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OUR PILLARS
AIga
In 2015, Spear and I started Atua Clan as an avenue to explore our love for gaming, media, and for telling stories. In the early days, Atua Clan was something only reserved for our immediate family, our aiga. Our Samoan family has always been very close and we wanted to create something that reflected our values, our joy, and our goals.
Aiga, in the Samoan language, means family. And family, in the Samoan Way, can mean more than just the people you were born with. It means your community, your people. As we decided to open up Atua Clan to more members, we knew that we needed to maintain Aiga as a core principle and foundation for anything we did in the future.
Family can be complicated. Experiences with family can be painful, even. But for Atua Clan, family is our reason. There is no such thing in life as making it on your own and our hope is that this community can serve as a system of support for its members. Aiga is our first pillar precisely because we believe that everything great we do as individuals is shaped by the communities and contexts from which we came. And if you’ve been traveling solo for a while, we hope you can find a caring community here.
For us, living according to Aiga means speaking honestly, behaving in a way that respects the dignity and value of others, and creating belonging for those who feel left out. That’s something we strive to do every day and it’s our hope that this community will join us in that effort.
Transcend/ Understand
Part of what makes aiga so important is the sense of community and togetherness that it is meant to instill. When you’re in alignment with your team, it can bring a sense of confidence, purpose and belonging to everything you do. But in the same way that an individual is empowered by the group, a group is made better by individuals who strive to be their best and who help encourage others to do the same. That’s what Transcend and Understand are all about.
Frankly put, Transcend means go beyond your limits and give your best in everything you do. It means expecting the best out of yourself and others around you. Our hope is that everyone in this clan is empowered and encouraged to be and give their best, day in and day out. If you have a passion, pursue it. Strive towards that rank. Improve on your art. Grow to be a better person. Learn something new. While our goals as a team may be similar (and we’ll share soon what we’re hoping to work towards), every person has their own unique passions and goals. We want you to own that because working towards them is something to be proud of.
The flip side of that is acknowledging the fact that perfect doesn’t exist. It’s important to strive for excellence, but the reality is that there will be many days where our best just isn’t on the menu. That’s ok. Understand, as a Pillar, means to recognize that reaching up high to achieve may not always be as important as reaching down to help others on their bad days. We all have those days and our hope is that we can build a community where we understand how to encourage each other in those moments. Being excellent is temporary. Empathy and patience must be permanent.
Afakasi
In the Samoan language, Afakasi means ‘half-breed’: someone who is not 100% Samoan blood. My father is Samoan and my mother is white/Mexican so, for me and my siblings, Afakasi literally means us. Growing up, it sometimes placed me in an uncomfortable position. When I was around Samoan relatives and friends, I often felt never quite ‘Samoan enough’. But when I was around my friends or others, I was the ‘Samoan’ friend. This place in the middle, this limbo, was hard at times for me to navigate. Even when Spear and I started Atua Clan, I’ve often felt pulled between questions of ‘Are we representing our culture well enough?’ and ‘Are we being too exclusive by highlighting our Samoan culture?’.
Afakasi, as a Pillar, is an affirmation that no matter who you are and how you identify as a person, you’ll have a home here. In short, half-breeds are welcome. How you identify as a person can simultaneously shape the dreams you allow yourself to have and what limits you place on yourself. We believe that by creating a space that celebrates our differences, we can help others remove the limit that they or others place on themselves. We believe that what makes us different makes us strong. I am Samoan. I’m also white and Mexican and a whole bunch of other things. I am Afakasi. Those differences don’t make me less of something: they help me celebrate the uniqueness of me and the story I get to share with the world.
We don’t want Atua Clan to just be a Samoan group. We also don’t want it to just be a male group. Atua Clan, at its core, is a gaming org. But the gaming world can be a toxic and hateful place if the ecosystems that make up that world allow for that toxicity. Our hope at Atua Clan is that you’ll find the freedom to be yourself, even if you’re still figuring out who that is. Our goal is to honor and protect the dignity of each other, as best as we can.