"I've found it disheartening that their stories are almost always left out when we talk about Pacific peoples and our contribution to New Zealand society." — Seuta'afili Dr Patrick Thomsen on the Pacific's Rainbow and Queer community.
“Even with a fair amount of privilege on my side, it was one of the worst, most depressing phases of my life. I now truly believe that our social welfare system isn’t designed to help struggling New Zealanders.” — Victoria Kaihe.
“I realised my only ticket back into the area was to line some landlord’s pocket with 40 percent of my income and take one of four bedrooms in a rundown flat on Sussex St (his 12th property, fyi).” — Litia Tuiburelevu.
"We need to reflect on those times where we have ignorantly or arrogantly claimed Māori culture as our own — as if it can be taken and used without permission, just as Māori land was." — Debra Hunt.
“What are the chances of ending racism in New Zealand by 2040? The news on this front would seem to be both good and bad.” — Trevor Richards.
“Today, for my first Mother’s Day without my mum, I find myself somewhere between celebrating and commemorating.” — Dahlia Malaeulu.
She described Pākehā as "the product of the riffraff, the flotsam and jetsam of British culture." — Moana Maniapoto on Atareta Poananga, who died just over a week ago.
“Canadians are inclined to point to racism as something that exists in the USA. ‘We are not the USA!’” — Tainui Stephens.
“Huirangi’s online memorial offered those of us still working on our reo a very rare gift: whaikōrero with English subtitles.” — Vanessa Ellingham.
“Huirangi met every test of his strength, courage, integrity and leadership to secure the rights of future generations to the language of his tipuna.” — Andrew Robb on Huirangi Waikerepuru.
“When this pandemic started to inch closer around us here in New Zealand, we all began worrying for Che.” — Becky Manawatu, on losing her cousin Che Warren, "one of New Zealand's most vulnerable", during the lockdown.
“In a way, Mase was in a bubble long before Covid-19 hit the world and we were forced into our own bubbles.” — Dahlia Malaeulu.
“In Italy, you kept house, and you kept it clean enough for the pope to visit any day of the week.” — Becky Manawatu.
"I am a notorious chuck-20-buckers-in-the-van to get home sort of person." — Becky Manawatu.
"If I was a teenager today, I’d be anxious about the world I’m about to inherit. A job, a home, a family, clean air, and fresh water are well on their way to becoming luxuries." — Tainui Stephens.
“Our world is changing so fast that many of last century’s realities are today not just irrelevant but even non-existent.” — Kennedy Warne.
“I’m sad to see our Little Miss slide listlessly into a final acceptance that her magnificent animal frame is on its last legs. She writes the last page of that Ngāruawāhia chapter of my life.” — Tainui Stephens farewells a dear friend.
“It remained truly exhausting and alienating to be brown in the classical world.” — Sophie Yana Wilson.
“I’m starting to understand that amnesia may well be one of the main organising principles of colonisation. A selective forgetting is an important part of how power maintains its privileges.” — vivian Hutchinson.
Liana MacDonald and Keziah Wallis visit Ihumātao and the Nixon monument — and find two starkly different ways of thinking about, and remembering, the same history.
"My tūpuna deserve better than a man with a sign asking us to 'Save Another Western Value from Destruction'." — Ruby Solly.
To karanga or not to karanga? Anahera Higgins on practising and protecting a cultural taonga.
“For several decades, Whina’s astute brand of leadership had been shaped by the traditions of her elders and powered by her own mighty self-confidence.”
“Back then, in 1992 or 1993, we didn’t know how much we might need to see these moments again. No one took a picture.” — Becky Manawatu.
“In our town, the fire brigade has more callouts for accidents, medical emergencies and suicides than it does for fires.” — Lorene Royal.
"It's a mix of carnage and self-mockery." — Producer Tainui Stephens on The Dead Lands, a Māori take on a television genre that relies on "dollops of action and a lot of splatter".
Rakatira, visionary, reo champion, best mate, and hōhā! All of these terms were used to describe Tahu Pōtiki during his tangihanga on Ōtākou Marae last year.
“In the memory, there is just my mum, standing on the verandah, smiling, waving. I was annoyed she wasn’t crying.” — Becky Manawatu on leaving home.
“What happened to our people has been, and to a large extent remains, an inconvenient truth and stain on the history and conscience of our nation.” — Moriori leader Maui Solomon.
