6 I Pacific Islanders—What does Tyson Farm have to do with all of this? (Joseph Seia)

Background:

OIA Blogs: Who are Pacific Islanders? | U.S. Department of the Interior (doi.gov)

• Melanesia: Some examples are Fiji, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, then West Papua
• Micronesia: Some examples are Nauru, Palau, Marshall Islands, Kiribati, the Marianas, Caroline Islands
• Polynesia: Some examples are Hawaiian Islands, Easter Island, New Zealand, Cook Islands, Samoan Islands, Marquesas Islands, Niue Island, Tonga 

PMH/FH

Anti-Blackness and Internalized Racism: Considered the effect of slavery, racism and internalized racism on people of Melanesian background. 

“Slavery is still perpetuated to downgrade and dehumanize our Melanesian brothers and sisters”

“ A lot of the anti-blackness that we now experience in a Pacific Islander community from the influences of the church, the image of white Christ and also seeing that white skin is privileged and lifted up as because under colonial rule, only half white persons were given the right to vote in many of these setups in the Pacific.”

“There's this term in the Samoan community called ‘afakasi . And it really is a transliteration of half caste. But it's used to praise people and say that they're more beautiful because they have European stuck in their blood. And that was perpetuated because of colonialism, to marry Europeans and marry white people. Because the lighter your skin, the more privileged you will be socially, economically and political status.”

Immigration of Polynesians to Washington: Understand the history of Polynesian slavery and the mistrust that stems from both slavery and displacement of land from tourism. 

Immigration to Washington was actually around 200 years ago when they brought Polynesians from Hawaii and Samoa and other regions to essentially cut down the trees that facility, the timber industry, because part of the history that people don't know is when slavery ended in the Americas that actually traveled to the Pacific, and we called it the Blackbird slavery.

At that time, our folks were not able to live in white society, they need to live with other communities. So a lot of them were absorbed into the indigenous communities. And so you have a lot of mixed race, native people that are also mixed with Polynesians

I think Polynesian people have had a very interesting relationship with our western relatives because they havee idealized us as their paradise, marketed as their paradise. There's a large tourist industry that takes place in Polynesia to entertain white and Asian tourists

COFA (Compacts of Free Association) & Impact of Nuclear Testing: Consider how COFA increased Pacific Islander immigration due to low immigration barriers but without social service support. Specifically for Marshall Islands, consider the increased risk of thyroid cancer and leukemia due to nuclear testing. 

• The Compact of Free Association (COFA) is an international agreement establishing and governing the relationships of free association between the United States and the three Pacific Island sovereign states of the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM), the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI), and the Republic of Palau.
• Citizens of COFA states may live and work in the US. In 1996, Medicaid benefits were removed with welfare reform. Benefits were reenacted in 2020. (https://www.apiahf.org/)
• From 1946 to 1958, the US conducted 67 nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands. One area in the Marshall Islands that was particularly affected was Bikini Atoll. In 1946, Bikini Atoll was the first site in the Marshall Islands used for nuclear testing by the US.

I will say that a lot of the migrations, at least to Western Washington were very targeted clients from food corporations that would go to the islands to these US territories, and campaigns and sign agreements with these local governments to then bring cheap labor because the difference between cheap labor from the US Pacific and from Latin American countries is in the US Pacific, they can come here, they don't have an immigration barrier that this allowed them to work. And so there's very targeted recruitment from American Samoa, from Federated States of Micronesia in the Marshall Islands for food workers. We're talking about Foster Farms, you're talking about Tyson 

If you look at the work of climate justice champions, it's Pacific Islanders that have suffered under the environmental racism that we've experienced from Western and Eastern Asian nations, so will continue to be at the fore, of fighting for the dignity of our oceans or mountains of clean water. And that is something that needs to be at the fore of all of our minds that there is this nuclear waste plant in the Marshall Islands that continues to poison our ocean, and something has to be Don't fix it.

Social History

Nutrition: Ask about nutrition and if patients able to eat diet "based on roots" or if eating canned meats. 

Militiaristic occupation of pacific so similar foods across and then canned meats, bads part of lamb, turkey tail are dumped from other countries so Pacific Nations are forced to take whatever it is that has been dumped in our markets back.

• Timespan: 29:37 Min
• Transcription Type: Cleaned Verbatim
• Speakers: 2 (Joseph Seia & Raj Sundar)

00:00

Joseph Seia: So, there's very targeted recruitment from American Samoa, from the Federated States of Micronesia in the Marshall Islands for food workers. If you’re talking about Foster Farms, you're talking about Tyson. But often, when they come here, there's no support because these corporations are not set up as social service agencies.

