Terisa Tinei Siagatonu is a Samoan award-winning spoken word poet, arts educator, and community organizer. In 2012, she was awarded a Champion of Change Award for her activism as a spoken word poet and organizer.

Personal life

Born in

San Francisco, CA San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the fourth most populous in California and 17th ...

, Siagatonu was the first on her father's side of the family to attend college. Siagatonu graduated from the

University of California, Santa Cruz The University of California, Santa Cruz (UC Santa Cruz or UCSC) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Cruz, California. It is one of the ten campuses in the University of California syste ...

, with a While there, she experienced spoken word for the first time and began writing. During college she competed in poetry slams, taught spoken word poetry to students in an after school program, and was a Youth Speaks mentor. After completing undergraduate work with a major in Community Studies and an Education minor, she went on to earn a Master of Arts in Marriage/FamilyTherapy from the

University of Southern California The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...

Career

She was Project Director for the Pacific Islander Education and Retention project (PIER) at

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

. She is a

slam poet A poetry slam is a competitive art event in which poets perform spoken word poetry before a live audience and a panel of judges. While formats can vary, slams are often loud and lively, with audience participation, cheering and dramatic delivery ...

, and coach. An activist in several areas, including LGBTQ rights, racial justice, mental health, gender equity and climate change, President Obama recognized Siagatonu with a Champion of Change Award in 2012, and she spoke at the

2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 21 or CMP 11 was held in Paris, France, from 30 November to 12 December 2015. It was the 21st yearly session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the 1992 United Nations Framework Conve ...

. One of her areas of concern is Hawaii’s

Mauna Kea Mauna Kea ( or ; ; abbreviation for ''Mauna a Wākea''); is a dormant volcano on the island of Hawaii. Its peak is above sea level, making it the highest point in the state of Hawaii and second-highest peak of an island on Earth. The peak is ...

volcano. Her work, A Kundiman Fellow and 2019 Yerba Buena Center for the Arts 100 List Honoree, was published in Poetry Magazine and had been featured on Button Poetry, CNN, NBCNews, NPR, Huffington Post, KQED, Everyday Feminism, The Guardian, BuzzFeed, and Upworthy. Siagatonu, being a queer Samoan woman and activist gave her a plethora of opportunities. Such as speaking at the White House (during the Obama administration) to the UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris, France. She states on her website that the most memorable moment in her career was receiving President Obama’s Champion of Change Award in 2012 for her activism as a spoken word poet/organizer in her Pacific Islander community.

Works

Raise Up - Terisa Siagatonu
Millennium Stage, November 10, 2014 *
"Trigger" Terisa Siagatonu
Button Poetry, December 21, 2014
"Moana Means Home"
Terisa Siagatonu, April 21, 2018

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Siagatonu, Terisa Samoan women poets Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Slam poets