Awesome weekend...

This past Sunday (June/24) was King Kamehameha's Lei Draping Ceremony at the U.S. Capital Building's Visiting Ceremony. Native Hawaiians and many supporters from across the country came with their love and respect for the commemoration of King Kamehameha. This was my first time hearing about this event so I dressed up in my puletaha and kiekie (Tongan traditional wear). Faaputu and I met up with our elders from California like Aunty Sharon, Aunt Jane, Uncle Victor and more. It felt good in our hearts that we met up with our people from home. Anyways, Putu and I had close seats to view the lei'ing of King Kamehameha's statue. There were great speeches done by great representatives of Hawai'i. I met Congressman Faleomavaega of America Samoa and the first thing he seen was my kiekie. After identifying me as a Tongan, he asked me to present his tapa cloth (ngatu in Tongan) on behalf of him for the Tongan community. As he went up to deliver his speech on our Hawaiian cousins and Senator Akaka, I had the honors of holding up the ngatu and presenting it to Senator Akaka! All in respect with my kiekie. After attending the banquet, Congressman took Putu and I out to dinner(after we already ate at the banquet). In between all the jokes and laughter, I grew mad respect for a man so humble as he was. I felt honored to spend time with the Congressman and have him personally invite us to his luncheon on Wednesday with other Pacific Islander interns in DC. For the first time in DC, I felt comfortable to be myself off the clock! Congressman is very down-to-earth and reminds me so much of family because of the way he holds great hospitality for us islanders. He told me alot about his family and friends from Tonga and Vava'u. He reps HA'APAI! Overall, I'm thankful to have met Congressman Eni and learn how a great leader is a person who can serve others. As of now, I'm starting my week fresh with work! Still expanding my network of Pacific Islander organizational contacts and people who can hook me up with Pacific Islander contacts...other than that, I'm attending luncheons and networking events to enjoy others company :) I'm excited for everything coming up :)

Random Day in DC

Summer in Washington DC

MY GIRLS AND BOYS FROM MY YOUTH MADE THESE AWESOME POSTERS :)

For the people who are slow like me, Washington DC (District of Columbia) is in the East Coast...NO, it's not Washington state, Seattle. LOL! That was me when I first thought of DC.

Anyways, I was accepted this summer as an intern for APIAVote (Asian Pacific Islander American Vote) in DC! I am representing EPIC (Empowering Pacific Islander Communities) based in Southern California. I was blessed with the opportunity and additional funding for my airfare and housing in DC from EPIC :) Now this city girl is residing in DC for this summer!! I live in Rockville, Maryland and I take a 30-40 minute train ride to the city (our Poly term for DC). Other than that, my main transportation is my footmobile! HOLLA! (I'm definitely losing weight before I go back home.)

The work that APIAVote does revolves around trying to increase our numbers of Asian and Pacific Islander voters. Their mission is to mobilize Asian and Pacific Islander communities in voter activity and civic engagement. I work with other Asians but I am the only Pacific Islander. My mission for this internship is to learn the whole get-down on Pacific Islander votes- number of registered voters, who actively votes and what will make people implement voting. My mission for my community is to take something away from this internship and utilize it back at home. Last but not least, my own mission is to realize if this is a path I would want to take when I grow older. So far, it has been a passion for me to help my Pacific Islander people in any way, shape, or form.

The first couple of days were real kick back. I helped with recruiting student organizers and P.I. people to the Voter Registration Training in Carson on Saturday, June 23. So far, so good.

This past weekend I attended the National Election Strategy Session with General Alliance. At this conference, there were Executive directors, student organization directors, and more that represented different communities around the country. After I came out of my shell (yesss I'm very shy with new people) I came to talk to people who were down to partner with the Pacific Islander community and work with us. A lot of their work was BIG TIME organizations like National Students Bill of Rights and Hip Hop Congress which were people who promotes the importance of voter activity through the push of the bill of student rights or hip hop music. Did you know they have free campaign websites? I learned how to organize phone banking and voter registrants through NOI (New Organizing Institute). It's wayyy easier than excel.

Everything I've learned here so far is GREAT! And comes in handy with what I want to push for in my community back at home. I'm meeting very inspirational and hardworking people. It checks me to work just as hard and get my work done too. One thing that's motivated me is knowing that Pacific Islanders are not (or hardly) represented out here. A lot of organizations claim API (Asian Pacific Islander) but they were not able to deliver when I asked them what were they working on within Pacific Islander communities. To a lot of them, we're the UNKNOWN. It's unfair! But at the same time, I can't blame them...it's hard to get all our Pacific Islanders to realize the importance of civic engagement. Soooo...this is where I came in...if they have no information on Pacific Islanders, what can I do to bring forth my community? What do they need me to do to push their efforts to the Pacific Islander community? This brought up a lot of discussion but people were really looking into it. My plan now is to just bug them until they can't take it anymore and finally do something about it. :)

I haven't had time to go out but hopefully this weekend I'm able to go out and do some sight-seeing. Going to work everyday has already been quite the adventure but I want to go to the main headquarters, the White House!!!! :) Excited for what's in store for me! Just praying it all goes well and I take more out of this experience than I can amount to think of! Stay tuned!! :)

P.S. I'll be posting more (pix and all) about my roomates, Faaputu Vaafuti and Norah LeDoux! And my wonderful family host, the Fa'amuli's! :)