A Day in the Life

Part of the Tala Pasifika series, this award winning episode first screened on TV One in 1996.  It tells the story of parental pressure in a minority culture where polynesian families have moved from the Islands to give their children a better life and education. The story follows three boys through a day in which they struggle to overcome the expectations and fears of their parents.  The pressure not to disappoint the people who have sacrificed so much to give them a better live sometimes becomes too great and leads to suicide, something which is all too prevalent in first generation New Zealand Samoans.