SPEAKERS
Xiumei Pu, Jake Fitisemanu Jr., Brent Olson


Brent Olson  00:12
Hi, everyone, welcome back to the mountain stories podcast. My name is Brent Olson. I'm one of the directors of the Institute for Mountain Research here at Westminster College in Salt Lake City. My goal along with my co-director’s, Jeff Nichols’ goal with the institute is to connect people to mountains and to share the stories of the people who share that connection, to really think deeply about what it means to build a community as we live, work and play in the mountains and in the shadows of them. As part of that mission, this year, we've been really honored to collaborate with Dr. Xiumei Pu on her project “Mountains and Stories: Building Community among Asian Refugees and Immigrants”. You can learn more about what this project is all about and listen to some previous conversations in older episodes of the podcast. In those episodes, you'll get a sense of the range of voices within the Asian community here in Salt Lake City, and some of the work that's been going on, as well as Dr. Pu's vision for the project and what her goals for collecting these stories are. So we've had a chance over the last six months to sit down with a bunch of people and hear their stories about the mountains, hear what the mountains mean for them and the work that they're doing to, to build a community that links people to people and people to mountains. And we're excited to share another, another one of those conversations with you today.


Xiumei Pu  01:31
Our guest today is Jake Fitisemanu. He is the leader and organizer of Jung Hing Lion Dance Club, which is Utah's oldest Chinese lion dance performing group. I'll let him go into more details about himself and his stories.


Jake Fitisemanu Jr.  02:01
My name is Jake Fitisemanu Jr. I've been a resident of West Valley City for about 15 years. And I'm originally from the Pacific. I was born in New Zealand, grew up in Honolulu, Hawaii, as well as here in Utah. And so... I'm married, I've got two kids, young kids, I serve on the City Council of West Valley City, out in my community, and among many other activities I try to keep myself busy with. I'm the head coach for the Jung Hing Chinese Lion Dance Club, here in the Salt Lake Valley. And I also work full time for the State Department of Health. Right now, I'm working as a program manager in COVID-19 response. And yeah, I try to keep myself busy, for sure. Yeah, I think my immigration story is very similar to many other families whose parents wanted to bring them to the United States for more educational opportunities, maybe social mobility and economic stability as well. And so I definitely tried to take advantage of that. I came here to Westminster College for my undergrad, as well as for my Master's degree. So it's fun to be back on campus doing this project. Things are definitely changing. I see outside with a lot of construction and other things going on. And so my dad spoke in the home of Samoan. He's from Samoa, and so that was the language that I heard while I was in my mother's womb, and then the songs that were sung to me before I was even born. So even though English is my primary mode of communication today, I'd say that Samoan is the language that my heart speaks. I also had a chance to serve a mission as a missionary in Brazil. And so I speak Portuguese and Spanish with that as well. With my involvement with Chinese martial arts since I was very young, as well as lion dancing, my grandmother speaks Cantonese. And so I don't speak fluent Cantonese, or Hakka on my grandfather's side. We definitely integrate that into the teaching of the martial arts and enter the lion dancing, teaching students how to count and the names of the different techniques and movements. So we do retain and try to integrate as much Cantonese as we can, but unfortunately, not as fluent as I would like to be. Lion dancing and kung fu have a very close historical connection from as far back as we can tell. And so with my introduction, kind of as a family tradition, at a very young age with my brothers and others, that was definitely part of the upbringing and it's interesting now being able to teach my own daughters and my own nephews, nieces and other Asian Americans in the community,  trying to pass this art on that essentially is 13- or 1400 years old. It's pretty, pretty neat to be part of That legacy. My first collection of memories have always been around the Lunar New Year season. That was always an exciting time, we always got to travel and visit relatives, you know, the big reunion dinners, the firecrackers, the, just the vibrant colors and the delicious flavors and smells and having family around. Sometimes we would actually go to San Francisco Chinatown with my grandmother. You know, the community here, there is a fairly large Asian American community here, but it's definitely not the same dynamic, as you know, in... I've also visited Hong Kong where my grandmother is from and so to be there, or even San Francisco or New York Chinatown, there's just a different dynamic, I think. My earliest memory is probably Chinese New Year celebrations in Honolulu Chinatown. 


