Born in Honolulu to a Hawaiian petty officer first class and a Tahitian flight attendant, raised on naval bases in Guam and Samoa, educated at a gigantic university in the American Midwest, Ina Aroita had worked for years as a maid for a luxury hotel chain in Papeete, Tahiti, before boating 150 miles over to Makatea to garden and fish and weave and knit a little and raise two children and try to remember why she was alive.
