Ronji Tanielu: From the grassroots
“I was growing up angry at the system, and angry at everyone else for making me poor and brown. And I also had a lot of family responsibilities.” — Ronji Tanielu.
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Tag: Pasifika
Ardie Savea: Inspired to dream bigger
“When a coach shows that he has my back, and when he treats me like family, I’ll go out on the field and do anything for him, for the brothers, for the team.” — Ardie Savea.
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Margie Apa: Our new health boss
“One privilege that comes with being senior is that I see my job as creating an environment where discrimination is just not acceptable.” — Margie Apa, chief executive of Health NZ.
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Unfounded assumptions and ‘come from behind’ wins
“Even before we’d had a chance to talanoa or discuss what community education sessions could look like, Pasifika were being labelled as ‘likely to be difficult’.” — Dr Api Talemaitoga.
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Toa Fraser: Swimming in different waters
“There’s nothing like an incurable brain disease to give you focus, Dale. I feel lucky that I’ve been able to continue to work.” — Toa Fraser.
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Here we go again: Covid and racism
“It’s been a whole year since we went through this, and yet, here we are again, with mainstream media ignoring, or perhaps not even seeing, the very real damage done by this type of clickbait heading.” — Emmaline Pickering-Martin.
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Dawn Raids Apology: a poem
In celebration of National Poetry Day this Friday, here’s a poem from Tusiata Avia, Arts Foundation laureate and winner of the poetry award at this year’s NZ book awards.
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Empty gestures
“Overall, the inadequacies of the government’s ‘gestures’ indicate that the apology came from a government that felt pressured to give an apology — and not a government that was genuinely invested in atoning for its ongoing actions of racist violence.” — Dylan Asafo.
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Why we can’t connect with politics
“The overarching reality is that politics remains incredibly disconnected from some of the communities who most need structural change.” — Leah Damm.
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I really want you to watch ‘Sis’
“Despite Pasifika women being some of the leading figures in my life, I never saw their myriad, colourful personalities reflected on screen.” — Litia Tuiburelevu on the new comedy sketch show ‘Sis’.
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Don’t you want to be Sāmoan?
“Except for church, our Sāmoan-ness never made it out the front door of our house.”
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Why aren’t universities made for people like me?
“The longer I stay at university, the more I realise that not only are universities not made for me, but there are institutional structures embedded within them that actively exclude me.”
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‘Vea, you made me cry’
“There was a really beautiful thing that happened during the filming. We had a change of heart which changed our head.” — Vea Mafile’o on learning to understand her father through the making of ‘For My Father’s Kingdom’.
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