00:20

Raj: Hey, everyone. This is Dr. Raj Sundar, a family physician, community organizer, and podcast host. Welcome to the healthcare for humans podcast—the show is dedicated to exploring the history and culture of Washington's diverse communities. So, clinicians are equipped with the right knowledge to care for all patients.

Today's episode is on Pacific Islanders. Washington is home to one of the largest Pacific Islander communities in the United States. The Polynesian Micronesian and Melanesian communities have made Western Washington their home for more than 200 years. In a previous episode with Dr. Maile Tuwa Lee, we discussed how these terms are problematic. The people living on the islands do not use the terms Polynesia, Micronesia, and Melanesian. And they're primarily terms that colonizers created. In addition, they're not specific enough. People don't come to you saying, I am Polynesian, but they say I am Samoan. They don't say I'm Melanesian; they say I'm from Fiji. If you're like me, you're probably disoriented, talking about all the Pacific Islands. So, I'll put the map in the show notes so you can become familiar with the islands and where they're located. More than half the states Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander populations have made Snohomish, King, Pierce, and Thurston County their home. If I had to sum up the experience of the Pacific Islander community in Washington in the US, it's a story of a ratio. First, it was a erasure due to their inclusion in the Asian-Pacific Islander category. The aggregation of Pacific Islanders into such a large group as Asians made it so that nobody actually knew how the Pacific Islander community in the US was faring. They don't know the statistics of health or their well-being or what resources they need.

In 1997, the Office of Management and Budget mandated the disaggregation of the Asian and Pacific Islander data seems like a win. But this is where the other part of your erasure comes in. After disaggregating the data, people realized the population of Pacific Islanders in the US was less than 1%. And when you're less than 1%, sometimes people don't think spending resources on so few people is worth it. The Pacific Islander community was emitted from many interventions that benefited many others. And that's it. And that's what you hear when you talk to the community. Just because they're 1% doesn't mean their lives don't matter. Their culture doesn't matter, or they don't matter. To talk about this community, I have Joseph Seia, the CO Executive Director of the National Association of Pacifica organizations and the founder of PICA-WA. The National Association of Pacifica organization is the first national Pacifica organization convened by Pacifica leaders across the country to advance sovereignty and policy to help and communications. PICA-WA, the organization Joseph founded, the Pacific Islander community association of Washington, is an organization that provides a cultural hub and a center for service and advocacy for Pacific peoples in Washington.

Joseph has 15 years of experience in direct service, youth development work, and nonprofit leadership and administration. We structure our conversation by talking about Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. We start by discussing Melanesia and how unhealthy food is dumped in the Pacific Islands, affecting their health.

We talk about the idea that Pacific Islanders are primarily a black race and how anti-blackness has infiltrated the community. Then we head to Micronesia. We discuss the harms of Japanese and US colonialism and COFA, the Compact of Free associations, the targeted recruitment of Pacific Islanders for food factories to avoid immigration barriers and the poisoning of the environment through nuclear waste plants, and how climate justice champions are fighting this violation. In the last part of the episode, we talk about Polynesia and how Polynesians are often seen as navigators and explorers. The concern of viewing the island's existence as entertainment for Asian and American tourists, how Christianity was Samoanized when it arrived, emphasizing the idea of holding multiple beliefs, in contrast to the western perspective that things can't coexist. And end the episode talking about Joseph's favorite food. Here's Joseph Seia. Welcome to the show, Joseph Seia.

05:20

Joseph Seia: Thanks, Raj. Thanks for having me.

05:22

Raj: I know we were just talking about this, but I wanted to talk about your story. How did you end up here in CO Salish territory during your work?

05:31

Joseph Seia: Yeah. Thanks for asking, Raj. So, my parents were born in American Samoa, a US territory in the 1870s. My family immigrated to Compton in the 1960s. And my parents met, and I was born in 1983, and Compton, California, along with my siblings. I think my parents had a hard time in California during that time. So, we ended up back home in American Samoa and the islands. Then I moved to Western Samoa, independent Samoa, another country, and ended up here in Washington state when I was 11, where we had relatives. And with Pacific Islanders, Mercia migrated to where your relatives are. We had a cousin out here, so we ended up here and have been stuck here for a while. It was Salish territory. So, I went to middle and high school, went to college at Seattle University, and have been here since then.

