Chani Thorum

Life History Interview

Dance 1010
Life History Interview
I chose to do my interview on the Tongan culture, being in Utah we have many people
who are Pacific Islander and who still have strong ties to their culture. Many grandparents,
parents, and children have relocated from the island to make a new life here in the United States.
I wanted to my interview on Tongan culture to better understand a life that is alive and well all
around me and I work with a man named Sione and thought that he would be the perfect
candidate to interview and I was able to interview him over the course of a week, having him as
a college made it very easy going and I feel the interview went well.
I started the interview off with his family history, turns out genetically he is Tongan but
grew up in a Salvadorian family and has strong ties to both cultures which I had no idea about.
Sione knows Spanish and when his dad left his mother she remarried a Salvadorian man, he
spent his childhood growing up in Florida with his grandparents who are the ones that taught his
Spanish. Sione has lived in Florida, California, and now is here in Utah, and he is married to a
Hawaiian woman named Moana. While interview him about his Tongan side/culture I asked if he
thinks the interaction of western Caucasians have diluted the Tongan culture and his opinion was
that of course it had. With western influences the Tongan culture has become a little more lax on
the newer and younger generation. For example, in the Tongan culture Sione said that the young
women were never really encouraged to do man things like sports, their roles were to be
homemakers as well as bare and take care of children but because of western influences they
have become more open to women trying new things. In the Tongan culture family is the most
important aspect of their lives, they have big families and his Tongan side is also Mormon which
might also contribute to his familys size of 12 brothers and sisters and many many more
cousins. Siones role in his family is to be the man and head of his household, he works full time
and brings home money for his immediate family. Moana stays at home and manages the bills
and the household like the traditional Tongan ways. Sione and Moana use to live with a couple of
his brothers and cousin but they have since gotten a place of their own, when they all lived
together he said that it was up to him to manage everyones feelings and attitudes and also to
keep peace in the household. I think it would be really hard to live with many family members,
especially if I had to stay home with them every day.

Chani Thorum
Life History Interview
Dance 1010
From talking with Sione I can tell that he does a lot for his family and there is an
expectancy that he will make the decisions he thinks is right for the immediate family to ensure
that there arent any negative impacts on them as a family, I dont think I would be able to handle
the pressure being in a role as important as that. His family seem to have ties with their
traditional culture but they also seem like they are trying to find a balance with the Tongan side
and western side of things in their lives. There is a hierarchy in the family, Sione is the oldest
son of the oldest son and therefore he has seniority over family members that are below him and
that includes all of his cousins that are younger. He said that when you are younger you have to
do whatever the older generations in your family say, then you get to be his age which is midthirties and thats when you can start bossing people around for yourself and take care of your
own family, next when you are grandparents age you have reached the top of the family food
chain, the middle kids need to take care of you and provide for you and they need to provide you
with everything that you might need before you pass to the next life. One of the most interesting
things he told me is that when you are the younger kids you arent allowed to look people who
are older and wiser than you in the eyes, apparently its a sign of disrespect which I thought
would have been the other way around. He said its almost an animalistic thing where if someone
further down in the pack or family is looking you in the eye they can take it as a challenge or
that they dont really respect or fear them enough to listen. Sione himself, doesnt believe in a
certain religion or god, and doesnt have many ideas of the afterlife. You might say that he is a
bit pessimistic when it comes to talking about that and he didnt really elaborate on that subject
which leads me to believe that hes just not as open about that and maybe more sensitive to that
subject and doesnt want to show me that kind of attitude or personality. It could also be because
we work in close proximity of each other and maybe he doesnt want to diminish the work
relationship if I were to somehow perceive his beliefs as wrong (which I would never do).
Sione taught me a little about the ancient ways on Tonga and showed me some of their
dances, he taught me that he calls his aunt Fahu and that his familys favorite and most special
dish is the lechon pig. He told me that once he had to attend a wedding for his Fahu and during
the wedding he needed to do a traditional dance where he lays face down on the ground and one
of the granddaughters will stand on his back in the middle of the room to symbolize that she is
too pure or good willed to touch the dirty ground which I thought was very beautiful. It seems to

