We are queer, mixed-Samoan cisgender men living and working on Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi.

Ian: I was always proud to be Pasifika, but it was hard to be queer because it wasn’t visible. It appeared as whispered jokes, caricatures on TV, or the one everyone loved but no one talked about.

Alika: It has been a challenge to feel accepted and affirmed by my own community. This is why images like this, with my fiancé, mean so much to me. It is a representation of both my ‘queerness’ and ‘Samoaness’ together.

We want our future children to feel that they absolutely belong in any space they enter.