Fa'afafine Pageant

Samoan culture overall is very conservative. Church attendance in American Samoa is near 100%. The missionaries that came over to the islands were ruthlessly efficient in instilling their values to the Samoan people. Women still have very traditional roles in family life. Gays are not tolerated. The men hold very patriarchal positions in both the tribal government and the home. So it is quite unusual to have something like the fa'afafine as a part of the Samoan culture. Fa'afafine or "Fa'afas" are a sort of third gender here in American Samoa. They are biologically male, but for either division of household labor purposes or based on the effeminate traits of the child growing up, are raised as female. They wear women's clothing and fill womanly roles in the house and society.

They are also a gray area in the black and white traditional Christian morality that Samoan culture paints about gays. Since a fa'afafine is not considered male or female, they are able to court either males or females without rankling societal norms.

My daily life had introduced me to a few fa'afafines, but they mostly registered as a curiosity more than a something I'd given much thought to. That is until paddling last Wednesday. One of our team captains mentioned that she was selling tickets to the Miss Flowers Pagaent, a fa'afafine beauty pageant being put on at a hotel near our house. Not having any Saturday evening plans, we bought tickets and rallied a few of our friends to join us for the festivities.

The pageant was slightly more serious than a drag queen show, but only slightly. The festivities started off with the actual (female) Miss American Samoa doing a dance and warming up the crowd with some banter. Things were then turned over to our MCs, a few island personalities that were lost to Sara and I. The evening was

then in the hands of the fa'afas. They treated the crowd to traditional beauty pageant staples like promenading in formal gowns and swimwear competition. There were also some less typical aspects, like one category that had the competitors model outfits they made out of flowers and other local flora. There were a few spectacular dresses made from orchid flowers, it made the ulas which are a regular part of local life look pale in comparison.

The talent part of the competition was also pretty wild. There were a number of lip synched dance routines, one stand up comedy act which was unfortunately in Samoan, and a rendition of Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" that ended with the fa'afa singing it giving birth to a mannequin's head. It was a pretty wild event.

All the fa'afafines were representing different sports clubs from the island. Another part of the competition involved them doing a turn on the runway while wearing the sports gear for the club they were representing. It was pretty obvious that just about all of them had not participated in the sports they were chosen to represent. The one representing the football team had the right idea: she dressed up as a cheerleader instead of throwing on a helmet and shoulder pads. This was a decidedly better option than the one representing volleyball, who sent an errant ball off into the crowd.

After the winner had been crowned, Sara, our Hawaiian friend and I were able to go up on stage on get pictures with the competitors. They were friendly, eager to engage with us and very sweaty.

Here's the local news coverage of the event:

http://samoanews.com/viewstory.php?storyid=28180

Overall it was a great evening.