“Regardless of personal politics or wealth, as Pākehā we all benefit from the dispossession of Māori. There are no exemptions from Pākehā privilege.”
“The ’nesian body was not welcome, nor was anything that adorned it — unless it was ‘in fashion’, doomed to disappear when the next trend arrived. The New Zealand mainstream media did not reflect the world I inhabited.”
"Most people have forgotten that the paper mulberry plant made it all the way to Aotearoa. Like their Pacific cousins, Māori made barkcloth for kites, clothing, adornment and ceremony."
"Don’t let schooling get in the way of your education, moko.” — Haare Williams' grandmother, after his first day of school in 1943.
“I wonder how many of us here in Aotearoa can appreciate what life is like for most of the non-whites in South Africa. Not many, if any, as Scribe once said.”
“The people who have marched before me, who have occupied spaces before me: their feet taking steps for change, their bodies on the line, their voices hoarse with conviction . . . they are the iceberg below the surface.”
“The big question that still lies unanswered is not the acquisition of land rights, but the enjoyment of land rights. How do you enjoy being where you are?”
“We have come here to speak about protection of the ocean. We come in the planet’s most uncertain hours to sing a redemptive tune. And what is it we are protecting the ocean against? Regrettably, us.”
“We've somehow arrived at a point where normal life events are catastrophised and the only people deemed able to fix those catastrophes are the professions that start with ‘psych’.”
“I did not want to go home. Because I knew that when I went home someone was going to be angry, someone was going to fight, and someone was going to get hurt.”
“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.”
“You must continue your education, son, I don’t want you to be a servant to anyone, man or woman, Māori or Pākehā. Your father and I didn’t raise you to help us on the farm.”
“There was an imbalance — visually, strategically, and hierarchically. White people on top, founding, leading, paying. Indigenous people beneath, benefiting, smiling, grateful.”
"When hospo workers stand together, when we expose what our industry is really like, we move closer to changing our industry for the better."
“It was so stressful. I told my lot I just want to be Pākehā for a while.”
“She came home to die. But not straight away. She still had things she wanted to do.”
Te Routu o Ureia is not the only site in Heritage New Zealand’s official list that has a taniwha connection. But it is the only site that carries a taniwha’s name.
James K Baxter’s Jerusalem Daybook “had woken something, disrupted something, in my placid Pākehā existence. Like the water tank in Baxter’s story, bullet holes were appearing in the walls of assumption and belief.” — Kennedy Warne.
“There is no airstrip. To get to Takū, you book a passage on the supply ship — if it's sailing. Last year, not a single ship visit was made. Cut off from outside supplies, the islanders relied entirely on their traditional food sources: fish, coconut and occasional taro."
“Many of us have lost our languages through no fault of our own. Let’s remove the shame from reclaiming our languages.”
“My hunger for the past came out of a need to process my own grief, rather than a desire to study the history.” — Hepi Mita, on making a film about his mum, Merata.
“Of first importance, the river. Of second importance, the river.”— Kennedy Warne on the Whanganui River.
The 150th anniversaries of several brutal events in our local and national history has prompted Ernie Barrington to dip into the history books — to remember “episodes that call out to be remembered and not to be airbrushed away”.
“Traits like humility and service are not typically associated with leadership in New Zealand workplaces, yet in the Pacific context they are among the most valued characteristics a leader can possess.”
“Maria Thompson became a part of the Jackson household after my son’s grandmother, June, found her on the streets and took her home. She stayed for over three decades.”
History shows that it is invariably Māori who have been denied access by Pākehā to that which is precious to them, not the other way round.
“Being positioned as a “Māori” teacher came at a price. With this visible Māori identity came expectations from my colleagues that I was an expert on all things Māori.”
Kennedy Warne has been a geographical explorer for 30 years, but he considers his most important exploration to have been cultural and spiritual: an awakening to te ao Māori.
"The decision to respond to racism feels challenging because of the inevitably difficult dialogue that follows and the risk to relationships."
"I seek home in others’ hearts, and ask their permission to write of it. I look for aroha in their stories, for it is love that helps light things up when darkness threatens."
“Our women look at people as if everyone is important and everyone belongs to one of the communities they serve.”
“Hiwi was perfect to be a Conciliator. He was not an angry man. He was a naturally diplomatic kind of guy, yet had the capacity to set his jaw, dig his heels in, and rark his voice up a bit.”
