Pacific Identities and Wellbeing

Cross-Cultural Perspectives

Cabrini 'Ofa Makasiale, Margaret Nelson Agee, Philip Culbertson, Tracey McIntosh, Cabrini 'Ofa Makasiale, Margaret Nelson Agee, Philip Culbertson, Tracey McIntosh

• Publisher: Otago University Press
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN:
  9781927322093
• Topic: Medicina
• Subtopic: Psichiatria e salute mentale

Filling a significant gap in the crosscultural and cross-disciplinary literature within the field of Pasifika (Polynesian) and Maori identities and mental health, this volume focuses on bridging mental health-related research and practice within the indigenous communities of the South Pacific. Much of the content reflects differences from and relationships with the dominant Western theories and practices so often unsuccessfully applied with these groups. The contributors represent experienced researchers and practitioners and address topics such as research examining traditional and emerging Pasifika identities; contemporary research and practice in working with Pasifika youth and adolescents; culturally appropriate approaches for working with Pasifika adults; and practices in supervision that have been developed by Maori and Pasifika practitioners. Chapters include practice scenarios, research reports, analyses of topical issues, and discussions about the appropriateness of applying Western theory in other cultural contexts. As Pasifika cultures are still primarily oral cultures, the works of several leading Maori and Pasifika poets that give voice to the changing identities and contemporary challenges within Pacific communities are also included.

PART I

Identity

Checklist

Brown eyes	check
Unruly hair	check
Big boned	check
Speaks a Pacific language
Can perform a Pacific dance at will
Mother of Pacific Island origin	check
Father of Pacific Island origin
Born in a Pacific island (not including New Zealand)
Raised in a Pacific island (not including Waiheke)
Emigrated from a Pacific island in formative early years
Attends a Pacific Island church or has church-based affiliations (ao talavou, ao faipese etc)
Owns several seasonal Pacific wear (puletasi etc)	check
Three or more weekly occurrences of tying back one’s hair (fa‘apaku etc)	check
Has an uku comb (lice detector) in the cupboard
Owns and/or commonly wears Pasifika jewellery, defined as comprising, in whole or part thereof, raw materials manufactured within or popularly purported to be originating from the Pacific. These include shell, bone, coconut husk and/or fibre and tapa cloth	check
Laughs like hurricane rain on a tin roof	check
Has an unusually strong parental bond, born out of alofa and a sense of duty, oftentimes manipulative in nature	check
Lives with extended family (equal to or greater than 9 members)	check
Nurtures kinship ties in non-traditional settings	check
Weathers judgements of other Pacific Islanders regarding the ‘authenticity’ of one’s cultural identity	check
No longer cares about the above	check

Please ensure all questions have been answered to the best of your validity. Thank you.

— Selina Tusitala Marsh

Battle Plan 1

It doesn’t matter

that daddy blessed the house

the aitu come

because I alone

because the red curtains

because I weak from pain

I need the small house

I need go back to Samoa

my sister, she there

she look after me

I sick all time

too many drugs.

The short Indian driver

say the Chinese doctor useless

can’t even speak the English

he needs his daughter to transfer for him

stupid idiot

he pay 35 dollar to make him bigger

I say:

Which one you want bigger?

Your leg or between your leg? Ah so!

Two weeks later

it not working

nothing working.

Sometime there’s sound

when I by myself

I say

Show me your face

And I’ll put the hot water in your head!

Because I’m alone

the aitu come

I say

hey! Cut it out! I fike you all the way!

In war

you need to know who your enemy is

who you’re fighting your life for

today

it’s the man who sold her the bed

it makes her bones ache

she can’t sleep

feels like throwing up

can’t turn without pain

the mattress is too soft/hard

the base too soft/hard

the inner springs too soft/hard

that man tricked her

now he’s going to pay

she’s no over-stayer

she’s a Niu Sila citizen

who’s gonna get a brand new queen size bed

with a harder/softer mattress.

We’re getting ready to leave

for the furniture shop now

just waiting for the grey rain to clear

she strategising our plan of attack

because if he says this

then she’ll say that

then if he butts in with this

she’ll counter attack

and bring the manager into it

and the warrantee.

I’ll guard the sides

silently knowing it didn’t warrantee

against cancer

but that’s her battle, not mine

and when you’re not fighting

you’re dying.

— Selina Tusitala Marsh

Sagasaga (Job’s Tears) ¹

the fruit of sagasaga are shaped like tear drops

they are natural beads whose soft insides

are easily pierced and strung into rosaries

Don’t cry. Be a good girl. Stay away from the boys.