06:21

Raj: Yeah, and your family is here still or back home?

06:25

Joseph Seia: Yeah, my father returned to independent Samoa. My mother lives in Alaska with a few other younger siblings. A minor part of our clan is here, but most of our family is spread throughout other diasporas in Australia and New Zealand, like back home in Samoa.

06:43

Raj: It gives you a way to travel the world. I'm sure.

06:47

Joseph Seia: I have got my family all over. Social media is huge for Pacific Islanders because we have very local families. A lot of Pacific Islanders fare very globally. And so, we talk to each other through Facebook and other social media.

07:01

Raj: Do you all suffer from WhatsApp too?

07:03

Joseph Seia: Oh, yeah, WhatsApp. Yeah, that's right.

07:05

Raj: I got a lot of forwarded messages about what's real and what's not. Thank you for joining us today to talk about the Pacific Islander community. We talked about the native Hawaii Community a bit just in the prior episode. I wanted to spend some time just talking about the Pacific Islander community because people still say Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander; it's like the afterthought. And I wanted to break this down, go through the different islands, and also talk about a little bit of history. Not for everybody to remember it but to see the common historical themes here: colonialism and land displacement.

So, people use the terms Melanesia and Micronesia Polynesia; I found a quote, which probably encompasses this definition, that it's not easy to define precisely on geographical, cultural, biological, or any other grounds these terms. Still, they are a historical category and have been used repeatedly. And now people use that as standard terms. Okay. Let's go to Melanesia. And just to remind folks, it's Fiji, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, and West Papua. So, there's a sizable population of the Fijian community in northern Washington, right? Around Snohomish cities. Is that right?

08:22

Joseph Seia: Yep!

08:22

Raj: I wanted to talk about food for these different islands. Do you think Pacific Islander foods are overall similar? Is it still breadfruit Tyro? Things like that?

08:31

Joseph Seia: Yeah, that's an indigenous food source, right? So, I don’t find that in any tropical island based on many routes. Many Pacifica foods grew up on routes, whether sweet potato yams or taro. In the militaristic occupation of the Pacific, you find very similar foods across the Pacific that are based on canned food, canned meats, and all types of foods that might not be the best for you but are consumed on the Islands. And I also know that a lot of like meat products that aren't consumed in Western society are dumped in the Pacific. Things like the bad parts of the lamb that New Zealand can't sell in New Zealand. So, they dumped them on Pacific nations. And also, Turkey Tail, a very fatty part of the turkey, is widely consumed in the Islands. Many batons, the meats consumed in the western islands, are sent to the Pacific for consumption. And because of Pacific nations, due to the laws of the World Trade Organization, we cannot put unnecessary tariffs, or we cannot ban any products from Western countries, even products that might be unhealthy for us. So, we're often forced to take back whatever has been dumped in our markets.

09:41

Raj:

Yeah. And I think it affects the economic life there too. Flooding the market with cheap, unwanted meat will change what's available and what people can afford.

09:51

Joseph Seia: That's right. We saw the impacts of colonialism through the food, the dumping of food on the Pacific nations, and the jumps in rates of Diabetes. Many diseases were not in existence in the Pacific in the 1900s. And then you saw, within two decades, for the first time, diabetes up to 50% in most island nations. That directly impacted how Western Foods has destroyed the health of Pacific peoples.

10:16

Raj: Yeah, now that we're getting into it, I think it's a good time to highlight the facets of racism that happen when we talk about the community being obese, having diabetes, and it's because of their behavior or the choices they make. When there are all these underlying facts about history and how societies have made food available or unavailable and have changed, essentially, what is supposed to be a healthy, nutritious diet into whatever is left over from our countries.

10:45

Joseph Seia: That's right. Before we go to Micronesia, I would say that most Pacific Islanders that exist in the world are actually from our Melanesian territories. They're often the most uncelebrated and under-recognized specifically. Most Pacific Islanders have some degree of Melanesian genetics within them. So, we are black and brown. And I have to tell people that it was primarily a black race because of our kin to Melanesia. And they're still a very explicit race that Asian people. Pacific peoples are still looked down upon as savages. All of the images from the US that slavery is still perpetuated to downgrade and dehumanize our Melanesian brothers and sisters and compare them to monkeys living in the jungles. And so, there is very explicit racism that impacts our black Pacifica, I should say. And we've done a lot of work to continue to lift up Melanesian kin because we know that we're all kin to Melanesia. I am a descendant of the Melanesian people as well. And all Pacific Islanders are descendants of Melanesian people whether we like it or not.

