Uli Latukefu Spoke On How Pacific Islanders Are Typecast In TV/Movies: “I Can Play A Human Being”

You’ve been open about not speaking Tongan when you were young, which made it harder to connect with your community and culture. Though I believe you later learned the language, this is a common struggle for many Pacific Islanders across the diaspora, whether in the US, Australia, NZ, or anywhere else. What would say to anyone who doesn’t speak their mother tongue and feels a bit disconnected?

First of all, if you feel that, that’s totally normal. You grew up away from home, and a lot of the time, your parents grew up away from home and found this new place that they had to adapt to. So, that feeling of disconnection is normal. The second thing I would say is you are not disconnected, though. I don’t care what anyone says, no matter how little or how much you speak your language, you’re still Tongan. You’re still Samoan. That alienating thing that sometimes part of our culture does, of “you’re not enough,” is rubbish. It’s awful. The third thing I would say is take classes. It’s never too late. I myself take classes once a week, and I have homework and that kind of thing. It’s not for no other reason but because I wanted to do it for me. You can do it for your kids or whatever, but I wanted to do it for me, and I wanted to be able to communicate, one, to my elders, two, to my children, and three, to my community. That was something that I really decided was something I want to take to my grave, and it’s never too late.

The challenging thing with that, though, is being able to practice. That takes speaking to your parents in Tongan, or learning to speak to your friends who are of your own culture in your language. And at first, it might be like, “Ugh.” [Makes a funny face] The truth is, yes, I am trying. “Oh, your Tongan is a bit off.” Yeah, it is off because I’m still piecing it together. And that’s part of the journey. That’s part of our life. It’s your life’s work, piecing it together. No one’s perfect; no one’s got it all together. So, language is a part of that.

BuzzFeed: I love how you said it’s mainly for yourself, but so you can speak with the elders and the kids in the community as well. Is that something that you’re practicing with your own kids?

Yeah, absolutely. Every day, I speak to my kids in Tongan, and I speak to my friends in Tongan. Part of the classes that I take is to text and then repeat the text orally to someone of Tongan heritage. So, it could be my mum or my friends or whoever. That’s something I’m really enjoying, just growing on my Tongan and learning. There’s some things, as you would know in Samoan, that when you communicate them in your language, it doesn’t translate well in English. It doesn’t carry the same spirit or the same warmth or the same energy. When you say something in Samoan to someone, especially who is older than you, and they say it back to you, there’s just something different about it, right? And so, that’s something that I would miss if I wasn’t clear on my understanding of Tongan, or clear in my speaking of Tongan. So, that’s something that I want to embrace more of.