Tuailoto Ioane, Jr., Salt Lake City, UT: an interview by Savani Aupiu, 7 November 2008: Pacific Islanders Oral History Project, U-1952

Transcript (24 pages) of an interview by Savani Aupiu with Tuailoto Ioane, Jr., on 7 November 2008. Part of the Pacific Islanders Oral History Project, Everett Cooley Collection tape no. U-1952

Tuailoto Ioane, Jr., was born in Virginia, spent his first five years in Panama, and then grew up in Virginia, following his father´s military career. The only boy in a three-child family, he was the son of a Samoan man and a Canadian or Vermont woman. He joined the LDS Church in his teens, and spends some time discussing his and his family´s conversion and their relationship to the Church and religion in general. He remembers no particular discrimination in Virginia, just having to spell his name a lot. When he graduated high school, Mr. Ioane served a mission to Guatemala, which he remembers as a tremendous experience. He moved out to Utah shortly after coming home, seeking a closer tie to the Church, an education, and a little more independence. He attended Utah Valley State College, transferred to BYU, and received a degree in communications, advertising and marketing. He soon followed with a master´s degree in public administration, and now works for LDS Philanthropies. He speaks at some length about his family relationships, his parents´ desire for their children to get an education, and discusses his father´s separation from Samoan culture but recognizes that despite the fact that he never learned Samoan, certain aspects of the culture stayed with his family such as firm discipline. Mr. Ioane also discusses the cultural phenomenon of fa´asamoa. He wishes he had grown up with more Samoan culture, and wishes to pass it onto his children. Project: Pacific Islander. Interviewer: Savani Aupiu.