Previous NextĪfter finishing her manuscript for "Hyphen American," Victoria launched Tonga Victoria Books and self-published the novel.
This image is among the art featured in Tonga Victoria's young adult trilogy "Hyphen American." Courtesy Tonga Victoria Books. Victoria said she didn't always consider writing as an art. She said the struggles she has experienced as a Polynesian American inspired the title of her first book, but action-comedy movies like "The Other Guys," (or just about anything starring Will Ferrell) inspired the storyline, which she describes as "crazy and adventurous." It's the first volume in her Hyphen American trilogy series. Now 28, Victoria has just released her first novel, "Hyphen American," a fictional book for young adults that weaves Polynesian culture and family traditions into an espionage story whose protagonist is a 21st-century Polynesian American girl named Sam Kelly who is working as a TechTon sales associate when she learns that she is the rightful owner of a super nuclear energy mined from the Earth that she must protect from those trying to steal it. Then, she went off to college and heard the phrase "hyphen American" in an ethnic studies class to describe Americans who can trace their ancestry to another part of the world. She spent years struggling with her bicultural identity. "I literally conditioned myself every first day of school to go up to the teacher and tell them that (the roster) says my name is Tonga, but it's actually Victoria," said Victoria, who didn't use her real first name until after high school because it didn't sound like other American names. "That can cause a lot of hidden trauma," Victoria said.Īnd she especially dreaded the first day of school with a new class as the teacher would read the roster of names. Growing up the daughter of Tongan immigrants, Tonga Victoria often felt stuck between her Tongan and American cultures - never feeling 100% American or 100% Tongan.Īlthough she was born and raised in East Palo Alto, her parents didn't speak English, so she spent the first eight years in school as an English as a Second Language student, embarrassed to read out loud in class. East Palo Alto author Tonga Victoria has released a fictional trilogy for young adults that weaves Polynesian culture into an espionage story.
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