Interview with Julin Williams, History 150 Spring 2020, Conducted by Meghan Lankford, March 27, 2020.

The name of the person I interviewed is Julin Williams, who is a close family friend of mine. She grew up in American Samoa very close to all of her family. She moved to the United States as a freshmen in high school and lived in Louisiana for a few years. She then moved to Hawaii at 17 to join the military. Years after, she moved to DC to be a participant in a program called “Close Up” for college students. There, she met her husband, who is now a lawyer, and they now have eleven children. She values her culture and passes down many of her traditions to her children. She has tried to create a life for her children that reflects both American and Samoan culture. She also puts on many events to show her appreciation for the communities she and her family associate with.

 

Research

American Samoa is a territory of the United States located in the South Pacific Ocean. American Samoa consists of five main islands and has a population of around 55,000 people. The official languages of Samoan and English. American Samoa was originally under the jurisdiction of the United State in 1900. By the 1960s and 1970s, American Samoa had adopted its own constitution and controlled its own immigration and border policies. The economy is mainly based on agriculture and fishing because they have an abundance of land and are surrounded by water. 

The Samoan culture is Polynesia’s oldest culture. Samoan society is organized according to a chieftain hierarchy called the fa’a Samoa way of life. The Samoans are very collectivist and value family time. Many families end up living in the same house or in close proximity of one another. American Samoan traditions are deeply rooted and strictly followed. Older generations are very strict and adamant about holding younger generations accountable for holding on to these traditions. An example of a tradition popular in Samoan culture is practiced when Samoans go to visit the homes of others, particularly those who are all Samoan. They are expected to leave a gift to show their appreciation for the family’s hospitality. There are not a lot of opportunities for adolescents as they get older in Samoa so many immigrate to the United States to join the military or to pursue college degrees. American Samoa has a higher rate of enlistments in the military than those who actually live in the United States.

 

Citations for Research:

“American Samoa.” U.S. Department of the Interior, 7 Feb. 2020 www.doi.gov/oia/islands/american-samoa.

“History, Language and Culture in American Samoa.” World Travel Guide, www.worldtravelguide.net/guides/oceania/american-samoa/history-language-culture/.

Ashpo. (n.d.). Cultural History of American Samoa. Retrieved from http://www.ashpo.org/index.php/history.html

Meghan Lankford: Hi, this is Meghan Lankford. I’m here with Mrs. Julin Williams. Mrs. Julin, how are you?

Julin Williams: Hi, Meghan. I’m good. Thank you.

Meghan Lankford:Alright, so my first question is, what was it like growing up in America Samoa?

Julin Williams: Umm I honestly had the best childhood growing up in America Samoa. We uh, my house was right next to the beach. My aunt’s house was next door. My grandmother was next door. My uncle was, you know, upstairs, we had a tiny little village within the village. You know, we’d sleep at my grandmother’s house, we eat all of our meals at my grandmother’s house. And we did all of our chores with my siblings and my cousins. And when we were done with our choice, we go to the beach, you’d come home for a meal and go right back. To the beach. So it was really a great way to grow up. The only problem was everybody knew when you did something wrong you could be in another village by the time you got home, they already knew what you did whether it was eating while you’re walking, which is very disrespectful back home or you said something bad you know, they already do.

Do you know why eating while walking is disrespectful. Why is that?

Um, it’s, you know, my, we were just told it was disrespectful. There are a lot of things that are normal here in America that are disrespectful in some way. Like it’s disrespectful to walk and eat because you should be sitting down with your food. And you know, we we believe in prayer. So they think that you should say a prayer before you eat and you should pay attention to what you’re doing while you’re, you know, when you’re walking, you just should not be eating while you’re walking around the village. You shouldn’t walk past someone without saying excuse me, like if someone was sitting down, and if you were to walk by them, and did not say, Excuse me, that would be considered as a really big full pot like people would really look at you badly. Like stuff like that. If you did stuff like that. Your parents would find out.

