Ambivalent Youth: The Children of Tongan Migrants
Helen Lee, Sociology and Anthropology, La Trobe University
In the emerging literature on 'second generation' transnationalism, there is a tendency to focus on the emotional, symbolic and material ties of migrants' children to their parents' homelands. Such work tends to neglect the often ambivalent attitude of the second generation to such ties. This paper focuses on second generation Tongans overseas and the ways many of them resist, challenge and even reject the values, institutions and practices held important by their parents; and explores the implications of this for Tongan transnationalism. Drawing on interviews with second generation Tongans in Australia, the paper argues that their positioning between assimilation and transnationalism is more complex and fraught than their parents', and that their identity struggles have significant ramifications for multicultural policy.