Jake Fitisemanu Jr.  05:52
And that's really where I got to see kids my age who are performing kung fu, or performing lion dance and thinking, wow, I would really like to get into that one day and, and then learning that that's part of my family heritage as well was just a natural progression for me to jump in and give it a try. My maternal grandmother came here from Hong Kong, and my maternal grandfather, his mother is from South Korea from Busan, and his father is actually from Guangzhou, from Southern Canton or Guangdong Province. And when you see that, that Asia/Pacific, you know, demographic on a, on a form or an application, I can check that and I check all the boxes for Asia and Pacific. My wife is from Brazil. And so her first language is Portuguese. And I speak Portuguese. So we, we don't speak it, I would say enough that our kids have picked up on it, we have to really intentionally teach that to them. Unfortunately, we haven't provided a home where they're immersed in that. My kids are much more fluent and conversant in Samoan because that's, as I mentioned, the language that my heart speaks. And so when I speak to them, often, it's in that context, but I would say there's, on any given day, in my house, you'll hear English, Samoan and Portuguese going on. Unfortunately, there's not a whole lot of children's media produced in Samoan language. I know there's a lot more in some other languages, Spanish and Portuguese included. 


Jake Fitisemanu Jr.  07:29
But I think it's a really conscious effort that we have to make, because my wife and I still default to English. So often, that's just our primary communication. And so we do feel that it's a priority, we do feel we really want our children to be able to communicate in both worlds. And last year, I took my daughter, my oldest daughter, she's 11, down to Rio de Janeiro. It’s her first time in Brazil, got to meet her great grandparents, and you know, and it was interesting to see how thrilled they were to see her pick up even on a couple of words, or basic phrases, but also a little frustrating to see that my daughter didn't understand the bulk of the conversations. And really, we want them to have those relationships and those family ties. And language is so crucial to that.


Xiumei Pu  08:22
Is it easy to switch between, like, different kinds of languages?


Jake Fitisemanu Jr.  08:29
I think, depending on the context, it is. If I'm surrounded by other people who are speaking Samoan, if we're at a cultural event or something like that, I feel like it is easier. But there's also more pressure because people, if I'm speaking Samoan to folks who are not familiar with Samoan, they'll give me a pass on, you know, my American accent or some words that are mispronounced. But if I'm addressing folks that, that know the language and, and the formal registers and the different terms you use, when you address certain people versus other situations, I definitely feel that pressure more, which sometimes means that I speak a little bit less, and I've kind of leave that to my father, to others who are more fluent in that. I think it makes it easier to think in that language, for sure. And I experienced that in Brazil, where over the course of two years, I found myself, I really starting to think in Portuguese rather than hearing it, then translating it into English and then formulating my response in English and translating that back into Portuguese. That process I felt became really fluid and a lot more, it became easier. Unfortunately, I'm not dropped into those immersive situations, you know, here in Salt Lake as much as I would like to. So,  it is a code switching process that takes conscious effort to do.


Xiumei Pu  09:55
Yeah. Is there a word for mountain in Portuguese and in Samoan? And if you speak a little bit of Cantonese, what is the word for mountain?


Jake Fitisemanu Jr.  10:09
So in Cantonese, it's shan. And in Portuguese, it's montanha. And in Samoan, mauga. 


Xiumei Pu  10:19
Are there any differences or nuances in that meaning? So, how does each language conceptualize mountain?


Jake Fitisemanu Jr.  10:31
That's a really interesting question. And I think, in the Samoan word mauga, there are different, or I guess I would say it's a little anthropomorphic, it has, I guess, in English, when we say mountain, I think of the geological formation of a mountain, a mountain range, or a hill or slope. In Samoan, mauga does mean, you know, a geological mountain. But there's also it’s, it also is almost deferring to the majesty of that mountain, as if it were a royal person, or, you know, a very important person. And I think that's because in the Samoan historical worldview, mountains are actually part of our primeval genealogy. And so not only are they geological structures and formations, not only are they conduits between the mortal realm, and the spiritual realm, but they're literally considered our ancestors. And so we do have mountains, and different rock formations and geological formations and elements that are part of our genealogy, part of my genealogy if you go back far enough, where I can actually trace descent from a mountain. And so I think that's kind of a unique and interesting way to kind of formulate how mountains connect with humanity, in my case, or in the case of Pacific Islanders in a very, very specific way. There's also an honorific term in Samoan, which is lagi, lagi literally means sky, or heaven. But in some poetic references to mountains, they're referred to as lagi. Again, I think, referring to the fact that they are that connection that actually touches the sky or the heavens where we don't live. We  are here on the surface of the Earth.