Obey your parents. Go to church. Sweep the leaves.

Use a white cup and saucer for the milo for your uncle.

migrants leave a bit of themselves behind

pack something of themselves into a suitcase

they’re as strong as eggshells crowded with ghosts

as vulnerable as flipped turtles under the sun

we’re born into a world balancing on ancient stones

who are restless, prone to shifting and splintering

and some of us are falling through the cracks

bit

by

bit

or plummeting all at once

we’re lost in streets and games and spaces

where logos, dollar signs, tats and tags

are the glyphs of storytellers and loan sharks

so I’ll shake gourds netted with hundreds of sagasaga

to amplify our sorrow for whoever’s listening

while we huddle around what comfort we find

our tears raining like Job’s

— Serie Barford

1 The imagery is based on the Samoan sagasaga plant, also known as Job’s Tears. The poem speaks of those who come to Aotearoa for a better life but lose parts of themselves when they leave home and then things don’t always work out in the land of dreams and promises, leaving them even emptier. They lose relationship with the traditional narratives and instead listen to the voices of streets, game arcades, tats, and those who try to fleece them. In the very old days, sagasaga beads were shaken as part of the ritual of communicating with the gods. Now, they are used primarily in rosaries and jewellery. The alternative name, Job’s Tears, communicates the trials that our people face.

CHAPTER 1

Adolescent racial–ethnic identity

Behaviours, perceptions and challenges in urban multi-ethnic school contexts

MELINDA WEBBER

Early adolescents in New Zealand today are grappling with the questions ‘Who am I?’ and ‘How do I belong?’ in a distinctly different cultural context from that of past generations because New Zealand is more racially, ethnically, culturally and linguistically diverse than ever before. A notable demographic change between the 1991 and 2006 censuses was the increasing ethnic diversification of the New Zealand population. While the European racial–ethnic group still makes up the largest share of the total population (78 per cent), the number of people identifying as European increased by only 8 per cent in the fifteen years between 1991 and 2006. Over that same period, the number who identified as Māori increased by 30 per cent, the Pacific people’s racial–ethnic group increased by 59 per cent and the number of ‘Asian’ people increased by 255 per cent (Ministry of Social Development, 2006).

The need to better understand the salience of racial–ethnic identity (REI) constructs and cultural orientation has grown. Salience is the mechanism through which identity becomes relevant in daily life (Yip & Fuligni, 2002) and it has become increasingly clear that aspects of adolescents’ cognitive and social–emotional development vary according to race, ethnicity and cultural background (Chao, 2000, 2001; Harwood, Miller & Irizarry, 1995; Rogoff, 2003). Given the multi-ethnic nature of New Zealand society, REI can have significant implications for early adolescents attending multi-ethnic high schools to the extent that race and/or ethnicity become salient in everyday activities. It is therefore critical to gain an understanding of the role that racial–ethnic identity plays in the lives of adolescents by capturing the variability in the ways that individuals define themselves and their group membership.

The psychological, social and political functions of racial–ethnic identity

It is psychologically important for adolescents to define themselves positively in terms of REI. Research continues to reinforce the long-standing positions proposed by Helms (1990) and Cross (1991) that a positive relationship exists between REI and self-esteem. REI has been empirically associated among adolescent youth with positive psychological characteristics such as self-esteem, resiliency, hope, self-reliance, academic self-efficacy and prosocial behaviour (Chavira & Phinney, 1991; Lorenzo-Hernandez & Ouellette, 1988; Umana-Taylor, Diversi & Fine, 2002), and the absence of negative characteristics such as anxiety, loneliness, depression, school problems and violence (Chavira & Phinney, 1991; Verkuyten, 2008). Roberts et al. (1999) found that people with a positive sense of REI tended to have higher self-esteem and better psychological outcomes, while Negy, Shreve, Jensen and Uddin (2003) also contended that a strong REI is associated with higher levels of self-esteem, self-confidence and a positive purpose in life. Adolescents who have explored and made a clear and positive commitment to their racial–ethnic identities score higher on measures of self-esteem, self-evaluation, sense of mastery, and social and peer interactions than do those who have not made such a commitment (Phinney, 1989; Phinney & Alipuria, 1990).

