We are so proud of her as Afamasaga has been a stalwart in Pasfika education from the 1970s till today. In fact, she is also a talented writer in her own right and has contributed to three Mangere community anthologies i.e. Mana Mangere Voices (2017), Sense of Belonging (2018) and Navigating Journeys (2019).
In her writings, she's written poetry and rapped! (so versatile), non-fiction in her memoirs of Mangere and her sense of belonging in the communities that she's lived in Auckland and Samoa. The importance of her faith is shared as well as the importance of her very wise grandmother and her love for her family, village(s), culture and people.
I have been very privileged to have grown up with "Mrs Rassmussen" in having attended Nga Tapuwae College and seeing Samoan teachers whom I never had growing up. She was very strict and respected by us as students because she reminded us of our strict mothers, aunties and grandmothers growing up that you never wanted to mess with or you would get into big trouble.
I remember that she facilitated the Samoan parents' group at high school that my father and other Samoan parents would support and attend and she made it possible for our parents to feel that they were able to contribute to our schooling in a space that felt foreign to them. I think role models like her helped us to see that we could also participate and do well in education.
The interesting for me was then upon leaving school and going to Uni for a few years then thinking to take a couple of years off before returning to Uni, I ended up teaching at the school that Afamasaga "Mrs Ras" (students' nickname for her) was the deputy principal of. She was every bit as strict as I remembered her in high school and some teachers were even intimidated by her.
I thank her for supporting my fledging writing efforts way back then when I wrote my first full length high school productions, and she was always giving credit when other teachers couldn't be bothered. She even had some time acting in at least one big theatre production that I was aware and she could have had a career in acting but I know that teaching was her calling.
Well done to our dear role model and hope that many will be able to follow her footsteps in taking on the teaching profession for our next generations yet still keeping our values and principles of who we are as Pasifika people whether Samoan, Tonga, Niuean, Tokelauan, Fijian etc. as she has shown - the sky is the limit...
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