Jake Fitisemanu Jr.  12:42
The year before the pandemic, in 2019, my daughter and I, I had the opportunity to do a lot of traveling that year, and decided to take my wife and daughter as much as I could. And so the goal was to take my daughter to each of the countries where our ancestors are from and so that's why we went to Hong Kong and we went to Brazil and we're, you know, New Zealand and Hawaii, etc. And interestingly enough, I think, the tourist perspective is you always go to high places, right? There's always a lookout tower, there's the Empire State Building, or you know, that whatever, whatever it is, there's the tourist site, at least one of the tourist sites is going to be a high point or the highest point in the city. And so I'm thinking back to, you know, selfies that we took on Mount Corcovado, you know, in Rio de Janeiro and other places like that. In the Samoan context, I think a lot of historical events are tied to ocean related sites. And so they're very sacred sites where it involves a bay or a beach or a cliffside next to the sea. That's kind of central to the worldview of the Pacific. But when it comes to Chinese martial arts, and lion dancing, specifically, mountains are central to that. The Shaolin martial arts like the kung fu that I practice, that we teach, for example, here at the Shao Long Academy in West Valley City, come from Song Shan, from Mount Song, where the Shaolin Temple is still today. The Wudang arts that we also teach like Tai Ji, etc, come from Wudang Mountain, Wu Dang Shan. And so those are fixtures that are not just geographic places, but they're part of that genealogy that has perpetuated these arts all the way here, even across the ocean, here in the United States, here in Utah, in the foothills of the Oquirrh mountains and the Wasatch Mountains. And even the name that our Chinese American ancestors gave to the United States, or at least to California, when they came is originally Gumshan, Gold Mountain, you know, was the name that they gave to the place and so with lion dancing specifically, there are two mountains that are...that aren't just considered the derivation points or the ancestral points of lion dancing, but they actually are the distinction between the different styles that exist today. And so though the style that we do here is actually we call it Foshan, and so that's from the Buddha Mountain there in the southwest, part of Guangzhou in Guangdong Province. And then just across the river, about an hour drive on the other side of the valley, that mountain is called Heshan, or the crane, the bird, the Crane Mountain. And so the two different styles of kung fu, kind of, evolved in those two different regions that took on different stylistic practices of lion dancing. And so even today, when I go to lion dance performance or competition, just by looking at the way that other lion looks or the way that they're performing the stances, etc, the way that they drum, you can tell whether they're derived from Foshan, the Buddha Mountain, or from Heshan, Crane Mountain, and that those stylistic differences still exist and are still very distinct today. They would say that they are derived from those specific environments, that particular mountain, the river, the animals that existed there, that, you know, people watched and observed and mimicked, you know, those kinds of things actually contributed to the movements and the styles that existed there. 


Jake Fitisemanu Jr.  16:25
Those came from towards the end of the Qing Dynasty, I mean, hundreds of 1000s, maybe millions, I don't know the exact number. But people from that region from Guangzhou, from the Pearl River Delta, from Toishan (台山市), created this huge and expansive diaspora of the Southern Chinese people to where Hakka, and Cantonese and other dialects from the south are spoken now, all over the place. In China towns and even small towns in rural America, you'll find a Chinese restaurant somewhere, and typically those folks speak Hakka or Cantonese, and they brought those traditions with them to Hawaii. 


Jake Fitisemanu Jr.  17:08
Hawaii was, I mean, the plantation system did not exist without Chinese labor. And so my family's been in Hawaii, on my mom's side, on the Chinese side, for six generations now. And that they brought that tradition with them of martial arts.  Many very famous kung fu artists and masters and also lion dance practitioners used Hawaii as a staging ground, to reset and create new communities and to create kung fu schools, they brought lion dancing with them...then came to the continental United States, and all the way here to Utah, and so that it's kind of a ... If you look at it, I guess it is mountain hopping, since that's what we're talking about, from one mountain to the next on this incredible eastward journey that still continues today. So as far as we can tell there were lion dance, there were lion dance practitioners here as early as the railroad dates. And so the 1860s we don't have that documented in any photographs, etc., but there are oral traditions about the Bing Kong Tong (秉公堂), which is one of the benevolent societies or Chinese cultural associations that was here from at least the 1880s. And we do know that when they had a grand opening, it was mentioned that there was a lion dance, etc. And so from at least that timeframe, at least here in Utah, that was not necessarily continuous to where it is today. Interestingly enough, the Bing Kong Tong still exists today, and is the oldest Chinese owned or Chinese initiated business or institution in Utah. So back from the railroad times, and they're still operating today. Master Cheng Lu was the first to introduce lion dancing here. It's been over 45 years now, I believe. I don't know the math exactly. 


