Her family is from Tonga, the South Pacific island chain, but she was born in Salt Lake City, a Mormon Pacific islander living on the city’s west side, the middle child among seven girls, who titled her college honors thesis “Nourishing the Space Between.”
One way or another, Moana Uluave-Hafoka has lived her whole life in the “space between.” She works there now, too.
First hired as a community liaison for Mayor Jackie Biskupski, she was promoted in December to serve as the mayor’s adviser for diversity and human rights policy and community outreach – the office’s go-between with a constellation of marginalized constituencies.