
My friend Elizabeth is from the South Pacific Island Kingdom of Tonga, an exotic locale long fixed in my memory with images of Polynesian paradise.
Tonga has sadly been in the news lately after an inter-island ferry sank on August 5 drowning over 70 people. It’s a huge tragedy in such a small place and it has saddened all Tongans around the world.
When I first met Elizabeth I had no idea that there were so many Tongan Americans living in large communities in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Dallas and other cities across the USA. Elizabeth is producing a documentary film on the history of Tongans immigrating to America and she knows a lot about the subject.
But surprisingly, a subject Elizabeth didn’t know a lot about is Tonga’s frontline role as a victim of the climate change crisis.