Jake Fitisemanu Jr.  19:09
Shortly after that, another kung fu school was started by shifu Bill Smith, who comes from a lineage that also comes from Foshan, from Buddha Mountain, through Hawaii into the United States, and their school in downtown Salt Lake still practices that style of lion dancing as well. And so my lineage is a, I would say a hybrid, and so through from Hawaii, from schools like Gee Yung, and Master Jeffrey Lam, and so that's kind of tradition there. And then coming to Utah and joining Master Cheng Lu's system of Shaolin Kung Fu. And so we actually perform a variety, a couple of different styles. Master Lu’s school is the only one that we know in the Intermountain West that performs a closed-mouth lion. And so most, a lot of people are familiar with the lion that can, you know, open and close its mouth and blink its eyes. But there's an older tradition before that, where the lion is, it's more of a mask, kind of a thing that doesn't move, and it has a much more pugilistic or it's much more, you can tell that it's rooted in fighting, that, you know, the aesthetics of it don't look like a real cat or a lion, like the modern ones do, they look really realistic, and you're very coordinated to look like an animal. The older styles that are really, really rooted in the martial arts are very much focused on the training in the stances and using the arms, you know, as weapons. And the, I think the symbolism may be a little more rich there. Because you look at it, and you say, huh, that doesn't look like a lion at all, you know, but you have to get into it, into the history and learn a little more nuance that way. But I would say that, yeah, lion dancing has a pretty long tradition here in the State of Utah. And the 1870s, the 1880s is probably the first documented or the first acknowledge, or roots of lion dancing here in Utah.


Xiumei Pu  21:15
Martial arts, lion dance, are not just about physical movement and stances. They are deeply rooted in Chinese philosophies, Cantonese philosophies. What philosophies do you  teach your students?  


Jake Fitisemanu Jr.  21:46
As much as we focus on technique and correct actions and effective strikes and things like that for self defense, right? The root of all of that really is balance. And I think that's one of the philosophies that are taught, that really are the root, that are the basis or the foundation of martial arts and lion dancing as well, that the same power that could be used to hurt people, you also have to learn them to heal, right? And if you're going to exert yourself, you have to know what your limits are. And you have to know how to create balance in what you're doing so that you're not overly aggressive or not overly passive. There is this thin line that has to be learned. And so in the course of a lion dance performance, you'll see every emotion performed by the lion, from being completely asleep, to starting to wake up, and then the player in the back will actually move their arms under the costume to mimic the actual breathing. And then he'll wake up slowly, and his eyes will open and close. And then you'll go from being totally motionless and sleeping, to leaping and jumping and standing on each other's shoulders. I mean, there's the full gamut of that emotion, which I think shares that balance as well of motionless to motion and inertia and momentum and everything in between. And I think in teaching students, that's one of the things that a lot of people bring their children or their kids to the school, because they want them to learn discipline, or they want them to be more attentive in school, or they want them to learn dedication, or time management, and those things are all taught within the martial arts. But I still think it boils down to having a sense of balance, and being able to apply your attention to the task that you're doing at the right time in the right place, and reserving maybe some of your more boisterous, you know, tendencies or, you know, something that would distract you or distractions for another time in another place. And so I think, even just as you said, it may look on the outside, like kicking and punching and jumping. But really, there is a philosophical balance to all of that.


Xiumei Pu  23:59
Wow, yeah. So it's much more than just movement, right? Who are your students? Do you get a lot of, like, Asian students or students in general? American students, too?


