Tiumaluali’i Jody Marie Hassel uses her writing in tandem with her practice of Sāmoan siva to recover and embody the real and imagined pathways of her most ancient ancestors. A 2023 Rasmuson Foundation Fellow, she is working on a memoir that details her search for and reunion with her biological family, entitled To the Root: Recovery of a Sāmoan Princess in the Exile of Erasure. Also a performing artist, she lives on Tanana Dené lands in a town now known as Ester, Alaska. (updated 10/2023)