Customer Reviews

Voyages: From Tongan Villages to American Suburbs

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4 star:		(1)
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I highly recommend Voyages to anyone who cares about people and families. It's amazing how a non-fiction book about Tongans living here in the US or in their own country can be so interesting to read. But it is! That's because the author helps us see these recent immigrants to the US as people-in fact, as people very much like those of us whose families came here a longer time ago. It even helped me to better understand what motivated my own family to come here a century ago. The book is not technical at all. It is written in style and language that is accessible to everyone.

<B> Migrants or immigrants seem to be on everybody's mind these days. Mostly we are led to think of them as a group of "others" who we need to regulate and be suspicious of. This book is important because Small draws us away from this kind of distancing and helps us to understand and be sensitive to the individuals. One can imagine relating to these people-perhaps because Small does and we can relate to her.

<B> Since reading it, I find myself seeing and hearing the flow of foreign languages in airports and restaurants, etc. I find myself thinking that these people whom I now am noticing are just like the ones I met in Small's book. That we share a common humanity is a message that we can't hear too often. And Small gives it to us so gently and in such an absorbing way that I think Voyages is a book that should be read very widely.

Cathy Small has intimate knowledgeable of the culture and people of which she writes. She presents a very problematic but accurate picture of a culture that has emigrated from its source and roots in search of income and opportunity in western cultures. An ethnographical response is natural to this topic because it reads smoothly and allows for humanization of the topic.

While Dr. Small has written a book specifically about Tonga and of her "full circle" experience of living in Tonga, of returning to the US and now having her Tongan family living in the US, it is an excellent work on immigration in general. I was Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador (1988-1990) and found this book very helpful in understanding the "remittence" economy that I experienced in the village of Guamote. This scholarly work is very readable and it explains in depth a universal desire to have at least one family member migrate away from a poor country to a richer county in order provide remittence to help the family members remaining have a much better life. This is a double edged sword that can cut deeply in to the hopes and dreams of maintaining native country culture. This book will make you think about the why of immigration. I recommend this book highly.

It's hella good for 2nd adn 3rd generations to learn about their culture and history.

Great discount on price compared to college book store. Shipped quickly and in great condition; just the book she needed for her class. She has mentioned that she found the book enlightening and wanted me to read it.

This book is so personal, yet anthropological. It gives a great insight to Tongan culture. I had to read it for an anthropology class, and found it quite enjoyable! I recommend it. The end is especially touching.

What a boring book this is. i have always felt like falling asleep. The whole book just keep talking about the same point that i have already known. But the way the story is told just like it's a surpring fact. i don't understand why this book is worth reading and interesting. i think it's so boring. What is interesting is he spent such a long time wrting a boring book.