A lot of the antiblackness that we now experience in a Pacific Islander community is from the influences of the church, the image of white Christ, and also seeing that white skin is privileged and lifted up as something more beautiful and more ideal than your grandmother who was black-skinned. So, because of anti-blackness sentiments, white products are often sold in markets in Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. That was fed to us through religion and also through real rewards. Because under colonial rule, only half of the white persons were given the right to vote in many of these setups in the Pacific. So that also equated to being fully human. They also had different standards in the US that measured the black vote, right? Vote privileges and similar things were happening in the Pacific, where you had to be halfway to vote in many colonial structures. So, whiteness is still lifted up in many ways.

12:38

Raj: I think it's important to talk about internalized racial inferiority. do you feel that the Melanesian community feels that, and is that part of the work we're talking about that we need to do as a community,

12:49

Joseph Seia: internalize racial inferiority affects all of Melanesia, Micronesia, Oceania, and people; nobody has any real systemic power to impact paid on another racial group. So, we all lose in this arrangement. But colorism and how we marked our relatives for darker skin versus whiter skin is all a part of the setup, right? This work has no winners, and internalized racism affects all. Even those that feel like they are superior because they are lighter-skinned in our communities. There's this term in the Samoan community called efficacy. And it is a transliteration of a half-caste. But it's used to praise people and say they're more beautiful because they have a European stuck in their blood. And that was perpetuated because of colonialism, to marry Europeans and marry white people. Because the lighter your skin, the more privileged you will be socially, economically, and politically status. You're lifted up for all of those reasons. That is something you continue to face in Pacific communities. We must make sure that we, together as a community, are having a dialogue and not continuing to perpetuate anti-blackness within our facts.

14:06

Raj: Yeah, it resonates with me because we struggle with that in the Indian community too. There are darker Indians and lighter Indians, and skin whitening cream that's like a billion-dollar industry—so same work about figuring out how to come together as a community.

14:19

Joseph Seia: That's funny that you bring that up because I was in Fiji about three years ago, and the stuff aired in Fiji is Indian TV., and you go to Fiji, and on TV are all these white-skinned people. I've never seen a light-skinned Indian, by the way, but that is what's on 24/7 in Fiji, and you look at the melanin people living there. All dark skin, indigenous Fijians, Pan Indo-Fijian, but yet they're eating this BS stuff on TV. That is all white skin people that there seem 24/7, And you see the products of that because you go to the market. There are whitening products everywhere. And so, it's a very common sort of product that is being sold in islands.

14:59

Raj: Yeah, yeah. Thanks, Joseph, for explaining that part of Melanesia a little more. So the next thing that I have is Micronesia, the Federated States of Micronesia, Marshall Islands, and the US territories of Guam are part of Micronesia. I think it's a good time to talk about COFA. It comes up a lot, but I don't think people understand.

15:24

Joseph Seia: Most people don't know, but most of them are specific after World War Two; Japan has committed genocide in many parts of Micronesia because of their proximity to Japan and the North Pacific's relevance as a pathway between Asia and also the US. There was a lot of genocide happening in the North Pacific and also the torture and rape of women, civic women being used as comfort women. I think, often is forgotten. And so, there are a lot of mixed races. North Pacific Islanders with the Japanese split because of the brutalities that Pacific Islanders faced When they were under Japanese rule. They left the US and came in one oppressor for the other. The US still did not see the humanity of the people there because of their relationship with indigenous people in the US. Instead, they used the North Pacific as practice for their atomic nuclear bombs and so. The nuclear bombing was done in Bikini Atoll for 20 years and led to the destruction of the ocean and fluid source of a lot of Micronesian brothers and sisters, instead of going through a process of reparations, the US decided to let them go under the Compact of Free Association, right. So, no moral, economic, or political reparations will be given to our Micronesian brothers and sisters. And instead, they sign these fragile agreements for a free association that allows our Micronesia nations to have free-standing to be independent. They can still travel here without any sort of social support. But once they get here, they don't qualify for health care provisions or benefits at UTSHS, so they're left defenseless. When a lot of our communities are Micronesia emigrate overnight. When I say my finish, I'm talking about the larger Micronesia, which also includes our Marshallese siblings, I will say that many of the migrations, at least to Western Washington, were very targeted clients from food corporations. That would go to the islands to these US territories and campaigns and sign agreements with these local governments to bring cheap labor.

