Voyages : From Tongan Villages to American Suburbs, Second Edition

In __Voyages__, Cathy A. Small offers a view of the changes in migration, globalization, and ethnographic fieldwork over three decades. The second edition adds fresh descriptions and narratives in three new chapters based on two more visits to Tonga and California in 2010. The author (whose role after thirty years of fieldwork is both ethnographer and family member) reintroduces the reader to four sisters in the same family-two who migrated to the United States and two who remained in Tonga-and reveals what has unfolded in their lives in the fifteen years since the first edition was written. The second edition concludes with new reflections on how immigration and globalization have affected family, economy, tradition, political life, identity, and the practice of anthropology. In Voyages , Cathy A. Small offers a view of the changes in migration, globalization, and ethnographic fieldwork over three decades. The second edition adds fresh descriptions and narratives in three new chapters based on two more visits to Tonga and California in 2010. The author (whose role after thirty years of fieldwork is both ethnographer and family member) reintroduces the reader to four sisters in the same family—two who migrated to the United States and two who remained in Tonga—and reveals what has unfolded in their lives in the fifteen years since the first edition was written. The second edition concludes with new reflections on how immigration and globalization have affected family, economy, tradition, political life, identity, and the practice of anthropology. | "Most Americans are unaware that the United States is a major terminus for the people of Tonga, an island nation in the South Pacific. Small examines Tongan migration to the United States in a transnational perspective, stressing that many of the new migrant populations seem to successfully manage dual lives, in both the old country and the new. To that end, she describes life in contemporary Tongan communities and in U.S. settings."—Library Journal "The central idea of Voyages—that Tonga and all Tongans exist at this moment in time in a transnational space—comes through vividly and powerfully, and the durability of this image is testimony to the success of Small's experiment in ethnographic writing."—The Contemporary Pacific "Voyages is a valuable contribution to the literature on immigration and on Asian Americans. Its clear, informal prose style also makes it an ideal book for undergraduate or graduate classes in anthropology, sociology, cultural geography, or Asian American studies."—International Migration Review "To write a book that is both educational and entertaining is to be at once scholarly, thoughtful, and witty—a major achievement. Cathy Small understands what migration has meant, and still means in everyday lives, as she empathizes with the plight of islanders uncertain over their landfall and destiny, and she captures their own stories beautifully. Voyages is one of the most passionate and compassionate books on the South Pacific in recent years."—Pacific "Small weaves her stories and analysis with a clarity and compelling attentiveness to logic that do not sacrifice intricacy and nuance."—Journal of Asian American Studies In Voyages, Cathy A. Small offers a view of the changes in migration, globalization, and ethnographic fieldwork over three decades. The second edition adds fresh descriptions and narratives in three new chapters based on two more visits to Tonga and California in 2010. The author (whose role after thirty years of fieldwork is both ethnographer and family member) reintroduces the reader to four sisters in the same family—two who migrated to the United States and two who remained in Tonga—and reveals what has unfolded in their lives in the fifteen years since the first edition was written. The second edition concludes with new reflections on how immigration and globalization have affected family, economy, tradition, political life, identity, and the practice of anthropology.

"Most Americans are unaware that the United States is a major terminus for the people of Tonga, an island nation in the South Pacific. Small examines Tongan migration to the United States in a transnational perspective, stressing that many of the new migrant populations seem to successfully manage dual lives, in both the old country and the new. To that end, she describes life in contemporary Tongan communities and in U.S. settings."—Library Journal

"The central idea of Voyages—that Tonga and all Tongans exist at this moment in time in a transnational space—comes through vividly and powerfully, and the durability of this image is testimony to the success of Small's experiment in ethnographic writing."—The Contemporary Pacific

"Voyages is a valuable contribution to the literature on immigration and on Asian Americans. Its clear, informal prose style also makes it an ideal book for undergraduate or graduate classes in anthropology, sociology, cultural geography, or Asian American studies."—International Migration Review

"To write a book that is both educational and entertaining is to be at once scholarly, thoughtful, and witty—a major achievement. Cathy Small understands what migration has meant, and still means in everyday lives, as she empathizes with the plight of islanders uncertain over their landfall and destiny, and she captures their own stories beautifully. Voyages is one of the most passionate and compassionate books on the South Pacific in recent years."—Pacific

"Small weaves her stories and analysis with a clarity and compelling attentiveness to logic that do not sacrifice intricacy and nuance."—Journal of Asian American Studies

In Voyages, Cathy A. Small offers a view of the changes in migration, globalization, and ethnographic fieldwork over three decades. The second edition adds fresh descriptions and narratives in three new chapters based on two more visits to Tonga and California in 2010. The author (whose role after thirty years of fieldwork is both ethnographer and family member) reintroduces the reader to four sisters in the same family—two who migrated to the United States and two who remained in Tonga—and reveals what has unfolded in their lives in the fifteen years since the first edition was written. The second edition concludes with new reflections on how immigration and globalization have affected family, economy, tradition, political life, identity, and the practice of anthropology.

This book documents an instance of one of the most momentous social phenomena of the late twentieth century: the mass migration of the world's population from agricultural ex-colonies and ex-protectorates to the industrial world. Cathy A. Small provides the poignant perspective of one extended family and one village in the Kingdom of Tonga, an independent island nation in the South Pacific that has lost one third of its population to migration since the mid-1960s. Moving between Tonga and California, Small chronicles the experiences over a generation of the people who left the village of 'Olunga (a fictitious name to preserve anonymity) and the people who stayed. She follows successive branches of one family, who settled in California from the 1960s to the 1990s, sketching a striking picture of Tongan culture in the United States. She then returns to 'Olunga with Tongan emigrants and their U.S.-born children and shows what has happened to village life and to kin relationships thirty years after migration began. Throughout the narrative, small examines her own experience as an anthropologist, asking how the migration of Tongans has affected what she sees and the way she writes. Contents Preface to the Second Edition Acknowledgments Author’s Note I. Departures 1. Portrait of a Migrating Village 2. Why Migrate? II. Arrivals 3. Coming to America 4. One Family’s Story 5. Palu, the One Who Left 6. An Anthropologist over Time III. Returns 7. Going Home: Tongan Village Life in the 1990s 8. Distant Family 9. Finau, the One Who Stayed 10. Tradition IV. Travels Ahead 11. The Meanings of Tongan Migration 12. Anthropology in a Transnational World V. Revisiting Globalization 13. California Dreams 14. Back to the Islands 15. Reflections on and of Globalization Appendix: Tongan Population and Migration Estimates Notes Bibliography Index