María Virginia (Viki) Haoa Cardinali was born in 1955 in Rapa Nui, of Polynesian and European roots. On her mother’s side, she descends from her great-grandfather Rafael Cardinali Lazzarini, an Italian who came on the ship Apoline Emilie, which grounded ashore in Apina in 1896. On her paternal side, she is a descendant of Jean-Baptiste Dutrou-Bornier, through the two daughters he had: Caroline and Marta. On the Rapa Nui ancestral side, she is a descendant of Pakomio Maori Ure Kino, who managed to return to Rapa Nui after living hell as a slave in the guano steads in Peru.

Her childhood, like that of most of the people of that time, was marked by having responsibilities from a very young age. She was already taking care of her younger siblings at the age of 5. From school, she remembers being seated with the Chilean children, specifically with the daughter of the maritime governor of the time, given she fit in: she was pretty, petite and, besides, her father was in the Navy. “The rest of my classmates were big, brutish, and they were sat in the back. Not a fly would fly in class, because we didn’t speak Spanish and the nuns would beat us if we spoke in our own language. I remember very well one day when they hit Isabel Pakarati in the face, who was older than me, just because she was speaking in Rapa Nui. In the face! I will never forget it,” Viki recalls.