Jake Fitisemanu Jr.  24:17
Yeah, there's a lot of interest from students of all ethnicities and races within Jung Hing Lion Dance Club. We have currently all of our members are Asian American, mostly Chinese American and Vietnamese American. In the kung fu school, Shao Long Academy I would say the majority of those in the youth class are like my daughters, are mixed with part Asian ancestry, which I think is really interesting, too. And I'm not sure that the kids who are my daughter's age, you know, 7 or 11 years old, unnecessarily see it as an identity affirming kind of experience. For me, it definitely was because I was, as I mentioned, my dad spoke Samoan, I was raised very, very comfortable in the Samoan space. Whereas, on my mom's side of the family, they had been in Hawaii for generations and generations, they were more like local Hawaii residents than they were, I really didn't relate to or didn't resonate as much with people who I met, who had come straight from China, for example, they were very different, it seemed very foreign to me, even though my eyes look like theirs. And I liked the same foods, and my family comes from the same place. But there was a generational difference of people, of my family living in Hawaii, in a very local, you know, mixed ethnic, interfaith, multi ethnic kind of community. That was very different. And so for me, learning from Master Cheng Lu, and learning those new words and getting corrected on my tones, because I'm terrible at pronouncing these new words, that provided me with this cultural and linguistic connection to my grandmother's land that I didn't actually grow up with. And so I'm not sure that, that's even our objective for teaching today. I think it's just a natural byproduct of that. And if you are Asian American, if you are Chinese American, even separated by generations, even separated by this geographic distance, I think there is something in the process of learning these themes and these movements and these motions and learning the history and the stories that come along with them. That does affirm identity. And I think that's a pretty cool thing. 


Xiumei Pu 26:42
I completely understand, you know, the gap between Asian Americans who have lived here for generations and the newer immigrants. I have lived here for about 17 years now in the US. I'm not an immigrant yet. I'm still an international faculty member here at Westminster. Yeah, I can see what you meant, right, the big difference between Chinese Americans who have lived here for seven, eight generations and 0.5 generation Chinese Americans. Ah, in the newer Chinese American community, we say that the older generations of Chinese immigrants are more Chinese than Chinese, because they have maintained a lot of the Chinese traditions that are disappearing, or that have already lost over this seven generations of time, right, because of modernization and things like that. 


Jake Fitisemanu Jr.  28:04
I think what you said really resonates with me as well, because I've never lived in Hong Kong, I've only visited there, I've only heard stories, etc. Those things that I did learn from my grandmother, who's, who's no longer with us here, are, are, are truly treasures. And I think even some of those things that I don't intellectually understand, I still feel the need to present incense at the grave...still feel the need to set up the altar at Chinese New Year, and make sure that my daughters who have even less of a knowledge base than I did, you know, even though it, I don't know, it's hard to say that it's purely performative. It's just something that we do, because I don't have as much background or understanding of why we do it. But it's almost a sense of “the why” is not as important. When I look at some of those traditions, what's most important is that I'm continuing it because I inherited that from my grandmother, who inherited that from her grandmother to, how, who knows how long back. And just like you mentioned, even if it's seven, eight generations later, there are still some core things that these families have maintained and kept up. And there's got to be a reason for that. If it didn't serve a purpose, or it or if it was too extraneous, or had no relevance. Those are things that people tend to let go of. And so if these are things that we're still doing, you know, 6, 7, 8 generations later, there's got to be something to it. And I think maybe that's part of the journey on my own journey, is to kind of figure out why that cultural permanence happens with some things and not others. And I think that only adds to the value and adds to the experience.


