Pacific Islanders in San Francisco are working to launch a new cultural district later this summer.
Gaynor Ann Siataga is the leading force behind the development of the city’s newest cultural district. It will cover parts of Visitation Valley, Portola and Excelsior.
Siataga, who grew up in the Mission and Hunter’s Point, wants the district to give her community a sense of belonging and resources to help navigate systems in America.
"The vision that I have with our cultural district is just true equity … 73% of us live in low-income housing," she said.
Siataga’s roots are Samoan. She describes her “amazing, dysfunctional family” as a “white picket fence or American dream type stuff, but just in the projects."
Her childhood was troubled and painful. She joined a gang, became an addict and started selling drugs.
“I was already angry,” Siataga said. “I was shot twice, stabbed 15 different times, raped three, you know, separate times.”
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She took that trauma and integrated it with who she is today, with help from people in the community who were willing to listen.
She shared a story about Rudy Corpuz, the founder and executive director of United Playaz. She said he was a visitor to her school – Balboa High School – at a time when she said riots were an everyday occurrence.
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“One day this guy, he comes in, young, handsome, he’s in this whole like pimp suit," she said. "Pencil old red, blue hat with a feather, and he’s coming through the halls … and I say, 'Who the hell is that walking in my hallway?'"
“This guy is named Rudy Corpuz," she said. "So Rudy came by lunchtime … I do the background checks to the background check. We have street credit check. Found out about this guy, and he was the first one to actually say, 'OK, you know what? I’m going to listen to you. What do you want?' Nobody ever asked what we want. So, we started United Playerz. It was a school club, and now it’s grown and huge. It was to tackle that violence but letting us take that chance to build some ownership in our lives."
Siataga’s advocacy turned into her healing point.
In 2017, she founded SALT: Pacific Islander Association Hut, a one-stop shop to help the Pacific Islander community with all services, such as public safety, housing and youth leadership.
According to the Regional Pacific Islander Taskforce, Pacific Islanders make up less than 1% of California’s population. Almost three in 10 Pacific Islanders in the state live in the Bay Area. But, Siataga is hopeful.
“I was always so worried, like we were about to be extinct," she said. "One that I see with our people is this momentum, this sense of, 'Oh my god, we belong here.'"
