Like many, my family migrated to New Zealand from Samoa to seek greener pastures in 1969. Tragedy hit and my father passed away in a fatal car accident and my mother was widowed with two young girls and our unborn brother by the age of 25 years old.
My grandparents were able to come to NZ and were our guardians and ensured we were able to speak fluent Samoan as my grandmother refused to speak English and my mum worked three jobs to allow us to survive.
We were financially poor by Western standards but rich in spirit due to our strong family ties with our extended family and the local Pacific Presbyterian church in Mangere East, South Auckland.
My story is the same for so many migrants who came to NZ, yet through the grace of God we have survived and thrived. I would like to say thank you for the many opportunities for education, community and leadership that living in NZ has offered to us.
As young Samoan girls growing up in Auckland, my sister and I faced issues of low socioeconomic and financial hardship, we were a minority at Auckland University and came from South Auckland.
I met my husband Kamal after graduating in medicine and moved to Sydney, Australia to seek my greener pastures. After completing training in general practice in 1995, we set up our medical practice in Southwestern Sydney (a bit like South Auckland) . I find it a blessing to speak in my native tongue when dealing with my Samoan patients. Many of our patients are of Samoan and Pacific Islander backgrounds.
We have instilled in our two children, Leilani and Jordan, the importance of both our cultures, Samoan and Persian and this has helped them to navigate life and to appreciate that we both come from culturally rich and diverse cultures.
Leilani is a hard-working young doctor currently training in Anesthetics in Auckland, now a senior registrar and Jordan is a part-time pilot, and recently graduated with an IT degree working in Sydney in March this year.
My passion as a health professional is to be an experienced and competent general practitioner has come from my values of appreciating my Samoan language, cultural identity and great spirituality in my faith as a Christian.
These strong foundations have given me the confidence to learn to be a good GP, to gain the skills to develop our medical practice with my husband and to build a successful general practice in Southwest Sydney, Australia.
It is important to maintain our cultural identity by greeting our Samoan and Pacific patients in our mother tongue, regular commitments to our family, maintaining close kinship as our children become adults, and understanding the role of language, cultural traditions and identity.
Coming from a humble background has kept me grounded whenever I am visiting my family. I choose to stay in Mangere East in my mother’s home and we regularly visit our local Mangere Markets and support the cultural arts and local festivals.
My success, like the theme has been due to the grounding of the support of my family in Sydney and the support from my close-knit family in NZ.
I appreciate the importance of language, culture and having my faith as a Christian to cope with the many challenges in life.
I hope other Samoan and Pacific islanders young and old will find my story inspiring to continue to achieve their own goals for the future in whatever field they are in.
Final words
O le auaunaga o le ala lea i le manuia - Service is the pathway to success
Ia manuia le vaiaso o le gagana samoa - Have a great samoa language week
Tofa Soifua!