Threads of red
“I can’t stand it any longer. I send away for a DNA test. It arrives in a little white packet, and I’m excited. I tell my husband that I’m sure I have Māori in me.” — Aimee Milne.
Identity
Mozzies: We don’t cease to be Māori once we’ve left
“As ‘Mozzies’, our Māori identity is fluid and multi-faceted. We are Indigenous, we are Pacific peoples, we are largely urbanised living in a colonial world. There are many nuances to our identity.” — Ngāwaiata Henderson.
Reclaiming what was lost
“That bridge tragedy in 1947 severed my links to my taha Māori. And only now, in my early 40s, am I reclaiming what was lost.” — Cornell Tukiri.
No longer scared to speak my language
“It’s only in recent years that I’ve even plucked up the courage to claim my identity, to proudly say: Yes, I am Māori.” — Siena Yates.
Cole Meyers: Bringing truth to trans stories
"We don’t just want to see our life experiences. We want change so we can fully experience our lives." — Cole Meyers, writer and producer of 'Rūrangi'.
The struggle to embrace my identity
“It’s funny to think that it took moving across the moana and immersing myself in another Pacific culture to gain an appreciation of my own.” — Terina Kaire.
Language, identity and ‘real’ Sāmoans
“Some of the things you may have learned from those anthropology textbooks shouldn’t be seen as a bible for what a ‘real’ Sāmoan is.” — Patrick Thomsen.
Don’t you want to be Sāmoan?
“Except for church, our Sāmoan-ness never made it out the front door of our house.”
Ihumātao feels like how I wish Auckland felt
“I can’t think of a time I’ve been in such a mixed group. There is a vibe of considerateness, gentleness. People are careful with the kids, and with each other. If you make eye contact, people say 'Kia ora', even if you don’t say it first.”
I’ve tried to learn Tongan, and I’ve tried to be Tongan
"Being an outsider because of my personality quirks was an identity I could embrace. Better than being defined purely by my lack of culture and language. Give me Crazy Pālangi over plain Pālangi any day."
My mother is Pākehā — and I love her
When I hear a child saying she hates Pākehā, it doesn’t sit right with me. It’s the same when I hear people referring to the “bloody Pākehās”.
Old certainties, old prejudices, old fears are losing their grip
The good news is that the country seems to be in a process of recovery — and for Pākehā, discovery — of the Māori conceptual world.
Why I didn’t sit with the other Māori girls at school
I grew up in a predominantly Pākehā town in the South Island. My mother is Pākehā. My father, who...
Tāmati Kruger: We are not who we should be as Tūhoe people
Tūhoe leader Tāmati Kruger delivered this year’s annual Bruce Jesson Memorial Lecture at the...
‘I’m brown. But I’m also a white person.’
This chapter by Evelyn Marsters, “Shifting Borders”, is extracted from Fair Borders? Migration Policy in the Twenty-First Century, published by Bridget Williams Books.
I’m the unrealised vision of my dad’s migrant dream
I sat on the freshly concreted wall to my father’s grave, with tears steaming off my face. It was...
Donna Rose Addis: I didn’t look like who I was on the inside
'I looked like I was just another Pālagi — whereas actually, I felt like I was a Samoan from South Auckland.'
Rhonda Kite: Too brown to be white — and too white to be brown
No one can hurt you more than you can hurt yourself.
Nadine Millar: I’m lucky I can walk in two worlds
There’s a saying, a whakataukī, that reminds us that the kūmara doesn’t speak of its own...
Where are you from?
Laura Toailoa was born in Samoa, grew up in South Auckland, and is now living in Wellington, where...
Nadine Millar: I’ve been called a born-again Māori
Before I started learning Māori, the only time I ever came into contact with the language was on...
My DNA results are in. I’m whiter than the milkman.
As some of you will know, I recently had my DNA tested. Well, I got my results back, and I had a...
Is my identity in my DNA?
My family has no real secrets – that I know of, anyway. Mum and Dad are both my birth-parents. I...
Nicky Hager: Living in a Polynesian country
I live in an increasingly Polynesian country. It is part of who I am, and I think a big part of...
So you think you’re Māori?
I was rehearsing a speech in Māori the other day when my 10-year-old son interrupted me to ask if,...
Why is it easier to be Māori overseas?
Biculturalism is deeply embedded in the Kiwi psyche, writes Nadine Millar, but many of us don’t...
“Where you from?”
I worked in a call centre when I was 21 and sat on the side of the office that was almost...
The down-side of rejecting your roots
An Irish-Maori Kiwi writer, Piripi Whaanga, has come across an Irish-American with a puzzling, and...