Jake Fitisemanu Jr.  30:08
I'm a homebody. So mountains are typically a little distant or require some, some planning and transportation to get there. But I do enjoy time in the mountains. So not too long ago, we were hiking at Donut falls, which some people wouldn't say as the mountains really up this canyon here, not too far, pretty convenient. But as I mentioned, when we do travel, there is something that pulls you to go to these high places, typically mountains, if nothing more than the for the view, but for the experience of hiking, again, I'm not a huge hiker, I would consider myself more of an ocean person that my connection is always to water, even here in Utah. You know, with the Hawaiian Outrigger Canoe Club that was started out of Great Salt Lake, I own, I purchased and got my own during the pandemic, when the club wasn't practicing, I still needed to be on the water. And so we bought our own canoe, went drove all 11 hours out to pick it up from Seattle and brought it back, and so my daughters and I could still be out on the lakes. And the Great Salt Lake is not a perfect analogue for the ocean, but it's fairly close. And definitely when, when I am back in the Pacific, yeah, our time is spent at the ocean, I would say more so than in the mountains. If you look at, at the Pacific Islands, they are the tops of mountains  whose bases are under the sea. And so really, just being on that island is being on a mountain. And as I mentioned, there are, you know, there is a deference towards mountains as, as the sacred site, the sacred portals between, you know, the ancestors and the gods, and, and the space of humans here. And so that's always something that's noted, we have, you know, a really neat legend about a time when the sun was too lazy to do his job and just went through the motions and just kind of flew across the sky once a day and gave people only a couple of hours to get their chores done and to do what they needed to do. And so one of our great cultural heroes, who actually stood on top of a mountain, in Samoan, called Mauga Fito, and threw a big lasso up and caught the sun to slow him down into this constant orbit that it continues to run on today. And then so again, just the sight of that mountain being the place that was closest to the sky, where he could access the sun just underlines again, just that, that underlying theme of mountains as being special places, and not just inert, geographic or geologic objects.


Xiumei Pu  32:50
That is a great story. You mentioned your daughter, I'm curious to know: how does she recognize herself at school? You know, does she recognize herself as Samoan? Portuguese? Cantonese? Is she comfortable with her multiple identities?


Jake Fitisemanu Jr.  33:21
I love that question. Because that's something that my wife and I, even before we had kids, I think we talked quite a bit about, because we both experienced this dynamic and no fault of anyone else really, of feeling like we didn't quite walk in both worlds or weren't fully accepted in both sides. And she came to Brazil, not speaking any English, etc. And so not feeling really accepted by American society at that point and, and then at the same time, going back to Brazil, and having cousins and other people talk about, well, how, you know, how American you are, and then not quite as Brazilian as you used to be  or like the rest of us. And I was very blessed that my parents never emphasized one over the other. My dad was Samoan, he was not Chinese, but he paid for us. He supported us. He went with us to Chinatown, San Francisco, he encouraged and supported us continuing some of those traditions, you know, from my mom's side of the family, and vice versa. And so I always felt like I was Asian American and Pacific Islander American. And if other people question that that was their problem, not mine. And so I really wanted my daughters, especially now adding a Latina influence and culture into their identities, making sure that's a part of them that they feel whole and not having to choose one over the other. So I, we, to your question. I think she reflects all of them at different times. So she chooses to go by her Samoan name Moana at school. But in lion dancing and martial arts, she likes to go by her Chinese name Kwai Lan ( 桂蘭 ). And so her, her name is Gabrielle, which is from Brazil or Portuguese name. It's a family name and my wife's family. Lealaimoanalua, which is Samoan; Kwai Lan, which is Cantonese. And then our, they have both of our last names. And so I think just embedding that into their names and having them learn that from when they're born. Hopefully, that's one way that we can instill that there are all of these things together, they are the sum of their ancestries and not just, you know, having to choose one or the other. But interestingly enough, both my daughters have, are named after kung fu masters as well. from Foshan, from Buddha Mountain, which is in their family names as well. My grandpa, my maternal grandfather, comes from a line of very famous martial artists, they're from from southern China, and Mok Kwai Lan (莫桂蘭) and Yim Wing Chun (嚴詠春) are two female martial artists who are actually progenitors, ancestors of martial arts styles, and Muguilan started the first all women lion dance club, drumming, etc, at a time, in the 1890s, it was really frowned upon in a lot of circles, it was considered a man's game, and she beat the man at their own game. And not only that they started a school, just for women that would compete, and then keep up with everyone and actually develop a lot of new cool techniques and different styles in lion dancing and kung fu. So I wanted those identities and those shared histories, to be integrated into my girls' lives and data through a name, which is connected to a story, which is connected to a mountain. It's kind of cool. I'm kind of proud of myself for that. 


