoan people.

Many Samoans view the U.S. as sacrosanct, like the Bible or the church: holy, and not to be critically analyzed or challenged. The expectation is to simply acquiesce to the idealism of the American Dream and its so-called “greatness.” But I think that’s a great insult to my ancestors.