Profile Piece- Revision

Intended publication: The Index 

A Family Girl

“I’m an open book. There is no such thing as getting too personal,”

Mele says to me as she reassures my fears about being biased by writing about her as a friend. It becomes clear that there isn’t any personal topic from her life story that is off limits to talk about. It’s close to midnight and we are sitting in her freshman dorm room, her roommate absent and at the library, and her laptop rests on her desk and there is a webpage opened to her Facebook profile. She has thirty-two notifications that haven’t been checked yet.  Mele sits cross-legged, comfortable on a pink beanbag chair, and above her is a series of picture collages. Some show the faces many brown skinned, dark haired people smiling happily into the camera, hugging each other. I assume that the pictures are snapshots of large family gatherings. 

A large poster of Tupac floats on the wall right above the pillows on her bed, surrounded by smaller pictures, swirly designs and symbols that look like a shrine. She’s a bonafide Cali girl, for sure. We talk animatedly about a hundred different things, what new techniques is she learning in her Documentary Film class, whether or not we can get a big group together to walk to a club in downtown Kalamazoo that caters to the under-21 crowd on Thursdays, before we she begins talking about her family.

Mele Makalo is the youngest of six children, and grew up having to navigate the intricate social dynamic of being the baby amongst four older brothers and a sister. The most important parts of her life, faith, family, education and ethnic culture constitute parts of her identity.

 “All my identities are interrelated. Because I value my culture I value my faith, because I value my faith I value my family, because I value my family I value my education,” she notes.

Mele is from a low-income community in Ingleside California, and a Mormon, but prefers to be called a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I assume because of the negative connotations associated with being Mormon, like stereotypes of polygamy and religious fundamentalism. She’s the first in her family to attend a four-year college, and her parents emigrated from Tonga a little over 30 years ago, and made a home for her family in the U.S. Situated in the South Pacific Ocean, Tonga is a chain of over a hundred islands and rests in between New Zealand and Hawaii. Also, its no surprise that a country which provides free and mandatory education for its citizens and scholarships for foreign secondary and post-secondary study abroad and whose economy is dependant upon remittances from the large population of diaspora living in Australia, New Zealand and the United States boasts over a 98% literacy rate.

According to Mele, woman hold high social status relative to men. One important traditional cultural practice gives the oldest sister in a family the power to name the future children of her younger siblings. Being the oldest sister means upholding a strong feminine presence within the extended family, as well. In Tongan tradition the Fahu is the oldest sister of your father, and is often blessed with the gift of gratitude from the family at every event, weddings, funerals and other celebrations. When I asked about her fraternal aunt, Mele’s face lights up,

“She is praised. Big stuff! She’s really important.”

When I ask whether her oldest sister will be the Fahu of her immediate family, she looks uncertain.

“We don’t practice Fahu because my father believes all family is important.”

I first met Mele at a Black Student Organization meeting at the beginning of the Fall term, and I introduced myself because I wanted to get to know the new fresh faces of diversity at Kalamazoo College. I, like many others probably couldn't quite place her ethnicity before she told me she was Tongan. I once made the mistake of referring to her as Polynesian to another student, and was promptly chastised for the slight misrepresentation of her cultural identity. Mele has one of those unique voices that can immediately command your attention. She doesn’t speak softly for anyone’s delicate sensibilities, because she keeps it real. She doesn’t even need to open her mouth for others to be intimidated in her presence. Often, when I ask other students on campus to talk to me about their first impressions of Mele they all sing the same tune of,

 “She is so cool!” While still a first year, she travels in and out of culture cliques and social circles with ease, displaying a maturity and openness to frank discussions about nearly anything with members of her own class standing and seniors alike. I once overheard someone say that it’s easy for Mele to become friends with everyone on this campus because she is literally the only one of her kind around on a majority white campus.

Mele says that she gets that inherent realness from her mother, Olga.

“My mom is very blunt, I learned how to be real from her.” Although Mele confesses that she didn’t inherit her mother’s culinary skills.

“My mom, she’s a bomb cook too, she puts it down! I think that's my downfall. Because she’s known around the way as a bomb cooker, and I don’t have those skills. I guess I’m known for my smarts.”

Mele’s voice changes to a warmer tone when the conversation travels to talking about her parents.

“My dad is a huge reason why I work as hard as I do.” She gets her work ethic from her parents, and grew up learning not the make the same mistakes of her older brothers and sister.

“My siblings were always the ones f’ing up.” She expresses with a laugh.

“Growing up, we only had one car,” she reveals over the phone almost a week later after her first time opening up to me about her family.

“My dad, my whole life has always held two full time jobs. My parents never told us how we were struggling financially and they were frustrated but always found a way to pay the bills.”

Mele’s dad Siosaia is 59 years old and worked at a warehouse to support the family while Olga was a stay at home mother and wife, who knitted quilts in her spare time to earn extra money. Mele’s mother sacrificed a social life to take care of her family, and her dad sacrificed being close to his side of the family to move to California so that Olga could be around her family.

A mind socialized by Western gender traditions and social codes would take a little more time to understand the complexity of the relationship between her mother and father.

“Tongan culture is weird like that. Women are valued, and that is different from other cultures.” I thought back to our first conversation, when Mele mused how as a girl she wasn’t allowed to hang around boys out of respect for the Tongan tradition of Faka’Apa'Apa, which literally means respect between genders.

Growing up “felt weird because it was hard to find someone to chill with,” she remarks. So she built a strong interpersonal relationship with her mother. In the course of our short conversation I become immediately aware that Mele is fiercely protective of her family. That same insight lead me to believe that when Mele talks about family, she isn’t just referring to her blood relations but to her interpersonal relationships on campus with friends. In my many social interactions with Mele, I have often noticed that when any event, celebration or personal issue comes up, Mele is often the first to volunteer, offer to give or extend a helping hand.

She once attended my twenty-second birthday party at an expensive restaurant, even though she couldn’t afford to go. Like many others, I can’t help but feel that I am a part of Mele’s multiple extended family that crosses state lines and color or culture boundaries in the short time that I’ve known her.   

“I have a very tough shell, but deep inside I have a very big heart for others, I put my family first. I don’t get butt hurt by things, but if you cross my family or my loved ones then it's a wrap.”

You could call Mele’s descriptions of her family traditions and customs a culture in its own right. You could even see her as one of those unique people who can find family virtually anywhere, and often proves herself time and again by sticking up for them.