Jordanporter0909's Blog

American Samoa:Its Own Culture September 29, 2009

For this post we were asked to interview a foreign student here on campus and ask them to compare and contrast the media in their own country to that of the United States. Lucky for me, my roommate is from American Samoa so I didn’t have to look very far for someone to interview. His name is Joseph Faaganta. He just turned twenty three years old this past August and has been living in America for two years now. Joseph transferred here from Long Beach Community College in Long Beach, California. Joe came to the United States for a Football Scholarship he received from his junior college and to pursue his dreams of becoming a successful businessman in the pensive Californian lifestyle he had heard so much about.
Joe agreed to do this interview only if I told the whole and complete truth and left nothing out he said about his homeland. But by him asking me this, Joe had already given me clues and insight into how truly proud as a society American Samoans truly are. American Samoan lifestyle has its own demeanor and culture, when compared to its northern relative the United States. For instance, almost all Samoans don’t have stoves in their kitchens. They cook practically everything by campfire using coconut milk. Now I tell you this information to give you an insight on how truly traditional the Samoan lifestyle really is. When I asked Joe about the various forms of media he was accustomed to in Samoa, he began to look puzzled and thought very hard of the scarce variety of today’s technology he had available to him.
The first form of media Joe wanted to discuss was the use of the radio. Joe told me that, on his island, everyone had a radio in almost every room of their house. It was perfectly normal for music to be playing all day long. Even if someone wasn’t home, the radio would always be tuned in. When asked if the radio stations in Samoa played the same type of music here in the United States Joe began to laugh abruptly out loud. He began to explain to me that, in Samoa, people only listen to music made and produced on the island. Basically saying that the island is sort of isolate from the rest of the music industry and people in Samoa like it that way.
Joe then moved onto the subject of the television and how barely anyone on the island watches TV. A big reason is because there are actually only two channels to watch on the television. “Hardly anyone on the island can afford cable” Joe says. Joe’s family is one of the wealthiest on the island and he only gets approximately thirty something channels.
On the other hand though, he told me that nearly half of the people on the island have computers with internet connection. Social networking is a huge part of his culture. By the time he was a senior in high school Joseph had about 5 different profiles on 5 different social networking sites. You can Google search Polynesian and thousand of pictures of islanders will pop up displaying their many forms of cultural creativity.