A FEMINIST INTERPRETATION OF WOMEN’S WORK WITH KOLOA IN THE TONGAN COMMUNITY By Mele’ana Kehaulani ‘Ākolo A Thesis Presented to The Faculty of Humboldt State University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts in Applied Anthropology Committee Membership Rebecca Robertson, Committee Chair Dr. Llyn Smith, Committee Member Dr. Ramona Bell, Committee Member Rebecca Robertson, Program Graduate Coordinator May 2017 ABSTRACT A FEMINIST INTERPRETATION OF WOMEN’S WORK WITH KOLOA IN THE TONGAN COMMUNITY Mele’ana K. ‘Ākolo The San Francisco Bay Area is home to a Tongan community where the Tongan culture has been established. A major factor establishing Tongan culture is women’s work with koloa. Koloa are cultural materials used to fulfill customs and traditions specific to Tongan culture, which are under the control of women where they produce, possess, gift, as well as exchange koloa. Historically, women have governed the koloa tradition as guardians preserving their tradition. My thesis exploration focused on three main subjects—women, koloa, and feminism. The point of studying women from a feminist native perspective was to explore their work with koloa through shared lived experiences. Information about women’s work was developed from interviews, a survey, and observations. Methodologies such as a feminist native approach, feminist analysis, as well as autoethnography were imperative for developing an understanding of why women’s work is relevant as well as explaining that understanding by forming Tongan and Pacific Islander feminist thought. The knowledge I developed confronted aspects of previous research by moving away from producing knowledge overly focused on koloa as a form of wealth, the production of koloa, and overlooking women’s contributions through their work. Realizing women’s work is relevant because it is a resource that can ii be used to develop cultural knowledge as well as establish culture was a vigilant discovery defending women as respectable, key members of society. Bringing awareness to their lasting work involved changing from conventional ways of doing research to incorporating new methods to produce information. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank all the women in my community who took the time to sit with me and share stories about their lived experiences with koloa. Without them, my research would not be what it is. Thank you to my committee members for their help, guidance, and expertise. Their knowledge and experience have helped me to be confident in my exploration. Last, I would like to thank my family for all their support and trust. They have given me tremendous insight and courage throughout my research. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................................... II ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ........................................................................................................ IV LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................................... VII LIST OF APPENDICES ............................................................................................................. IX LIST OF TERMS .......................................................................................................................... X INTRODUCTION.......................................................................................................................... 1 BACKGROUND ................................................................................................................................. 1 LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................................. 6 TONGAN DIASPORA ........................................................................................................................ 7 KOLOA ............................................................................................................................................ 15 WOMEN’S ROLE WITH KOLOA .................................................................................................... 22 FEMINISM IN AND OUT OF ANTHROPOLOGY .............................................................................. 27 BLACK FEMINIST THOUGHT ........................................................................................................ 32 METHODS ................................................................................................................................... 38 INTERVIEWS .................................................................................................................................. 39 DEVELOPING GROUP OF PARTICIPANTS ........................................................................................ 39 CONDUCTING INTERVIEWS ............................................................................................................ 39 TRANSCRIBING ............................................................................................................................... 40 v OBSERVATIONS ............................................................................................................................. 41 OBSERVATION OF EVENTS ............................................................................................................. 41 PARTICIPANT OBSERVATION ......................................................................................................... 41 METHODOLOGIES ......................................................................................................................... 42 FEMINIST APPROACH ..................................................................................................................... 42 REFLEXIVE APPROACH .................................................................................................................. 42 AUTOETHNOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 43 FEMINIST ANALYSIS ...................................................................................................................... 44 SAMPLING ...................................................................................................................................... 44 RESULTS ..................................................................................................................................... 46 DEMOGRAPHIC DATA ................................................................................................................... 47 INTERVIEWS AND OBSERVATIONS ............................................................................................... 56 CULTURAL IDENTITY ..................................................................................................................... 56 VALUES WITH KOLOA ..................................................................................................................... 63 WOMEN’S ROLE AND WORK .......................................................................................................... 79 DISCUSSION ............................................................................................................................... 91 CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................... 102 REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................... 104 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Map of Bay Area cities I visited. ...................................................................... 47 Figure 2. Data on age, time in United States and time in Bay Area. ................................ 48 Figure 3. Data on marital status and children for women born in Tonga. ........................ 50 Figure 4. Data on marital status and children for women born in the United States........ 51 Figure 5. Data on the education level of women. Note. Tonga is on the inner circle and the United States is on the exploded circle. ...................................................................... 52 Figure 6. Data on type of work women do. ...................................................................... 53 Figure 7. Data on church affiliation. ................................................................................ 54 Figure 8. Comparison between women born in Tonga vs. United States: How important is koloa to keeping with tradition? A bar chart of responses from point scale. ................ 55 Figure 9. Woman sitting with a mixture of traditional and nontraditional koloa. ............ 59 Figure 10. An example of how cake is presented traditionally. ....................................... 61 Figure 11. Cake displayed traditionally with different pieces of koloa. .......................... 62 Figure 12. Various traditional koloa pieces decorating a church alter. ............................ 63 Figure 13. Traditional ta’ovala type kiekie imported from Tonga. .................................. 65 Figure 14. Woman wearing nontraditional kiekie made in the United States. ................. 66 Figure 15. Youth dressed in a ta’ovala for Fakame. ........................................................ 69 Figure 16. Sunday school child dressed in a ta’ovala. ..................................................... 70 Figure 17. Woman wearing liongi type funeral ta'ovala.