By: David Kauila Kopper

I would strengthen cross-cultural legal partnerships. Connect with like-minded community advocates in their space. Learn about the diverse cultures and communities from this region that we are privileged to serve here at home. Things that are meaningful, actionable, and beneficial. Success? I ended up getting all those things and more.

Over two weeks across the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Pohnpei, Chuuk in the Federated States of Micronesia, and Guam, I met with incredible advocates, attorneys, community service providers, nonprofit directors, and elected officials. All welcomed me with open arms into their community with a shared commitment to breaking down barriers and collaborating to help others. I learned and connected more than I thought was possible. I will be forever grateful to them for their leadership, friendship, generosity, and partnership.

The spaces in between proved to be just as valuable; I was able to see my home in new places thousands of miles away. I experienced the kindness of three new friends in Majuro who then took me by boat to a “small” barbeque of 50 of their closest friends and family. I saw the beauty of Chuuk and its people through the eyes of my hosts. I wandered Guam, noting familiar struggles and persistence, as well as fragmented pieces of my own family history that I’d never fully connected to before. I met formal acquaintances that quickly turned into lifelong friends in the backyard of a Pohnpei legal aid office, a quick transition aided by countless shared cups of face-numbing and spirit-lifting sakau (ʻawa). 

I’ve been privileged to spend most of my career talking about community—fighting for it, organizing around it, trying to protect it. But this trip showed me that community isn’t something we inherit. It’s something we wake up and choose each day.

We choose how big or small our circle is. We can choose whether to keep it small and comfortable, or stretch it to include people who think, speak, or live differently than we do. Whether we center work or people. Whether we’re in it for outcomes or relationships.

Because of the generosity and kindness of those I connected with, I experienced the personal impact when someone chooses to stretch their circle and include you. That is my new commitment to fulfill here at home—something I will wake up and choose each day.