How can the Caucasian population of Utah do a better job of understanding the Polynesian community?
I think first of all there needs to be a clean up of the perceptions that is already there. I recall when I was young, in the late sixties early seventies, we walked proud to be a Polynesian, here in Salt Lake City, Utah. I come back twenty years later and it’s not the same. It’s because of everything that has happened between then and now, that there is a perception out there that we are rude, that we are very physical, that we are very temperamental. I think there needs to be a closer interaction between Polynesians and the mainstream people. And we as a people need to reach out to the white Caucasians. When we talk about a lot of these ethnic problems, it’s two camps, it’s the ethnic people and the white people. I think it’s going to take reaching out from both ends. We’re different, but there’s nothing wrong with being different. It’s the acceptance of that difference that I think is what we’re looking at. It’s not just going to take a measure from us, we would like to call on the
