Introduction
With the popularity of seasonal worker schemes that invite Pacific Islanders to work in New Zealand and Australia, the study of Pacific region migration is a growing field of research. Studies on migration movements for Samoans have largely focused on out-migration to metropolitan centres of New Zealand, Australia and the United States of America (Fairbairn 1961; Pitt and Macpherson 1974; Shankman 1976; Macpherson 1999, 2002, 1985, 1994; Janes 1990; Va’a 1995; Brown 1998; Hanna 1998; Liki 2001; Brown and Connell 2004; Macpherson and Macpherson 2006; Lilomaiava-Doktor 2009; McGarvey and Seiden 2010; Uperesa 2014; Faleolo 2019). The emergence of communities and social structures abroad continues to be an area of interest as Samoan migrants adapt and integrate into their host countries (Tuimalealiʻifano 1990). While these studies document the characteristics of the growing Samoan community abroad and their sociocultural and economic commitments to family and village in their mother land, research on recent immigration into Samoa is deficient. Existing studies include studies of the movement of professional Melanesian-Samoan women (Liki 2009), experiences of Samoan deporteesin Samoa (Pereira 2011), and diverse motivations of Samoan returning migrants (Macpherson and Macpherson 2009a). Beyond these studies, data on Samoa’s immigration experience especially of nonethnic Samoans is very limited.
