My mother passed away from cancer when I was four years old. Grief-stricken, I still considered myself fortunate to have been raised in a Tongan household: my father, stepmother, paternal grandmother and paternal aunts all shared the responsibility of raising me and my seven siblings. This is normal in Tongan culture as we have no word for “aunt” or “grandmother” or “uncle” or “grandfather” or “cousin”; instead, each of them is a type of mother, father or sibling.
Drilled into the front door of the two-storey brick house we shared in Mount Druitt was the phrase “Fe’ofa’aki”. I grew up in the house of “Love one another”.
It is a contradictory feeling being the first Tongan writer to have ever published a novel in Australia. It’s a tremendous honour – but why the hell did it take so long for our mob to get here?
Tongans, Sāmoans, Fijians, Māoris, Hawaiians, West Papuans, Tahitians, Solomon Islanders, Tokelauans, Ni-Vanuatu, Niueans, South Sea Islanders, and other island groups and nations that exist in the vast South Pacific Ocean are often referred to as “Pacific Islanders”.
Instead of a colonial term which was coined and popularised in 1785, today most “Islanders” prefer to use the title “Pasifika” – created by government agencies in Aotearoa (New Zealand) to describe migrants from the Pacific regions and their descendants.
Since the end of the White Australia policy, Pasifika communities have played a vital role in shaping modern Australia. In addition to excelling in nationally celebrated sports like football and boxing – and often both – we are a community of teachers, nurses, security guards, aged care workers, caregivers, coaches and farmers.
Pasifika artists contribute 10,000 years of storytelling traditions to Australia’s cultural milieu.
Latai Taumoepeau is a visual artist of Tongan heritage known for body-centred live works that highlight the climate crisis, race, class and the female body politic. Last year she performed in front of the Sydney Opera House in a silver hazmat suit. Another foundational figure in the arts community is the Sāmoan artist Leo Tanoi, whose latest work, Treasure Islands, celebrates stories of cultural belongings from Sāmoa, Tonga, Papua New Guinea, the Cook Islands, Fiji and Kiribati.
Unfortunately, if all you ever knew about Pasifika communities, including my own Tongan family, came from Australian television, you’d think we were nothing more than a bunch of uncivilised coconuts.
I was 12 when Summer Heights High first appeared on Australian television. Set in the fictional Summer Heights high school, the white Australian comedian Chris Lilley introduces us to his “Tongan” character, Jonah Takalua. This was followed by Lilley’s spin-off program, Jonah from Tonga, which focused on Jonah’s “rebellious” experiences as a 14-year-old juvenile delinquent.
In both Summer Heights High and Jonah from Tonga, Lilley wore brown face paint, an afro wig and donned a thick accent. Lilley’s minstrel caricature was depicted as stupid, illiterate, violent, misogynistic, racist, homophobic, hypersexual, and addicted to drugs and junk food – every negative stereotype about Pasifika men one can imagine.
Due to the incredible work and legacy of artists and activists, Australia has slowly begun to recognise the true beauty and complexity of the vibrant Pasifika community.
Last month we lost one of those leading thinkers among Australia’s Tongan community, Sēini Taumoepeau. I met Sēini at ABC radio, when she was the host of Pacific Mornings. While we talanoa’d on the radio about own-voices storytelling, culturally informed art practice and the importance of education in our shared community, I was mesmerised by her song-like voice and elegant tau’olunga-like hand gestures.
Sēini offered me clarity, comfort and strength during the frustrating years that Australians were endorsing brown-face “comedy” on our screens. In particular, Seini’s analysis of Jonah from Tonga was a much-needed revelation.
In the past year, I Am Lupe became the first Tongan-Australian children’s book written by my fellow Mount Druitt resident Sela Ahosivi-Atiola. King by Hau Latukefu and No Bull by Vika and Linda Bull were also released last year, debut memoirs from established musicians of Tongan heritage. In February the Australian-born Māori editor and poet Anne-Marie Te Whiu released an eclectic new anthology of essays by First Nations people, Woven.
These important contributions to Australian literature are complemented by an exciting new phase in Pasifika-Australian scholarship, led by the Fijian-Australian academic Jioji Ravulo, recognised as this country’s first Pasifika professor.
Sēini, our beloved community leader led the way through poetry, song, rap and spiritual-based storytelling. When I walk down the path she laid out for Pasifika artists, her song-like voice echoes in my heart: “Nothing about us without us.”
• Winnie Dunn is Tongan-Australian writer. She is the general manager of Sweatshop Literacy Movement and the editor of several critically acclaimed anthologies including Sweatshop Women (2019) and Another Australia (2022). Winnie’s debut novel is Dirt Poor Islanders (2024)
