My Father is from Mo’unga’one, Ha’apai, Tonga and my Mother is from Tofoa, Tongatapu, Tonga. I was born in New Zealand. I have brown skin, wide eyes (or big eyes! Like my sisters would tease me about). I have a big frame, wide shoulders, big head, big nose (as opposed to what? I’ve seen some massive ones, that mine looks way smaller…haha), flat feet. I laugh loud as, at just about anything. I am a Christian raised in church from birth. I speak English but sometimes mix up words grammatically or mispronounce words, which makes me “fresh”, am soft spoken, humble. I have a large appetite and I don’t like fitness. All these things classify me as a Pacific Islander from place of birth, to parents, to features and behaviours. I am proud to be a Pacific Islander.
What also some people and even our own people (myself included) classify persons as Pacific islanders to be unattractive, ugly, too big, overweight, obese, too loud, too aggressive, too quiet, uneducated, factory workers, labourers, dumb, lazy, overstayers, bullies, criminals, too religious. It’s sad but it is true…
My question towards all those stereotypes that can sometimes be true is why? (I wrote sometimes cause I don’t believe it is completely true and the next block is more positive, honest)
I’ve learnt beauty is subjective, people you may think is attractive is not attractive to your mates, the famous debate on who is the hottest girl? No one agrees on the one (my one, is my wife…haha). So the ugly and unattractive stereotype goes out the window and shows attractiveness is a result of your influences or as scientists say natural selection for reproduction.
We are still learning about health in the general sense and now as different studies come out about diet and understanding that the more natural we go in food choice and also behaviours if we to start understand what is natural to islanders will hugely help solve our health issues in our Pacific community.
Too loud, uneducated, labourers, bullies, criminals, too religious. If we look at the way our history of living in the Western/Modern world is. Minimum 300 since contact of Europeans (could be more or less but only by maybe 50 years or so). So we are only 3 centuries conditioned to live this Western/Modern way. Having to completely change ways of living in some ways for the good, understanding the Europeans have tested and made all the mistakes of how people live together for many centuries as is shown in their history. But we understand also the bad that has come from taking on this way of living we are starting to lose our culture and it is not taught to be continued for our sense of identity of our cultural make up. By not being aware to this transition we are not in a proactive position to make choices to new ideas and threats to our way of living taught at home, especially those living in developed nations. We are still trying to adapt to this new way of life and as all humans experience when there is a threat of the unknown (us or them), people choose to oppress the other out of fear or want separation for safety and sadly laws were made to ease the tension in some of these nations. The problem is we are occupying the same space literally and figuratively that when someone oversteps the boundaries that are put in to make us (or them) feel “safe” it is harder to control the reaction as we don’t know how to live with each other because of separation. Which cause some of the behavioural issues stated before.
Not knowing leads to assumptions on both sides, which cause a 50/50 outcome usually for the worst. The pain and hurt are held by those earlier generations that experienced those times, which then sometimes lead to another human reaction that is going in to protection of loved ones. We all want to be happy, we all share this world, how do we do that without ruining this world and hurting the people in it? Understanding, Education and connection will give us a chance to remove stereotypes and our fears hopefully to lead to peace within oneself and ones community.
Understanding your value will help you communicate your value in all you do.
The strength of Pacific people to educate their selves of the past, be grateful that you have a better start paved by those before and the courage to change as we have it in all of us as people will propel us to a brighter future.
We are great leaders in our community and others, we are physically gifted, we have a resilience that runs through our blood, we are smart and strategic in how we grow our communities, we understand what is important through family, community and faith, we are beautiful in appearance and nature, we create and share what is ours through proud displays of art and culture, we compete with the best of larger populated nations.
Yesterday I watched Moana, the music and the visuals that felt so at home with me. I also watched a mini doco on The Real “Lord of the Flies”(Lord of Flies a book detailing a shipwreck of young boys and the story of their doom because of our “human instincts”), it was about another small group of young Tongan men that stole a boat to sail to Fiji, they hit a storm which wrecked their boat on an abandoned island, the story of the boys survival, resilience and faith made so proud as a Pacific Islander. Their motivations to survive were through their faith all they learnt from their parents of finding water, herding chickens, and growing food. They survived 15 months on that island until one day an Aussie fishing boat anchored near the abandoned island they swam to the boat after climbing down from the cliff (that took 100 days to scale to leave the rugged coast when they first were shipwrecked), after they told their story to the fisherman, they lifted hymns and prayers to God for being saved. (I asked my parents about this story and they knew the name of the fisherman ‘Peter Warner’. Peter Warner was rewarded with rights to fish in Tongan waters because of help to rescue the Tongan boys)
As I watched these 2 stories, an overwhelming pride swept across me, that made me feel really emotional. Maybe because I have been subjected to these negative stereotypes and these stories prove how great we are and what value we can add to this world. As I learn and mature I understand it is the strength within that allows you to pivot your story to hopefully inspire others to pivot also to change as the generations before have to make a better world for our children to live. My faith drawn from western influence one of the good things for me. It has help me clear my self-chat and the bible has given me some answers to why and how. I am grateful for this. All I know is you have a choice, to make a better decision and educating yourself will help.
Here’s to all before us, who paved the way for us to hear the stories that may have been forgotten and those paving the way today to make a person like myself a Pacific Islander feel more free and confident to be whatever I want to be and to understand the responsibility to teach my children about who they are.
Thank you Lord!