Because of the difference between cheap labor from the US Pacific and Latin American countries in the US Pacific, they can come here, and they don't have an immigration barrier that allows them to work. And so, there's very targeted recruitment from American Samoa, from the Federated States of Micronesia in the Marshall Islands for food workers. When you are talking about Foster Farms, you're talking about Tyson. You're talking about in King County, there is Taylor's Farm, a chicken corporation that recruits American Samoans from American Samoa, but often when they come here, there's no support. Because these corporations are not set up as social service agencies. So, our people are left on their own. The majority of those whom we work with are a lot of our folks that have been recruited for the food industry, are now living here, and are leading the extra support.

18:24

Raj: Yeah, it's also important to highlight that this is part of the US’s history of broken promises and packs. They're supposed to benefit from the original Compact of Free Association COFA. But in 1996, during the welfare reform, they removed all federal benefits, including Medicaid, for anybody in the COFA region. Think about the consequences of that, especially in the pandemic, of accessing insurance and things like that. with COFA. Part of the agreement was the ability to test nuclear weapons there. It was like you get to come to America for free. But we also get to test nuclear weapons, especially when the Marshall Islands, there's an island, Bikini Atoll, where Native people can't even go back there because it's so contaminated right now.

19:13

Joseph Seia: Yeah, it's disgusting. If people don't know how we messed over the islands, they're still in the Marshall Islands. They do how whose nuclear waste bites are now poisoning the ocean. And that is a huge concern for Pacific peoples. Suppose you look at the work of climate justice champions. In that case, it's Pacific Islanders that have suffered under the environmental racism that we've experienced from Western and Asian nations and Eastern Asian countries, so they will continue to be at the fore of fighting for the dignity of our oceans, our mountains of clean water. And that is something that needs to be at the fore of our minds as specific people that this nuclear waste plant in the Marshall Islands continues to poison our ocean. Something has to be done to fix it. That's why Palau went off and signed the only agreement outside the agreements with the Federated States of Micronesia because the nation of Palau is a very powerful environmentalist. They have retained their indigenous culture and indigenous culture of the stewardship of earth and water, and everything around them is still very hot. And you see, our Palauan be the champions of protecting their waters. They have a whole marine force where if they see any Asian boats that are coming to use unhealthy fishing practices, they'll capture those boats. So, they take the people and burn the boat. This is their message to the Asian nations that you cannot come in and rape and pillage our oceans. I think that's something that is okay. I respect our Palauan people for the work that they continue to do on behalf of our ocean family. They also modeled for us what it means to check capitalism. Because there was a time and place when there were too many trips to Palau and the government, people assessed that it negatively impacted the environment. And so, they decided to do tourism differently, where they only flew in rich people, making fewer people come and do the tourism stuff in Palau. It seemed their environment recovered within ten years. So, there's a way to do capitalism that preserves the natural resources around you.

21:24

Raj: I feel we must have an episode just about Palau and see. They're pretty cool for the Marshallese community. There's a big community in Spokane, right?

21:35

Joseph Seia: We have a lot of food factories that are located in Spokane. And we have some of the food farms in southwest Washington that have been recruiting our Chickies brothers and sisters. So, you see a high population of our Chickies siblings, and Vancouver and Khalid soar. Foster Farms is there. Then here in King County, Tyler farms recruit directly from American Samoa, so many of our newer US Pacific relatives here are here because of that direct recruit. And once they're here, then they bring their relatives right.

22:06

Raj: Yeah, okay. Let's go to Polynesia. The islands are America, Samoa, the Cook Islands, and Tonga. You are Samoan; as you mentioned earlier, what should we know about Samoa?

