Afā Aikona

Si’oto’ofa atu kāinga, Afa (my childhood name) was born and raised in Tonga by her great grandma and grandmas, Mele Lei, ‘Amelia Sauliloa, and Vai with our ocean, gardens and her toes in the mud. Afā’s family migrated to Hawai’i and onto the ancestral lands of the Nuche, Nuwuvi, Kusiutta, Nimi and Diné (Utah). Afā’s film work has covered traditional Tongan medicine, climate change, Samoan gangs, Hawai’i with Haunani Kay-Trask, Nelson Mandela and South Africa to Black liberation, and joy. A student for life, Afa attended UCLA’s graduate Native American and Asian American program, Institute of American Indian Arts MFA Creative Writing program and exhibited a collective art show at the Peabody Harvard museum and the annual Friendly Island Tongan Festival in Glendale. Afā’s stories are imagined with deep relationships from elders, children, queer, Trans and youth when she lived in Harlem (Niu York), La Mission ( San Francisco), Sāmoa, ‘Eua to Niuatoputapu, Viti, Aotearoa and Oceania. Afā is a storyteller, Mama, film director and farmer. Afā and her Teti (Dad RIP) started ‘aikona, an Indigenous and community centered storytelling and farming multimedia company on Soonkahni (Glendale-Rosa Parks, Salt Lake City). Mālō e ‘ofa to my Ancestors, my children, our community, the relatives of Turtle Island, Black kin who built Turtle Island and this experience of telling our stories they all loved for us.