(Tafesilafa'i (tah-feh-see-lah-fah-ee) is an effort by the Samoan faith community
to identify meaning in their lives. Tafesilafa'i takes an already existing scaffolding
(such as our heritage, culture, customs, language, dances, motifs, and rhetoric) to
enhance it under the rubric of religious stewardship by inviting conversations with
others. Stewardship, because we were neither given the choice of whom of parents
were to be, nor the cultures that we inherit. Therefore, we can only conclude that
these are gifts. Our parents, our nationality, our language, our heritage and our culture
are God-given gifts. So we ought to nourish these gifts, develop and utilize them to
improve the communities we find ourselves in.
In essence, Tafesilafa'i is Culture informed by Theology. Culture is so pervasive in how
a people develop intelligibility of the world that we would be lost without it. Simply put,
culture consists of habitual responses to the world. These collective responses make a
community identifiable as a discrete and separate entity to those outside. So pervasive
are these habitual responses that the vast majority of them remain unexamined and
completely invisible to the community as a whole. Tafesilafa'i provides the forum with
which some of these cultural icons and habitual responses are names, examined and
presented to the community for authentication.
Our 12th Annual Tafesilafa'i 2008 Pacific Islander Festival will celebrate the
art and culture of Long Beach’s Samoan and Pacific Islander Communities.
Dates: July 29th thru August 3rd, 2008
Where: Aquarium of the Pacific, Long Beach, California
Time: Starts at 3:00 p.m.
Performers: To Be Announced Soon!!!
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