I was a Jones until I became a Raatior. Growing up for the first 30 years of my life I was proud to be a Jones because my older siblings, Maggie, Damian, Quintin, Sophia were often the most academically gifted, respectful, funny, and liberal-minded in our islands of Tamatam, Onoun, and Houk. They modeled a way forward for the younger siblings like myself. My amazing siblings literally made the “keeping-up-with-the-Joneses” statement true in the Pacific without a sliver of European Jones DNA in our blood.
I carried that legacy name, Jones, through my undergraduate and graduate education on Guam, in New York, San Francisco, and Berkeley…indifferent to the name, but often felt uncomfortable with its history. Then I grew up, like really grew up and grew out of the beautiful legacies of my siblings and away from the legacy of colonialism. In the late 90’s while doing theology studies in Berkeley, California, I finally found the courage to reclaim my native family name Raatior. It was a personal protest against the injustice of foreign domination on indigenous rights. But more importantly it was reclaiming what God had gifted to my people.
Wait, who is Jones and who is Raatior? Before I answer that, let’s delve a bit into some sad and long history of colonialism in the Pacific Islands in which our identities have suffered greatly at the hands of overzealous foreigners. The Spaniards, Germans, Japanese, and Americans arrived uninvited on the shores of our pristine islands in many forms, causes, and agendas…all with the same misplaced notion of “helping” us. Yet, they all displaced or destroyed our native names, our spiritualities, cultures, traditions, governing structures, diets, and our lives in the name of their foreign gods, ideology, self-proclaimed governments, unjust economies, and their social and physical illnesses. The Spaniards “discovered” us, the Germans “purchased” us, the Japanese “claimed” us, the Americans “liberated” us, and now there’s fear that if we let them, the Chinese will “own” us. Lost in this long history of foreign domination were our ancestors who were the victims of overzealous kings, queens, emperors, prime ministers, presidents, high commissioners, and even popes and missionaries.
Pasifika is still rising from the ashes of colonial destructive burning of our indigneous identities. The Compact of Free Association (COFA) nations such as FSM, Palau, and the Marshall Islands have since reclaimed our sovereignty and have representation in the United Nations. Yet, as a collection of diverse languages and cultures, we continue to struggle to find our true identities. We have been dominated so long by foreign governments. We must begin to reclaim our histories, reconnect with our spirituality, recalibrate our self-understanding, revisit our roots, reclaim our traditions, reclaim our innate goodness, and remove our dependency syndrome.
Family names were part of this long history of destructiveness by overzealous missionaries who desecrated ancestral names with European names as though only Euro-centric names guaranteed entrance into their Euro-centric Heavenly Gate. My paternal grandfather Raatior (named after a navigational bird – so I’m told), a well respected chief on the island of Onoun, was baptized Ionas. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, a Peace Corp volunteer on Onoun back in the 60’s decided that Ionas was better pronounced in its American form on his class roster. So, at the stroke of his number 2 pencil and a high dose of cultural insensitivity he forced my older siblings to take the name Jones as their last name. And there began the story of the Maggie and Damian Jones and the subsequent line of Jones kids in the middle of the Pacific without a sliver of Jones DNA in any of us.
That injustice was passed down without question. I carried that last name for 30 years of my life even though I’ve never felt comfortable having to explain its American origin. Exactly 30 years later while in graduate school in Berkeley and with the support of my older siblings who I respect dearly I decided to stand up and legally reclaimed my native family name of Raatior. Ironically, the legal system in Berkeley, California…the bastion of 60’s radical liberalism and counter-cultural protests in support of civil rights…reversed the wrong done by one of its own sons in the Peace Corps. While I respect my siblings’ decision (or indifference) to keeping the name Jones, I consider this little feat of reclaiming my indigenous name as my shield of honor and the roots of my pride.
I proudly carry on the legacy of my grandfather, Raatior. I remain thankful for making that decision to reclaim my family’s indigenous name when I was single. As a parent to two US-born teenagers I am glad they are carrying on the legacy of Raatior. I want them to carry his name with pride and respect as I have done since reclaiming it some 27 years ago. I am thankful to my partner and wife Desha for making the decision to add Raatior to her name. I honor and respect all my siblings, relatives, fellow Micronesians and Pasifika who continue to carry the foreign imposed baptismal or socialized names of their ancestors.
Do you need to reclaim your family name? That’s your call. No one can tell you how to reassert what is truly yours. I do think that reclaiming family’s indigenous names is a small way forward in re-asserting the beauty of our God-given names, our islands, our cultures, our traditions, and our identities. God created us and put us in our pristine small islands to enjoy Her image and likeness. She did not gift us with what is ours to be unjustly trampled upon by other more stronger nations. But they did and now we must begin the revolutionary effort to reclaim what is ours starting with the name we carry on our shoulders, in our passports, our driver’s licence, in our dissertations, our book reports, our workplace, and even in our FB profiles.
It took me 30 years before I had the courage to reclaim my ancestral family name. I am proud of it. I hope that when my grandfather learns at the Heavenly Uut about the little things that this small family is doing to make this world a better place, he can be proud to see his name Raatior emblazoned in our hearts, words, thoughts, and our actions. We may not be perfect at it, but we are striving to make him proud.