"For some of our students, getting to uni is ridiculously difficult, and so I try to make my classes worth the long commutes, and the sizeable weekly dent in their student allowance."—Dr Jani Wilson
They didn't know how he'd died, where he had fallen — nor where he lay. There was no gravestone for Sonny. No place to visit. No place to mourn.
Māori communities had their own ways of resolving conflict and anti-social behaviour, writes Kim Workman, in this extract from his memoir “Journey Towards Justice”.
“I’d led such a privileged life, had copped so little overt racism, and learned so little history, that I was oblivious to much of what was going on in Aotearoa.”
“It takes courage to step out from a lifetime of bullying and discrimination to be the me I was meant to be.”—Ashleigh Feu’u
“From the beginning, each of us recognised something in the other: two Māori boys off to conquer the world.” —Witi Ihimaera
For decades, May Mackey provided "compassion and aroha and prayer support without judgment" to prisoners. Last week, the 98-year-old was honoured for that work.
"There’s a vast untapped market that is hungry for books where Pasifika peoples are centered, where we are the mainstream and not the marginalised Other."
Even in death, Tiki Raumati chooses to live out his message of painful reconciliation.
“On Twitter, I found my community. False divides established through imperialism clearly exist across Te Moana-nui-a-Kiwa, and maybe the internet provides an opportunity to jump across those.”
"The big challenge is how we as whānau and communities confront this terrible darkness, this sad duality that creates such a tragic legacy. There is no quick fix. It requires an open and honest conversation.”—Moana Maniapoto
Papatūānuku has been an emblem of political identity and cultural survival for Māori.
"It was 10 o’clock at night and this massive family was crying and then laughing and then crying and laughing again. I don’t know if it’s a brown thing, but if you’re not laughing at the hospital, no matter what the situation, you’re doing it wrong."
"We were the last mothers of that generation. The last to go through before the cradle-to-grave welfare state came crashing down around us. After that, single mothers were further stigmatised — and life got much harder."
“The #MeToo movement hasn’t flowed through our Pacific communities as publicly as it has elsewhere. I think a big part of that is that the ones who’ve hurt us are our family. So outing our assaulter hurts us in new ways, and brings back the old pain.”
“I lived to make my mum happy . . . And hiding my truth was one way I tried to do that. I wanted to protect the both of us.”
My daughter’s “coming out” momentarily knocked the life out of her mother and me.
The concept of wearing allegiances on the face, of using the skin as a canvas to tell a personal story . . . was a distinctly Māori expression.
Remembering the mother of the nation, Whina Cooper — a tough, uncompromising mother who understood the power of protest and the political fray.
“For many Māori girls who grew up in Rotorua during the 1960s, the guides were our heroes. Our superwomen. Our warrior princesses.”
“The same courage that saw us move back to Tauranga Moana after an absence of many generations is needed again to take this next step. To finally be invested completely in the whenua of our ancestors. Our branch of the Bidois whānau will have a foothold again.”
Kennedy Warne finds a connection between Parihaka and a memorial to the thousands of African-Americans who suffered the horror of death by lynching.
"Christianity is a religion of failures and dropkicks, hypocrites and losers, because most of us are goodish, but not one of us is good enough. We all know this regardless of belief, right?"
One day, while our Māori Anglican dad was at work, our Pākehā Catholic mum rushed her brood off to...
Kennedy Warne reflects on the days leading up to Martin Luther King’s death, 50 years ago.
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”.
“It took years of very conscious effort for me not to be afraid to walk into a room full of people darker than I was.”
Why do we always seem to be looking overseas for our heroines and heroes when we have so many right here at home — in our own family histories and in our hearts?
There seems to be increasingly little awareness among church leaders — both Māori and Pacific — that there's a direct correlation between Gospel truth and political activism.
The good news is that the country seems to be in a process of recovery — and for Pākehā, discovery — of the Māori conceptual world.
In the course of Urban Māori, a 300-page book being launched next week, Bradford Haami has told...
I grew up in a predominantly Pākehā town in the South Island. My mother is Pākehā. My father, who...
In my life, I’ve had three names. I have lost one, borrowed two, and am in the process of...
This is an extract from Kia Pū te Wai o Pareira — He Kōrero a-Whānau, a Waipareira publication...
Like many other Waipareira stalwarts, Roimata Hansen has strong ties with the North. But she has...
