“The Core of Who We Are”: Social Capital as a Tool for Empowerment in a Tongan Diaspora Community

Abstract

Rooted in six months of ethnographic fieldwork in a Tongan Diaspora community in southern California, this thesis analyzes the role of community in the Tongan Diaspora and its function in increasing social capital. This research demonstrates how Tongan community members negotiate meaning together to form a collective identity, and use language to create a cohesive and closed social network. It reveals that through membership in speech community, agency and identity construction, Tongan community members are part of a closed network with enough social capital to increase the cultural wealth of their community. By tapping into the existing funds of knowledge in the community, members have the tools for empowerment that can overcome many of the challenges that they face, including socioeconomic injustice, gang violence, and negotiating multiple sociocultural realities. The research provides an example of an existing powerful example of peer-leadership, and the potential for further community empowerment.