It seems that a strong sense of REI provides adolescents with a repertoire of social identities that allows them successfully to negotiate difficult situations such as being faced with negative stereotypes and unfair treatment, and high levels of secure and positive REI can help adolescents to buffer the effects of discrimination or racism on their psychological well-being (Crocker, Luhtanen, Blaine & Broadnax, 1994; Oyserman, Gant & Ager, 1995; Quintana, 1998; Sellers, Smith, Shelton, Rowley & Chavous, 1998). A study of Jewish adolescents showed that while students with more advanced levels of REI were more sensitive to culture-specific stressors such as discrimination and race-based encounters, their strong sense of racial–ethnic identity helped them to develop effective coping strategies (Dubow, Pargament, Boxer & Tarakeshwar, 2000).

In an increasingly ethnically diverse society, REI is also an important social referent for many adolescents. This social and psychological construct enables individuals both to distinguish themselves from others and to identify with a broader collective group, and REI is therefore continually being renegotiated and redefined. The temporal nature of REI can be characterised as a response to contextual demands whereby individuals are trying to maintain existing identities while concurrently adapting to their changing environments. Knowledge of one’s group memberships, and the value and emotional significance attached to them, comprise part of an individual’s self-concept, and among some visible and marginalised minority populations in New Zealand, racial, ethnic and cultural identities are constructed, enacted and manifested in very conscious ways. For adolescents, REI is both a political and a social act, ‘providing individuals with a unified system by which to understand and experience society’ (Williams, 1996, p. 192). Racial–ethnic identity can therefore be regarded as a political and social resource that can be used by members of both dominant and minority groups for the purpose of enhancing the position of their social identities and pursuing their own interests.

An individual’s REI can provide a lens through which everyday experiences are filtered. So, while a group of ethnically diverse individuals might in some way experience exactly the same race-based encounter, each individual may have different interpretations of the content, impact and cause of the event, based on the psychological, social and political meanings they attach to their REI and the REI of the person responsible for the encounter. The significance of REI is complex and dependent upon the personal characteristics of an individual and the immediate situation, as well as macro-level features such as the racial–ethnic composition of the context, immigration policy and the social and political status of one’s racial–ethnic group. While societal definitions of a racial–ethnic group may influence identification, they clearly do not fully define personal experience, and vice versa.

The enactment of racial–ethnic identity

The idea has been consistently established across diverse areas of research that context can alter individuals’ sense of REI, personality, or even communication style (Deaux & Ethier, 1998; Lawson & Sachdev, 2000; Swann, Bosson & Pelham, 2002). Racial–ethnic identity is a dynamic and interactive aspect of self-concept that is responsive to situational differences and has ‘different meanings in different social settings for different individuals’ (Matute-Bianchi, 1991, p. 237). Research has found that adolescents feel more connected to their racial–ethnic identity in specific contexts and these feelings of racial–ethnic identification can influence behaviour at the level of the situation (Callan & Gallois, 1983; Rosenthal & Hrynevich, 1985). Rosenthal and Hrynevich’s (1985) study revealed that the REI salience of their Greek Australian and Italian Australian participants increased in the company of their family/relatives, at community weddings and parties, and when speaking their respective languages, and decreased when among their Australian friends and while at school. Similar patterns have been documented among Asian immigrants in the United States, who report feeling more ‘Asian’ at home, more ‘American’ at school and ‘both’ when among their peers (Huang, 1998).

Much of the existing research on the situational variation and contextual salience of REI has revealed that individuals from minority racial–ethnic groups often find themselves negotiating and having to shift identities between their ethnic and mainstream contexts (Saylor & Aries, 1999; Umana-Taylor, 2004). Researchers examining the cultural identity of adolescent Chinese immigrants in New Zealand concluded that the psychological well-being of these adolescents was dependent upon their simultaneously developing a strong identification and involvement with members of the mainstream New Zealand society, while maintaining firm ties with their own Chinese racial–ethnic group (Eyou, Adair, & Dixon, 2000).

Researchers also recognise the importance of examining the role of behaviour as it relates to racial–ethnic group identification, particularly engagement in behaviours that are unique to a particular racial–ethnic group (Deaux & Ethier, 1998; Isajiw, 1990; Oyserman & Harrison, 1998). Racial–ethnic behaviours are either specific to or have unique symbolic meaning for a particular group based on the cultural values and beliefs of that ethnic group. These activities may include racial–ethnic language use; racial–ethnic group friendship; and participation in racial–ethni...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• About the editors
• About the contributors
• Introduction
• PART I Identity
• PART II Therapeutic Practice
• PART III Death and Dying
• PART IV Reflexive Practice
• Epilogue: Comic relief: A theology of comedy … or why Pacific people laugh loudly – a cross-cultural conversation about Pacific identities, mental health and well-being REV. MUA STRICKSON-PUA
• References
• Glossary
• Index