Nuki Aldridge died on October 30 at Kawakawa, and was laid to rest in his hometown of Kaeo. A...
Kramer Hoeflich, 25, was paralyzed after an accident in the Cook Islands, a few days after his...
Our marae need attention, protection, words and warmth, writes Māmari Stephens in this essay...
Our four tamariki have been in Māori medium education their whole lives. Jo and I had chosen to...
Tūhoe leader Tāmati Kruger delivered this year’s annual Bruce Jesson Memorial Lecture at the...
What can designers and planners learn from tikanga Māori? An Auckland architect, Tony Watkins, offers some thoughts.
Australians are being asked to vote on whether same-sex marriage should be legalised in their...
In 2012, when Samoa celebrated 50 years of independence, Victoria University awarded an honorary...
Whatever some people think we’ve taken from this country, we have given back tenfold.
Our father died in 2012. He’d been living in Australia for about 42 years and had only rarely...
My family consists of my two parents — now divorced and re-married to different partners — an...
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 sat on the freshly concreted wall to my father’s grave, with tears steaming off my face. It was...
Pā Henare Arekatera Tate died on April 1 at Rawene, on the shores of the Hokianga Harbour, the...
About the same time I started learning Māori, I took up knitting. I barely had the time for it,...
Teresia Teaiwa, who died last month, aged 48, after a short battle with cancer, was a trailblazing...
Victor Rodger is a playwright, scriptwriter and journalist who has often written about aspects of...
Uncle Manu was an 11-year-old schoolboy when his dad instructed him to “put some gear on” and play...
This time a year ago, I started knitting a blanket for my son in preparation for his departure to...
Glenn Colquhoun is a poet, children’s writer and GP, who’s spent much of his life working with...
There’s a saying, a whakataukī, that reminds us that the kūmara doesn’t speak of its own...
I had one of those “only Māori in the room” moments recently. I have a lot of those....
Moana Jackson is a Wellington-based lawyer with a Ngāti Kahungunu and Ngāti Porou whakapapa. For...
Laura Toailoa was born in Samoa, grew up in South Auckland, and is now living in Wellington, where...
In these perplexing anxiety-ridden times, we are often told that what we need is good leaders....
I’ll admit that I’ve been a Māui fan-girl for a long time. What’s not to love about the...
My grandad grew bananas. I never got to eat one — the garden was off-limits to us kids. But the...
Graham Latimer chaired the New Zealand Māori Council for more than 40 years. He was at the helm...
Before I started learning Māori, the only time I ever came into contact with the language was on...
As some of you will know, I recently had my DNA tested. Well, I got my results back, and I had a...
One of the most daunting things about sending our boy to boarding school was that, for the first...
I’m a refugee. Apparently. I didn’t know I was one until a Sunday newspaper told me. When our baby...
This Sunday, 100 years ago, a notorious arrest took place. It happened at Maungapōhatu — Tūhoe’s...
Kennedy Warne, a co-founder and former editor of New Zealand Geographic and the author of Tūhoe:...
My family has no real secrets – that I know of, anyway. Mum and Dad are both my birth-parents. I...
A week ago, Lloyd Ashton, back from a few days in Fiji, wrote these impressions of the impact...
Inside the Counties Manukau Police Station in Auckland, a small group has gathered for a...
I rang Ranginui Walker last year to ask for his views when I was doing some research about the...
It’s hard being Māori in 2016. Look at all this carry-on about boys-with-their-poi. Most of us...
I live in an increasingly Polynesian country. It is part of who I am, and I think a big part of...
Last Saturday, while the country commemorated the 176th year of the signing of the Treaty of...
Joe Le’ota could talk three tikanga: Tongan, Māori and Pākehā. Lloyd Ashton pays tribute to a fine...
My dad dug the hole I live in. He didn’t dig it on his own, and the new housing subdivision of...
Three events in my lifetime have shaken my belief in the world. Each of them, for me, made...
I’ll always remember the first time I saw Jonah Lomu. Wesley College were arriving. It was 1992,...
My father died last week. I was at Carl’s Jr on Queen Street when I got the news. Lady Gaga’s ass...
Watching the All Blacks’ homecoming this week had me all choked up: three thousand people...
Mick Jagger (or possibly Keith Richards) described Invercargill in 1965 as “the arsehole of the...
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