Jake Fitisemanu Jr.  37:05
My kids are fortunate to attend a Pacific Islander charter school in West Valley. And so the majority of the students there are from a, from a suburban or urban American Pacific Islander context. So I think that, that there is a level of sameness there. And we also live in West Valley, which is a minority majority city with, you know, a very large, non white population. So they see themselves reflected, when we go to Walmart or the mall or the movies in the community. Right now, in this time, especially with a you know that there's a lot of fervor about, you know, Asian American, or hate crimes and hate speech directed towards Asian Americans, blame for COVID-19 and everything that's associated with that pandemic as well. Fortunately, they haven't brought that up, or it hasn't become too much of a conversation. But as a parent, as an inexperienced parent, I feel like that, that's coming for sure. I'm not sure exactly how to frame it. I haven't sat them down and had a specific talk, for example, but we do as questions come up, I feel like it's my job to answer them to the best of my ability. And I feel like it's an interesting dynamic, because my daughter's phenotypically or physically, are very, racially ambiguous. And so if you Most people, when they see them, don't immediately say, Oh, yeah, you're Asian American, or Yeah, you're Latino or, you know, they're, they're this mix that's just vague enough to say like, yeah, you're something ethnic, but I'm not sure where to place you. I think that's how a lot of people feel. And for that reason, I think they're, it's not as black and white for them, because I think they see themselves reflected in other communities as well. And so when we talk about well, Asians, this or Latinos, this or Samoan this, for them, it's a little deeper than just what you look like. And so I think that's a really interesting conversation and one that the, their, their charter school, they go to Mana Academy in West Valley, I think is doing a really, really good job at because there are historical tensions between different groups and different demographics. There are definitely internal and external dynamics and worldviews and perceptions. And this is the school environments where those things aren't dismissed at the door. They're openly discussed, and they're part of social studies, and they're part of history and they're part of learning to get along and see each other for who they are, rather than what historical historical occurrences or conflicts may have occurred between different kinds of people. So, yeah, maybe I'm relying on their school to do a lot of that for me. I'm sure as my kids get older and experience more of life, you know, at this point, their life, as you mentioned, is framed within the life that my wife and I provide for them, their experiences, where they go, who they meet, who they hang out with, is all really dictated, you know, by us. And they happen to be people who agree with us, or who are more akin to our persuasions and beliefs, etc. But as, as my daughters grow and explore the world, and I will encourage them to do that, for more of those questions. 


Brent Olson  40:52
How does that manifest in your work on the city council?


Jake Fitisemanu Jr.  40:54
That's an awesome question. Because I feel like even though West Valley City is a minority majority city, and you know, has the largest Pacific Islander population in the state, second largest Asian American population in the state, etc, that diversity isn't necessarily reflected in our city officials, or higher levels of government. And so how that manifests in my work is that, number one, I don't feel I do feel accountable to people. But I don't feel that I need to be a representative for Asian Americans or Pacific Islanders. I'm ready to kick ass, do a good job,  and people will see the works by the fruits that are born there. But I do feel it is my job to use this position to facilitate opportunities for people who are underrepresented in government. I don't want to be the only one. I'm happy to be the first one there. but I don't want to be the only one. That's not the goal. And so I'm able to, now that I am an elected city official, I can make official nominations to different commissions or boards and committees, so that folks in the community can participate. And even if they don't see themself as an elected official, or a government or a political person, they can make a difference and kind of learn the nuts and bolts and maybe that will spark them to run for an office later on, or maybe get appointed for another position in the government, etc. So that's a big one for me is facilitating, so that I'm not the only, so I'm working alongside people. And when opportunities arise, and making opportunities, so myself, and another Asian American from West Valley, Kevin Nguyen, we chair the Healthy West Valley Initiative, which just started off in our, our mutual, we both work for the Health Department, and we just have a mutual interest in health. He's also one of our lion dance performers, as well with the club. But started this group and got together different pastors, and the community trusted community leaders, advocates, and all of the health care providers that serve West Valley City, including, you know, Intermountain, and you know, the big names St. Mark's, etc. and was started off as an informal group, to really just focus on improving health and quality of life and West Valley, turned into something that, because of my role with the city, we were able to integrate into and now we have a website on the city website, we have support for the events that we do from the city, we're able to conduct, you know, some pandemic response activities sponsored by the city, etc. And now the city sees this value in this community based, very ethnically diverse group as well, I should mention, and are now, we are looking at this becoming an actual commission, part of West Valley City Government. And so I think that's a really good example of how grassroots, even folks who are underserved or underrepresented, etc, through these channels and again, this is not me, as an individual, but through our elected officials and through our, our government officials, and civic leaders. We can take those kinds of initiatives and those communities and bring them into areas where we can make policy changes institutionally or more systematic changes, which are improvements. And so that diversity, it's not just because we need more diversity, so that we look like the rest of the city. That's great. But the fact of the matter is the ethnically and racially underserved and underrepresented folks in the community are amazing. There's awesome human potential. There's so much capital there that we just haven't tapped into. And I think if we believe in a government, that is for the people, and by the people, by definition, it should reflect those people that I think we're in, we're taking baby steps in that direction. And it's a generational issue for sure, but I... that's what I see my role as more, more so than a representative because there's so many voices and to be able to elevate every single voice, including those that I don't necessarily agree with. That's a challenge...I'll say that straight up, that's, it's an impossible challenge to represent every possible voice that's out there, but to be able to facilitate opportunities to engage, that's what I really feel my, my role is, as an elected official.


