What It Means To Be A Pacific Islander?

Being a Pacific Islander to me means being conscious of where I hail from, especially about the existence of our vast cultural diversity. The Oceania is quite difficult to characterize due to its rich culture and heritage with each one having its own set of language, food and traditions. As Oceanic people, we have encountered some critical moments in the past especially in our engagement with colonisers, missionaries and explorers from the Europe. 

The Oceania had a great transition from its brutal past into the glare of a globalizing world and despite such a drastic movement, the heritage and culture of our Oceanian people has been well preserved through oral tradition, literature and performing arts. As Oceanic people, we have encountered some critical moments in the past and rightly so, this was clearly evident through migration patterns around the Pacific and the region, our contact with the missionaries and the colonizers and also the disputes over natural resources among the people. My perception of the Pacific has been changed a lot when I reflect upon the colonial contact when people lived under oppressive regimes and imperialism.

The most interesting part of being a Pacific Islander is being able to observe how our ancestors and the indigenous people survived, whether it meant surviving in houses made of leaves or cooking on earth ovens. Personally, I belong to the most civilized period of the 21^st century and it’s almost impossible to believe how our ancestors persevered through time because now, we have everything we require to satisfy our needs and material wants. Nowadays, we shelter ourselves in good homes, the technological advances have made communication faster and easier. There has also been a drastic change in our lifestyles in terms of food consumption and dressing. Previously, people used to survive on primitive sources of technologies and quite apparently, their food consumption was also among the healthy choice.

The Pacific is one of the richest ethnic communities and attracts increasingly affluent presence of visitors from around the world too. The fascinating stories, music, song, dance and patterns in carvings and tattoos help people ‘read the past’ about how they came to be on the islands, where they came from, and about their societies, cultures and values (The Pacific Way, 2016).

(Source: Travel Online)

Being a Pacific Islander in the future will mean that traditional barriers will no longer exist. Something which can merely be described as the effects of globalisation. Pacific Islanders will continue to disperse around the globe for better jobs and education, taking their culture along. Even though most of our traditional practices have largely been replaced by modern ones, there are practices which still continues to revive the cultural spirit of the Pacific. Propagating incentives into the educational system is also one of the core ways to preserve our identity as Pacific Islanders.

The understanding of being a Pacific Islander in the future will also mean that we have Pacific consciousness in our lives despite the influence of the western world. This understanding is essential in helping us realize that no matter what the circumstance is, we will continue to utilize the etiquettes we inherited from our elders and use them in our interaction with people around us and observe all the decorum of being a Pacific Islander. But this does not mean that we will not distinguish the difference between right and wrong but we will also question the very belief based on superstition or whatever that may seem superficial and mundane.

Reference:

The Pacific Way. (2016). [ebook] Available at: https://www.globaleducation.edu.au/verve/_resources/PacificNeighbours_Chapter3.pdf