“The underachievement and disengagement of Pacific students is like the tangled net that needs to be untangled. Through effective leadership, I believe we’ll find solutions that can untangle those issues.” — Dr Tufulasi Taleni.
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“Through my education, I’ve been able to honour and affirm my Sāmoan heritage in spaces where my grandparents feared that being seen as Sāmoan would only hinder me.” — Dr Sarah McLean-Orsborn, Pacific Studies lecturer.
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“In Sāmoa, our people are the doctors, the lawyers, the prime ministers. I’ve grown up always surrounded by our people being educated, being in leadership.” — Dr Emma Dunlop-Bennett, assistant vice-chancellor (Pasifika), Te Herenga Waka–Victoria University of Wellington.
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“I was the only brownie, twice the size and weight of the other sprinters. All the Pākehā kids were skinny and had on their club kit and special track shoes. I was in bare feet.” — Kirk Mariner.
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“She wanted us kids to assimilate, believing wholeheartedly that this would protect us from white judgment. Being good, compliant coconuts would mean we wouldn’t be exposed to negativity as Sāmoans.” — Kirkpatrick Mariner on his mum.
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“In just a little over a year, I’d gone from being promoted to area commander to sitting at home. Disabled and without a job. Which is trauma enough after so many years in a position, but on top of that, I was seriously ill, and I thought I could die.” — Vitale Lafaele.
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“There’s only one New Zealand cricket team to play for, and I had to keep my mouth shut, keep my head down and score runs, and hopefully win games of cricket.” — Ross Taylor.
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“I learned that the pursuit of excellence includes embracing our own identities, as Pacific women and as Māori women. That we have a place in the law, as ourselves.” — Judge Lope Ginnen on what she learned working in an all-wāhine Māori and Pacific law firm.
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“Being Sāmoan and fa’afafine are the most powerful things about me.” — Fuimaono Karl Pulotu-Endemann.
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“It made the racism that came with being Sāmoan in Australia even harder to deal with. On one hand, I didn’t cut it as a real Sāmoan. On the other, I was being stereotyped as dumb and a troublemaker.“ — Lefaoali’i Dion Enari.
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“Am I being truthful? Am I being respectful? Am I prepared? And am I responsible? Those are the four things that really guide me.” — Susana Lei’ataua, RNZ Pacific’s News Editor.
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“What outsiders see as mobsters, I see as bros and the people I grew up with and could trust.” — James Papali’i.
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“The issue of language and identity haunts all Sāmoans who were raised in New Zealand. I know this because of the recurring conversation on social media around whether you can call yourself a ‘real’ Sāmoan if you don’t speak the language.” — Patrick Thomsen.
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“Today, for my first Mother’s Day without my mum, I find myself somewhere between celebrating and commemorating.” — Dahlia Malaeulu.
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“My sister always said I was a natural nosey parker as a kid. She reckons I’m really in the best position to do the work that I do — and that’s asking questions.”
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“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.”
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“She’d say: ‘Ete, you’re a Laughing Sāmoan, and if you start telling your story of how you were violent and what you did to overcome that violence, that would be really awesome.’” — Eteuati Ete.
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“I saw parallels with an earlier process of gentrification which displaced communities — largely Pasifika — from Ponsonby, St Mary’s Bay and Freemans Bay in the late 1970s to 1980s. That displacement has had ongoing ramifications for Pasifika people.”
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“Except for church, our Sāmoan-ness never made it out the front door of our house.”
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