Meghan Lankford: Was it Oh sorry, go ahead

Julin Williams: Oh, there are a lot. There are a lot of things that I remember as a kid that still stick with me today. I mean, I try to tell my kids not to eat and walk but you know, they’re so busy here. Like, at night you couldn’t go out. Walking with your hair. If you weren’t girl. You could not go walking with your hair down. It was considered. As vain and our ants and our grandmas, our moms would always tell us if you go out walking at night with your hair down something bad would happen to you and if you ask any someone growing up they know exactly what you were talking about. This is the stories that were told to us by our moms and we’re told to them by their moms and you know, I’m sure they still say that today.

Meghan Lankford: I had no idea about all that!

Julin Williams: Yeah, there’s it you know, the Samoan culture is beautiful, but there are a lot of restrictions on girls. You know, they they try to protect the girls because you live in such a small village. Being representing your family is a huge deal. So when you go out into the village or go out, you know, in the island, everybody knows what, whose family you come from and what village you come from. So if you represent them in a bad way it is frowned upon on you, on your family, we still have a chief system that we fall it’s called the Muay Thai system, where every family has a chief, it could be your uncle, your grandfather, your dad, and he makes all the decisions pertaining to the family culture. And so, you wherever you go, you you have to carry yourself as if you were representing your whole family, you know, so if it’s something good everyone is represented well, but if it’s something bad It’s it’s just really frowned upon. It’s a yeah it’s a it’s a it’s a lot of pressure but it’s also it’s it’s good because you’ve got you know you’ve got a huge family base you’ve got a huge village behind you so you know it’s it’s not just you you know when you see when they say it takes a village, it really is true and sama so if everyone cheers in your success everyone is a part of it. But when you do bad everybody knows.

Meghan Lankford: Goodness that is a lot of pressure!

Julin Williams: Yeah so it’s you know it’s it’s it’s a very you have to be unselfish, right. You can’t just think for yourself like growing up in a small island in a small village. You have to think about it been as the whole instead of just yourself.
Gotcha. How did your since your family is so close, how did they react to your decision to move to the United States?
So, when I, you know, in my senior year, there’s not a lot of opportunities for for us when we were growing up. You know, you were either a football player, you know, there’s so many football and someone to play in the NFL that was either your ticket out or you join the army or you went to college, but college was not really pushed in our family. It was not what do you call the opportunity was not there for a lot of kids. And so I joined the army and that was my ticket off the island. And that’s how I came to the states and then I got stationed in Hawaii.

Meghan Lankford: Nice. How did the United States either like fair or unfit your expectations?

Julin Williams: You know, I, I had been to the States during my high school years I actually lived in Louisiana for about three years from my freshman year to my junior year, because my mom got remarried, she married my stepfather from West Virginia. He took us on to Louisiana. So we actually lived in Louisiana from for three years. And then I moved back to someone so I have hadmany exposure to to the mainland. Well you know, I met my husband on a close up trip when I was a junior in high school from Samoa we met in Washington DC, so I had been back and forth to the States.

Meghan Lankford: Can you explain what the Close Up program is?

Julin Williams: The Close Up Program is a an organization that brings high school students from all 50 states and all four US territories to Washington DC to learn about the US government. And I was a junior in high school and I got picked to go on a close up trip there was there were 50 of us from American Samoa coming to DC and we met students from all over the country. And, you know, as you know, Mr. Mike, my husband who was from New Jersey was on that same trip. It was a two week trip for us. And it was a week long trip for the kids in the United States. So we got to go to New York City. We got to go to Philadelphia.Busch Gardens, and you know, we get to see all the important sites here in Washington DC.

Meghan Lankford: That’s really cool. How did you hear of it? Or like, What inspired you to join it?

Julin Williams: Um, you know, so we it was part of our history class. And if you did well in in history class, you got to go on this trip. So it’s it’s very competitive to be on this trip and I just really wanted to learn about the government. And, and honestly, I just wanted to come shopping (we both laugh).There’s not a lot of you know, choices in Samoa so but I it was the best trip of my life. It really was.

Meghan Lankford: That’s incredible. It seems like such a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Julin Williams:I️ t was Yeah, it’s it’s it really is. I mean, when I say that that trip changed my life. Not only did I meet my wonderful husband, but he, you know, coming from New Jersey, you know, he wanted to go to Georgetown and this was his chance of seeing the campus on this trip. So, it was really, it was really a great learning experience. We got to see how other teenagers, you know, from all the other states, you know, we their accents and their ways of doing things so it was really fun.

