Book #3250

Pacific Voices Talk Story
Conversations of American Experience
Volume Three

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Pacific Voices Talk Story
Conversations of American Experience
Volume Three

By Margo King Lenson, Editor
2004, 346 pages, Paperback.

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In this beach-deprived landscape. Islanders confront anomie, debt, commuting, dysfunction, excess, and boundless possibility. How are we doing? What's happening to us? Where are we going? Pacific Voices Talk Story is a natural forum for Pacific peoples steeped in oral tradition. We speak out firsthand about who we are, what we think, and what we want for our families, ourselves, and America.
- Margo King-Lenson, Editor

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Publisher's Description

While tourists head to the Islands for vacation, thousands of Islanders head for the Mainland every year and stay. Yet despite the large and growing population of Pacific Islanders transplanted here, little is known about us. Finally, Pacific Voices Talk Story: Conversations of American Experience, addresses the question, "What's it like being a Pacific Islander in America today?"

Living on the Mainland, thousands of miles away from our roots and the majority of faces that look like our own, we've had to adapt to new ways of being. Of course, we've gone through changes - good and bad. What are they? Who are we now, compared to whom we used to be? Where are we going? What have we done? Who am I? Who are you?

The objective of Pacific Voices is to speak out on these questions. Our American stories have been waiting to be told. Proud of our Island homes, we are also Mainland commuters who get stuck in traffic, pay taxes, worry about daycare for the kids, go on diets, watch Seinfeld, and join in the defense of this country. Sounds typically American, doesn't it?

Yet we're different from everybody on the block with our luaus, music, dancing, and talk story. Here's another Islander characteristic: Our parents never want us to leave home. No way! They want us to move in our husbands and wives and be fruitful and multiply right down the hall. One big happy family. That's what our folks want, but can you see how this might conflict with the American dream of owning your own home, going your own way, and ultimately living your own life?

Fourteen narrators, speaking from the heart, tell of their experiences adapting to USA realities while still holding fast to Island values of family, community, and spirituality. As an ongoing series, Pacific Voices will continue to present first-hand stories of Pacific Islanders in America today.
- Margo King-Lenson, Editor

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