Tongan Migration: A Journey to the New World

Society in the United States generally assumes immigration as a means of escaping from one's burdens in their native country in order to gain a better life and live the American dream. The book "Voyages- from Tongan Villages to American Suburbs" by Cathy A. Small shows the reasons why large magnitudes of Tongans islanders migrate here every year. Rather than the typical reasons of leaving one's country, Small presents the several different causes that persuade …

…America follow. They don't value tapa cloths are highly as it once was- some even use them as an extra mattress! The reason Tongans originally migrated to the US was to preserve their culture, to have enough money to do so. Yet now Tonga is a place that is mixed with American culture resulting in a fast changing country due to the transnational family created by the islanders and immigrants over a period of decades.