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Luau in the desert
Descendants of Mormon Polynesian pioneers return to Skull Valley to hula in the tumbleweeds.
from the May 31, 2007 edition
Page 2 of 3
The first Iosepans suffered through broiling summers, frigid winters, and even an outbreak of leprosy. A church-owned company ran the town, and in the early years, residents were paid for their labor in company scrip.
The Iosepans had left the tropics to be closer to the Mormon temple in Salt Lake City. But in Skull Valley, days of rough and expensive travel separated them from the temple. Despite the hardships – and some resentment over their transplantation here – few abandoned the valley, even when the Hawaiian government offered to bring them home.
The Iosepans gradually gained a foothold in the desert, and by the early 1900s they were growing rosebushes and raising enough wheat, squash, melons, and livestock for the company to turn a profit. Transportation improved, wages increased (thanks in part to strikes), and life in Skull Valley became almost enviable. But in 1915, the church announced plans to build a temple in Hawaii, and offered to pay for the more than 200 Iosepans to return to the Pacific. Most accepted the offer, but not without genuine regret. Iosepa, after all, had been their home for decades, and some knew no other.
The history they left behind remains contentious. Where some see only valiant endurance, others see racial segregation and mistreatment.
"There are a lot of indications that it was an exile," said Matthew Kester, a historian at Brigham Young University-Hawaii. "But that doesn't take away from the commitment of the people who lived here."
For years, Iosepa quietly crumbled into the desert. But after World War II, new waves of Polynesian pioneers began to arrive in Utah, drawn by the Mormon church as well as by economic opportunity. Utah now has a higher percentage of Pacific Islanders than any state except Hawaii.
Poulsen, a Mormon who grew up in New Zealand, came to Utah via Hawaii with his family in the 1970s. When he visited Iosepa with his Hawaiian mother-in-law, whose grandmother is buried in the cemetery, "she was really mad it was in such disrepair," he remembered. "Families started coming out here every year for a few hours, just to clean graves and talk story."
The gathering soon became a weekend affair, with dozens and then hundreds of Hawaiians and other Polynesians in the Salt Lake City area strapping mattresses and chairs to their car roofs and heading to the desert. They danced the hula among the tumbleweeds and cactus, pulling spines out of their feet.
"People said, 'Just go to Iosepa, and you'll have a good time,' " said Cory Hoopiiaina, a descendant of one of the two families that remained in the area after Iosepa was dissolved.
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