Chani Thorum
Life History Interview
Dance 1010
me that even at weddings its about the family as a whole than it is about just those who are
getting married. He also talked about the social norms of his culture such as when you are
younger you arent really allowed to hang out with your cousins of the opposite sex, he gave an
example where he was laying on the couch and when his female cousin came over to sit on the
end, he explained that he needed to sit up immediately and show her respect. Its also harder to
date in his family if you are a female, they are almost required to bring home a Polynesian man
to marry and dont really get a choice or marrying outside their culture, their brother and father
must also approve of who she brings home while men can pretty much marry and bring home
whomever they choose.
When it comes to religion, most of his family is Mormon and because of that they have a
dim outlook of people from the LGBTQ community, they call men who are gay Fakalati which
also means a fake women. He stressed to me though, that he is different and many of the younger
generations dont think of people who are gay as lesser than them. He even has cousins who are
gay and lesbian but its just not very talked about in the family. Food in the culture plays an
important role and as I said before, they enjoy eating pork and most meals consist of mostly meat
portions. For holidays he said he splits his time with his Tongan family and his Salvadorian
family and a good example that he gave me was that his Salvadorian side of the family
celebrated Christmas Eve with roasted turkey sandwiches while the Tongan side really only
celebrates Christmas Day so he will go to one side of the family and celebrate with them and
then go to the other side of the family and celebrate. I already have difficulty trying to make time
to see my mother, let alone trying to make rounds to me entire family, in my family we arent as
close as he is to him family and that might just be a western cultural aspect that just happens to
be different. When his Tongan family eat, Sione said that if they are at a table the men and
women can intermix, but if they are eating traditionally on the ground, the women will be on one
side while the men are on the other he couldnt tell me why that was but I speculate its closer to
their roots and symbolizes that so they keep it more traditional and ancient. In the Tongan culture
they use lots of taro root, bananas, yams, and of course coconuts.
Prejudice in the US is still very prevalent even though we have a diverse culture, Sione
said that he faces judgements and racism often. He told me of a time he was driving to go up to
Montana to camp and while going through a drive-thru for food that they car behind him started

Chani Thorum
Life History Interview
Dance 1010
calling him a spik which is a derogatory term for someone of Spanish decent, it didnt bother him
at the time but he said that afterward it really messed him up mentally for a couple days. He also
talked about how recently a Utah bar made the news for refusing people of his kind which I
think is completely bogus but Sione says it happens to him all the time it just happens that this
one bar got caught. Often he is said to be refused service of entry to many clubs, bars,
restaurants, and even stores just for being a Pacific Islander.
Time in his culture doesnt really exist and life moves at a slow pace. One of the more
interesting things in Tonga is that they have female jugglers throughout all of Tonga. The men
dont juggle but women are taught from a young age as a sort of game that only the females learn
and do. I also found out that Tonga had many king and royal family at one point until in 1875
King George Tupou 1st united Tonga under one royal family and also approved constitutional
monarchy. In 1927 all primary education became mandatory but its still pretty rare for someone
in Tonga to go onto college and graduate with a degree and even in Siones family he is one of
the only brothers/cousins to graduate with a degree. I also watched some of Tongas traditional
dances and found that when they do their warrior dance they smile instead of making scary faces
and trying to intimidate people with the movement of their mouths and eyes, same with the
women and in their dances both sexes are always smiling. The dances for the women are slow
and not much movement below the wait like in many Polynesian cultures, they wear grass skirts
and move their hands very flowingly. Whats cool is the women will coat their arms in oil and if
someone likes the way they are dancing they will go up and stick money to the oil on their arms
and back.
The Tongan culture is vastly different than my own and I have a personal perception of
things that I think are good and not so good with the culture. Im not sure if I could handle some
of the sexist points of view but luckily that is changing because of the younger generation but I
also love that they care deeply for their family at all stages of life. Ive learned that even though
we have many Pacific Islanders here in Utah, they are still discriminated against and face
oppression of their culture. Im glad I decided to do this paper of a culture that I see but never
really knew anything about, I had some false assumptions such as I thought that boys and girls
were usually pushed into sports but for females thats not the case. I would have never gotten to
know Sione or his family in such a way if he hadnt opened up to me, an outsider, who doesnt

Chani Thorum
Life History Interview
Dance 1010
know anything about his culture but he still let me take a peek inside and made me feel like
family.