Political Quotes

“American Samoa is in the middle of the South Pacific Ocean, and fishing has been the life blood of Samoans for thousands of years. While today's commercial canning operations bear little resemblance to my father's subsistence fishing, we continue to use the same resource, the Pacific Ocean. The Samoans are also known as the voyagers, and countless generations ago, my forefathers, using Samoa and Tonga as a base, expanded the known world to include the island groups now known as French Polynesia, which includes the Island of Tahiti, the Cook islands, the Hawaiian Islands, and many of the smaller islands in between. We learned well the ways of the ocean, including who our friends are. In my lifetime, I have had the opportunity over the years to share the experiences of my ancestors. As a youth I traveled extensively on the waters of the Pacific in vessels voyaging between Tokelau and the Manu's islands. I have even traveled on a purse seiner for 400 miles from Samoa to the southern Tongan Islands. I was also invited to sail on the famous Hokule'a, a historical Polynesian sailing canoe built by native Hawaiians and constructed so as to be the same in size and configuration as the ancient sailing canoes.”