Talanoa Dialogue Series

Introduction

In 2020, Health Bridges, a student-led organization at the Claremont Colleges, partnered with MALO to support its health programming. Throughout the last three years, Health Bridges members have engaged in 13 talanoa-style dialogues with the MALO community. Through open conversation, talanoa brings together the relations of Mana (potency), Tapu (sacred/restrictions), and Noa (equilibrium) to share wisdom, stories, and ideas across generations. As our team supports MALO events and health communication with the community, talanoa has continually grounded us in the transformational vision of MALO: it has been a privilege to hear stories of laughter, tears, and love and of the MALO team’s tireless work to serve the Inland Empire Tongan American community.

With this project, we aim to amplify the voices of the MALO community by sharing the key themes of our conversations in a series of posts. By weaving together the wisdom of MALO community members with existing health research, we hope to blend various forms of knowledge to prompt deeper conversations about Tongan American health in San Bernardino and Riverside Counties and beyond. Taken together, we hope that these writings will highlight MALO’s work to serve and strengthen its community while inspiring more storytelling.