Meghan Lankford: It’s really neat to get like everybody like in like the United States and like other parts of the world together learning

Julin Williams: Yeah, cause we had like the southern states and we’ve had we had, you know, New Jersey and and some of these kids you know, I had been to the states before but a lot of these kids had never been to the states and you know, so they for us, we they actually gave us uniforms to wear on this trip. You know, we had everywhere.You go every function you go to one sound law, there is a uniform and we have to wear like it’s called a Pool of Tassie so it’s a long it’s a two piece we’ve got a top and a skirt that goes all the way down to your ankles and it’s it’s very flattering, flattering on on women. So that’s what they that’s what they gave us. So everywhere we went, we had a uniform on and I know the kids from the States would be you know, they chuckle it like you know, okay, they’re the so they’re the they’re the Samoans go, you know, cuz we don’t be in uniform, but we were very proud to represent our island.

Meghan Lankford: That’s awesome. When you and your husband Mr. Mike, were trying to make money and start a family how hard it was to support yourself and your young kids?

Julin Williams: It was tough. It was very tough. So I had you know moved back to Hawaii and Mike. He he had, you know, like they said Georgetown was his dream school and he had applied to Georgetown and was rejected. And then he applied again and was again rejected. So he, you know, he worked at Chick Fil A, his friends went off to college, and they’d come back and they’d say, why aren’t you in college and he knew that he wanted to go to Georgetown. So he offers some other universities. But Mr. Mike knew that Georgetown was his dream school. So when he found he actually found found me in Hawaii like he,you know, he decided to look for this girl that he had met on close up. Right. He found out that I was in Hawaii and he called me and said he’d like to come out so he comes up to Hawaii for spring break. And then he,on that week long Spring Break he proposes to me. And I say yes, he comes back to New Jersey. He packs up the stuff moves back to Hawaii within the month. He finds a job. And Georgetown is still on his mind. So he applies to Georgetown again from Hawaii. And lo and behold, he gets in. So we pack up and we move to Washington DC, neither of us have jobs. He’s going to college and I was a waitress at Philips Flagship at the National Heart or the you know the waterfront. And until we paid our rent and bills for a couple of months until Mr. Mike found a job at the Watergate hotel answering phones on the weekend and I eventually found an office job.That’s how we paid our bills.

Meghan Lankford: Wow. That’s like that’s like a cute romantic story as well.Did you have to stay home like when you first had kids?

Julin Williams: No I so. So when we first had Rosey, I was able to stay home for about five months and then had to go back to work. I actually had a cousin from Samoa who came out to live with us. And she helped me with Rosey up until Rosey was 10 months and then I I quit my job to come home because it Mr. Mike just didn’t want Rosey to go into daycare and he was going to law school. He was in law school and working part time to help us pay for our bills because I wasn’t working. So it was it was a lot of work on Mr. Mike he just never stopped.

Meghan Lankford: That’s crazy!

Julin Williams: Yeah, yeah, he was. I mean, you’re not supposed to work so much in law school because it’s so hard, but we just had to, you know, make ends meet. But we did it. And, you know, we just never, we always counted our blessings and knew that we were on an upward mobility and that it would be okay in the end. You know?

Meghan Lankford:How has raising your children been different than how you were raised?

Julin Williams: Oh, my goodness. I am not even halfway as strict. I know you might not think. But I’m not even halfway strict as my mom raised me, I mean, we, you know, in growing up in Samoa, you were put or that you were seen and not heard. That’s what that’s how kids were. Kids ate you know, you take care of the elders first and kids ate last. Or like I said, there was really no room for individuality back home. So with my kids, I tried to be more. You know, I had a great mom but we weren’t open with our feelings. We weren’t there. I think I’m a lot more open with my kids now than when I grew up. I think my kids are a lot more sheltered, though than I was when I grew up. I mean, when I grew up, I you know, we could go down to the store and we could, we we would we did a lot of things before kids do here you know, like, there are a lot of responsibilities that we had that were not expected of my kids, not you know.

