When A Family Is Sentenced

"Makiva" is a Samoan word used often on my parents island of Upolu, it cannot translate in English but it means "poorer than poor". My parents come from Western Samoa, to America you can say they were living in poverty because people survive off the land which can also mean they live on less than a dollar because you can't give the island a price. But America can. To them, if you are provided the resources of the land to keep you alive and breathing you're rich. So in Samoa I come from a rich family, in America we would be considered "makiva".

Understanding poverty in America it always seemed so easy. To just notice things you don't have. You can learn in elementary school. You learn by having to walk to school while your friends get dropped off, you learn by the holes in your shoes and oil stains on your hand me downs while other kids look like they're in a Mervyn back to school ad, you learn when your parents are too embarrassed to meet your teacher because they can't speak English, you learn that no one will be there to help you with your homework when you get home, you learn when you appreciate things that the other kids don't. You learn that you will have a hard life but it is those struggles that have made us who we are.

My younger brother tells me, "shit ain't all bad". He says this, while he sits with his whole family in my fathers 10x10 studio while my other younger brother gets his hair braided.He turned 24 this year and has two kids ages 5 and 2, and is getting ready to serve a nine month sentence. His fiance and the mother of his children will await the nine months while he is away and she will figure out how to move out of the 10x10 studio with a criminal record and no job. We come from a working poor family. My parents were learning how to survive in America at the same time their children were. Being children of immigrants, its a struggle to comprehend what it means to "make it" in America. For Jr, who is a better writer than me, he will sleep tonight on a county jail bunk probably writing songs that he only shares with me in secret. Doesn't look too deep for people, he's too big in America for them to think he's nothing more than a football player or security guard.

But he can wake up everyday look in the mirror and know who he is. Know the crime he's committed was in self defense of the battle he's been fighting because his size translates into a sense of power in America. A sense of power that he doesn't choose to take advantage of, doesn't want to pimp his story of struggle to make it here, sell his soul to the NFL corporations that probably want him. Its a "makiva" way of thinking, something that America teaches my brothers and sisters very well as he tells me, "shit ain't all bad". Getting older I learned that real "Poverty" is something deeper than negative or plus dollar signs and things that make you a "have not", its exploring the simple thought of why my brother thinks everything is okay with his situation to its root.