22:24

Joseph Seia: Yeah, so I'm Samoan Tongan in Mauri. In Polynesia, we are perhaps like northerners, who historically were the navigators, right? Because a lot of our islands are very far out from the closest continents. When people arrived on the Samoan islands, they called us the island of the navigators because there were 1000s of giant ships going in and out. I should say that there were a lot of strategic ways that the colonial forces destroyed navigation. I know that for Samoa. Many of our big ships, called Aliyah, were brought down by some of the colonial governments that were there to restrict the movement of Samoan people. Part of their ways of trying to control and take over the islands was by burning the ships of our people. And I think Polynesian people have had a fascinating relationship with our western relatives. They idealized us as their paradise and then marketed it as their paradise. And there's a large tourist industry in Polynesia to entertain white and Asian tourists or the fantasy of many of these big nations where they come in and take a vacation. But I would say that since time immemorial, Polynesian people in the US have been mixing with Native people here for a while, since the eighth century. We've been trading with indigenous people of the Americas. And so, there's been a long connection between indigenous Oceania and people and indigenous North and South Americans. And the more recent migration to Washington was around 200 years ago when they brought Polynesians from Hawaii, Samoa, and other regions to cut down the trees that facilitate the timber industry. Because the part of the history that people don't know is when slavery ended in the Americas that traveled to the Pacific, and we called it Blackbird slavery. And that was from the 1860s till the 1910s. Before that, Europeans brought the Asians over as indentured servants through the gentleman's agreement. Prior to that, they had moved slavery into the Pacific. So, we had a lot of plantations where islanders were essentially robbed from other islands to be worked in different islands and also robbed from our Pacific to work in Australia and South America and places like Peru. And so, there was this expertise that island just had around clearing old-growth forests straight as part of that slavery period they had gone through. They were seen as essential experts in clearing down trees that Europeans then used as timber. So many of our islanders brought here 20 years ago were here to do exactly the same thing help with building the West Coast and West Coast cities by clearing the timber. And unfortunately, at that time, our folks could not live in a white society. They need to live with other communities. So, a lot of them were absorbed into the indigenous communities

25:31

Raj: yeah. Large compared to the rest of the US, probably in the top five. I want to talk about the fact that missionaries were a huge part of American Samoa. Is Christianity a significant influence in the islands for this Samoan people?

25:45

Joseph Seia: Yeah, in the 1700s. The French got there, there was the massacre Bay, but essentially, the French under the leadership done something offensive to the Sanborn people and hung up on a Samoan woman when he was over there to make an example to Samoan people not to mess with them. And he didn't know that one of the Kings was there. And that the king had ordered them to be killed. They were living folks to survive, then went back to France. by going back to France, they renamed our islands, the savage islands, from the islands of the mini navigators. And because of that renaming, they essentially discouraged them from visiting our islands were called the islands of the savages. Because of that renaming, they didn't come back till later. So actually, Samoans were the last people to be missionaries because they didn't come there until the 1830s. And Samoa was the last place that Christianity arrived, and as a natural consequence, we have retained a lot of our indigenous culture or chiefly systems. A lot of our cultural protocol is still alive.

Otautau, which is the art of to Otautau the marking of our body, is still alive, and many of the essentially bad things and other Pacific nations, and I would say that Samoans Samoanized Christianity when it got there. And Samoans didn't have to go through a long period of cultural assimilation. It's a little shorter of a period itself. When you hear our chiefs and pastors speak, they will often talk about Jesus after discussing Goddess Nafanua; right after that, they talk about God Tamalua in the same light and forming our moral and cultural practice as Samoans. And so, Samoans having the surly tear those things apart, which is very much after this indigenous belief that we can hold all things right, that things don't have to oppose, like in Western society, where one philosophy murders the other philosophy. Samoan things can only stand before indigenous people. They can hold the nuance and hold many things together as truths. One doesn't necessarily have to dominate the other.

27:52

Raj: Yeah. Okay. Since you are from Samoa, is there any specific food you crave from your home?

28:01

Joseph Seia: Oh man, that's a good question. Yeah, Taro is a thing, right? You have this delicacy called Lola; the reproductive organs of a coral bound that grows in the Samoan islands. And I think it's on the last moon in October; it all comes out. And it looks greenish and clear. And there are old Samoan traditions around celebrating this harvest once a year. It's the most expensive item people were selling in the hundreds of 1000s of dollars, just for a little whatever, pound of it. So, we call it Lola. Yeah, it doesn't look the most appetizing because they look like worms. But we love it.

28:48

Raj: Thanks for joining me, Raj, Sundar, in this episode of the healthcare for humans podcast. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Remember to check out part two of this conversation and then the next episode. Show notes and links can be found over at healthcare for humans.org. Feel free to comment or send me a message there. If you prefer email, email me at healthcare for humans@yahoo.com for feedback and guest ideas. And lastly, make sure you hit the subscribe button and tell a friend. See you next time.

Disclaimer:

This podcast is intended for educational and entertainment purposes only. Views and opinions expressed in this podcast do not represent any of the participant's past, current, or future employers unless explicitly expressed, so always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare providers concerning your personal questions about medical conditions you may be experiencing. This Healthcare for Humans project is based on Duwamish land and makes a regular commitment to Real Rent Duwamish.

The transcript ends here.