Meghan Lankford: That’s interesting like seeing like, collectivist versus individualistic.

Julin Williams: Yes. Now my kids now they’re allowed to have their own umm their own things, you know, growing up in Samoa, you really weren’t allowed to do that. Like if you came home with a pack of cookies, and there were kids at home, you’d have to give your cookies. You know, here it’s it’s just different. It’s it’s good where kids get to where my kids get to voice umm. They have a voice and they get to they have opportunities that we didn’t have, you know, they have they can follow their passion in Samoa if it was not, you know, we couldn’t afford stuff like that we couldn’t afford for my kids now they can if they want to go to a basketball tournament if they want to train with a private trainer, they can do that. Back home, there was no there was none of that. You had to either learn it on your own or, you know, figure out a way.

Meghan Lankford: Have you passed down like what traditions have you passed down to your children from Samoa?

Julin Williams: My traditions i’ve you know, I’ve course I’ve taught my kids how to dance Samoan. I’ve I’ve given them just prayer. We pray a lot. That’s how I grew up. They understand that that that’s that’s important. They understand family is important ummm there are a lot of cooking you know foods that we cook from back home like coconut rice pineapple ties. A lot of things from coconut that my kids know how to make. So they’re they’re very proud to be Samoan even though some of them have not ever been to sample but they’re they’re still very proud to be Samoan.

Meghan Lankford: Is having a large family common in Samoan culture?

Julin Williams: Oh, yes. Yes. In fact, in Samoa, if you have, if you have a lot of kids and yours and you have a sibling or a cousin that cannot have children, it’s it is very common to you know to give up one of your children to your sister brother cousins? And it is very common then yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know I can see when I say that Samoans are very giving, this is how they show their love their generosity. It is very common. Back home.

Meghan Lankford: What is it like being a stay at home mom for 11 kids and what type of family support do you have?

Julin Williams: I love being a stay at home mom. It is my most favorite job to do. I love taking care of my family. And I I’ve you know, I’m very fortunate and blessed that my husband is able to provide for all of us, you know, all of our children go to, they go to private schools, they go to all Catholic schools. I have a huge support my I’ve got two nieces that live with me. One is a lawyer who just graduated from law school and the other one wants to be a lawyer. So, and my husband, you know, he cooks for us on the weekends. He’s very present when he’s home. And I’ve got a nanny who helps us on the weekdays. So I have a lot of help, but it wasn’t always this way. You know, I hired our McDalia, Miss McDalia when I had 10 kids. That was when I knew “Okay, I’ve got to get some help.”

Meghan Lankford: That’s amazing. Well, thank you so much, Mrs. Julin for your time. This was really interesting and I love learning about the differences in Samoan culture more.

Julin Williams: Well, thanks Meghan. I hope to tell you, I you know, I am so nervous. I’m not great at this.

Meghan Lankford: Don’t be nervous!

Julin Williams: I would love to tell you more. Thanks for thinking about me Meghan.

Meghan Lankford: Of course!

 

1. My interview was supposed to be done in person but because of the Corona Virus and social distancing, we did it over the phone. We were both able to find quiet rooms in our houses, so we were able to have a conversation with no distractions. I️ used the portable audio recorder from the library so although the interview was done over the phone, I️ was able to pick up the sound really well. There is a weird buzzing at one point, but I️ do not know the source of that buzzing. I️ did not have to edit that much except for the fact that the transcription did not recognize the word “Samoa.”
2. I️ think the interview went really well. Mrs. Julin gave long and thoughtful responses and was really passionate and excited for the opportunity to talk about her culture. I️ talked to her before the interview started about what the interview would be like because she said she was nervous. I️ feel like the interview flowed well, and I️ was able to ask all my question while maintaining the flow. Since I️ was not able to see her face, it was hard to tell when she was done talking so sometimes our words crossed over for a brief moment. Since I️ know Mrs. Julin well, I️ was not nervous about going off script, but I️ feel like my questions, that I️ came up with on the spot to maintain flow, could have been clearer. We stayed on track the entire time, and I️ learned a lot!