Brief 2

Samoan From Foreign Soil
The writer is a reverend named Mua Strickson-Pua, and he was born in Auckland in 1957 to Samoan parents. As a child, he often accompanied his father, who was a pastor, to visit newly arrived Pacific immigrants, dying Pacific patients in hospital or people in jail. As he grew into his teens and early twenties, Mua began a journey of self-discovery to determine where his Pacific roots fitted into urban Aotearoa. Like many other ‘NZ borns’ at the time, he was also becoming aware of political issues. He joined the “Polynesian panthers” and protested loudly at public meetings and gatherings for Maori and Pacific Island human rights, and he was also arrested in 1982 at Waitangi. In the early 1980s he started writing poetry and his poems stretched from romantic notions to urban social justice. In 1990 he was ordained a minister and he eventually moved to Auckland to work at a centre which runs social work and community education courses.

The poem “Samoan from foreign soil” is about being Samoan but born somewhere else and about the challenges that entails. The relationship to the home country is central, and the journey to Samoa is the most important theme. Topics such as migration, ancestry and colonization are also mentioned directly or indirectly in the poem. Tradition, heritage, respecting their elders and links to the land is presented in the poem as important for the Samoans. The question of what and where’s home is essential in the poem, the writer answers this question by stating: “home is where the heart is” and “our heart is in Samoa”.
The poem is written with a romantic voice, and presents a romantic perspective of Samoa. It takes up issues about where you belong and how that affects your identity. One can argue that it describes longing for a Samoan identity, which may be achieved by “making the pilgrimage back to Samoa”. In doing this you can go through a transformation of self-realization, thereby “making peace with oneself”.

Compared to “Wild Dogs Under My Skirt”:
“Wild Dogs Under My Skirt” is written with a more angry and aggressive voice: “I want to tattoo my legs. Not blue or green but black”, he says he wants to know that the tufuga means him pain, “I want him to bring out his chisel and hammer” and “I want my legs as sharp as dogs’ teeth”. While in “Samoan From Foreign Soil” the writer uses calmer language talking about “home”, “heart” and “peace”. It can be argued that the tattoo represents change, and that doing the tattoo can be described as a journey or a transformation. It’s a different journey then in “Samoan from foreign soil”, but it may represent some of the same things, such as the search for an identity, in this case a Samoan identity. They take different approaches, but want to achieve the same, primarily to find their place or home in the world, in other words their identity.
Both poems make indirect references to the colonization, which is natural since it had, and still has, such a massive impact on the area. Their feelings towards the colonizers may be similar, but the voice is again different. “Samoan from foreign soil” refers to the colonial era in this way “memories tainted by those challenges from the past” (I interpret ‘challenges’ as being a reference to the colonial period), while in the “Wild Dogs Under My Skirt” it is stated that he want ”wild Samoan dogs, the mangy kind that bite strangers” (‘strangers’ are probably referring to the colonizers). Both poems gives the impression of being upset that they’ve been mistreated, but the voice in “Samoan from foreign soil” sounds hurt, while the voice in “Wild Dogs Under My Skirt” sounds angry.