Xiumei Pu  45:28
I love what you said about the diverse ethnic groups living in the West Valley and the rest of Utah. We have so much, we have so much to offer. And I'm also very glad that you mentioned health. I'm curious about how health is defined at your council?  Is nature contact part of the conversations and your plans and initiatives? Because, you know, we all live so close to trails, right? access to the mountains. There's research shows that nature contact is a big part of health, including public health. So how is health defined at your council? Were conversations around nature contact being part of health? 


Jake Fitisemanu Jr.  46:31
West Valley City is the second biggest city population wise in the state. But it's a landlocked city, meaning where we don't quite touch the Great Salt Lake, we get close and we don't quite touch the Oquirrh Mountains, we get pretty close. But there has been a very conscious effort to preserve wildlife and areas, spaces that you can engage with wildlife, especially along the Jordan River Corridor, etc. Because West Valley City is such a rapidly growing city. You look at even you know, the Mountain View Corridor that it which is basically a new freeway that's going up on the west side, amidst all of that “urban development”, we have dozens of miles of trails, you know, along the Jordan River, and even within there's one right by my neighborhood in the canal, where you would never necessarily imagine, you know, a nature trail for example, it's an urban trail. But those kinds of opportunities do exist and I think that the city tries to preserve as much of that as you can we kind of as a joke had a proposal of annexing piece of Magna so that we could reach a mountain and have a mountainside trail and you know, that was more tongue in cheek than it was a realistic but I think that does show that people are at least thinking about it, you know, and and making sure that they're even though we're not necessarily in the wilderness, that there are still areas there, you know, planting mulberry trees or whatever those monarch butterflies, you know what they eat, I don't think it's mulberry, I think I said that wrong, but you know, and, and creating habitat, micro habitats for those type of things and making sure that there are areas for bird watching and things like that. The wetlands as I mentioned, we don't quite have the city limits doesn't quite extend to the Great Salt Lake, but does include quite a bit of wetlands just south of the Great Salt Lake. And that's a huge area for us for preservation for making sure that there's responsible development around that and preserving those areas we're working on project now that's a park you know, with the boardwalk and type thing where people can engage with that and environment without just throwing cement and asphalt on top of all of the wild areas that are left.


Xiumei Pu  49:02
Thanks to Jake for sharing his stories and thank you for tuning in. Our next guest will be Kevin Nguyen. Kevin grew up in the West Valley. He is currently a graduate student at the University of Utah studying public health. He is also a squad leader and rescue diver with the Salt Lake’s Search and Rescue team and he holds an active role in many different organizations. We are looking forward to seeing you at the community building event on June 26. Jake's dance group will lead  a lion dance blessing ceremony. Thanks to the Whiting Foundation Public Engagement Programs for supporting the project with a seed grant. 


Brent Olson  50:01
We really do hope you can join us on June 26  at Fitts park for the get-together with the storytellers, with a bunch of other people. And Jake will be there with the rest of the lion dance crew. So you can see that performance as well. We'll include links to these organizations and also links to RSVP for, for the event on the website. You can find that at podcast.mountainresearch.org. In the meantime, thanks to Xiumei for inviting us to be involved in this project. Thanks to Westminster College. Thanks to Jeff Nichols for being my co-director. And thanks to you all for listening. And finally, thanks to Pixie and the PartyGrass Boys for our theme music, as Naomi used to say “they are awesome, you should check them out.” 


Transcribed by https://otter.ai