Pacific Migration and Transnationalism Essay Example

to these statistics from the Samoan 2001 Census, it stipulates an assumption that the peaking rates of unemployment can contribute to people moving out of the Islands and are attracted by the abundance of employment opportunities in overseas countries like New Zealand, Australia and the US. According to Cluny McPherson in his ‘New Neighbors, Islands in Adaptation’ book, he argues that New Zealand is often portrayed in the Islands as the “land of milk and honey” (McPherson 1978, 12).

The employment galore in New Zealand is a pull factor that attracted people to immigrate but with the implementation of immigration scheme like the Samoan Quota and the PAC, it made it easy for migrants to resettle in New Zealand every year, hence the diaspora. “Shift in policy in 2002 introduced the Pacific Access Category (PAC), which allows 250 migrants from Tonga, 75 from Kiribati and 75 from Tuvalu, and, since 2003, a further 250 migrants from Fiji. ” (Lee & Francis 2009, 10) This encouraged the mass movement of people to seek opportunities overseas.

Pacific Island migrants are concerned about the future of their children, some of us can relate to this. The free primary, secondary and quality of education that is available in New Zealand, Australia is what motivated people to immigrate. The US is another appealing destination that Pacific Islanders migrate to for quality education. According to the ‘New Neighbors, Islanders in Adaptation’, Brad Shore and Cluny incorporated a testimony of a migrant named Antonio Mailo from American Samoa. This migrant to the US reinforced the notion that so many Islanders move overseas to provide a stabled education for their children.