So, you’ve found that there can be a few Tongans in your neighbourhood ? The figures might be dated but they are interesting none-the-less. Informal discussions with statisticians at the Tonga Department of Statistics estimates that a full third of Tongans now reside outside of Tonga.
| American Samoa: | 1,000 | |
| Australia: | 6,700 | (1991) |
| New Zealand: | 23,175 | (1991) |
| Auckland Area | 82.7% | |
| United States: | 17,606 | (1990) |
| California | 7,919 | |
| Utah | 3,904 | |
| Hawai'i | 3,088 | |
| Texas | 630 | |
| Washington State | 448 | |
| Arizona | 388 | |
| Other US states that showed a reasonably sizable Tongan community were: | ||
| Nevada | 331 | |
| Oregon | 169 | |
| Alaska | 158 | |
| Florida | 122 | |
It was estimated that in the 1990 Census figures, they were undercounted by a net of 4 milion people and 24% of that was from the ethnic minority population. It is also interesting to note that the total number of Tongans in the US during the 1980 Census was 6,226 and a decade later it climbed to 17,606, representing a total of 1138 immigrants from Tonga to the US in each of those ten years.
So what happens when you put a lot of Tongans somewhere far away from their homeland ? Well, some generations later pilgrims return to seek out their ancestry, while others expand and extrapolate on their traditions, modifying, enriching, corrupting as they go along. Ours is a rich heritage which by 1/3 we have the opportunity to proselytise around the world.
[ref: Tonga Statistics Department, Press Release 1995]
[ref: e-mail William Afeaki (corrections Dec 3, 1998)]