Being Maori Chinese

Presenting the stories behind several generations of seven Maori-Chinese families whose voices have seldom been heard before, this account casts a fascinating light on the historical and contemporary relations between Maori and Chinese in New Zealand. The two groups first came into contact in the late 19th century and often lived and interacted closely, leading to intermarriage and large families. By the 1930s, proximity and similarities had brought many Maori-Chinese families together, the majority of whom had to deal with cultural differences and discrimination. The growing political confidence of Maori since the 1970s and the more recent tensions around Asian immigration have put pressure on the relationship and the families’ dual identities. Today’s Maori-Chinese, reaffirming their multiple roots and cultural advantages, are playing increasingly important roles in New Zealand society. This account is oral history at its most compelling—an absorbing read for anyone interested in the complex yet rewarding topic of cultural interactions between indigenous and immigrant groups.

This is the story of a quest I began three decades ago – the search for my Chinese identity. The path I travelled was not linear, and the years brought pain as well as joy. But, while this is a narrative about being Chinese and also a New Zealander, I know that the search for purpose and meaning in life is universal. I hope that others in our culturally diverse society will find their own ways to embark on that same journey. Helene Wong was born in New Zealand in 1949, to parents whose families had emigrated from China one or two generations earlier. Preferring invisibility, she grew up resisting her Chinese identity. But in 1980 she travelled to her father’s home village in southern China and came face to face with her ancestral past. What followed was a journey to come to terms with ‘being Chinese’. Helene Wong writes eloquently about her New Zealand childhood, about student life in the 1960s, and coming of age in Muldoon’s New Zealand. What her Chinese ancestry means to her gradually illuminates the book as it sheds new light on her own life. Drawing on her experience of writing for New Zealand films, she takes the narrative forward through the places of her family’s history – the ancestral village of Sha Tou in Zengcheng county, the rural town of Utiku where the Wongs ran a thriving business, the Lower Hutt suburbs of her childhood, and Avalon and Naenae.

Analyzing for the first time the relationship between the tangata whenua and the country's earliest non-European immigrant group, this study investigates how two different marginalized groups in New Zealand society--the Maori and the Chinese--have interacted over the last 150 years. Various aspects are explored, such as how Maori newspapers have portrayed Chinese publications and vice versa, the changing demography of Chinese and Maori populations, Maori-Chinese marriages, and the ancient migration of both groups. The ethnically diverse contributors--from Maori to Chinese to European scholars--tackle numerous questions from many angles as well, such as Do the Maori resent Chinese immigrants? Do Chinese New Zealanders understand the role of the tangata whenua? and Have Maori and Chinese formed alliances based on common values and history? The result is an engaging portrait of the past and present relationships between two important peoples. Since race relations in New Zealand have usually been examined in terms of Maori and Pakeha, this unique exploration of Maori-Chinese relations portrays a much richer and more complex social fabric.

All Who Live on Islands introduces a bold new voice in New Zealand literature. In these intimate and entertaining essays, Rose Lu takes us through personal history—a shopping trip with her Shanghai-born grandparents, her career in the Wellington tech industry, an epic hike through the Himalayas—to explore friendship, the weight of stories told and not told about diverse cultures, and the reverberations of our parents' and grandparents' choices. Frank and compassionate, Rose Lu's stories illuminate the cultural and linguistic questions that migrants face, as well as what it is to be a young person living in 21st-century Aotearoa New Zealand.

A 2010 Human Rights Commission report found that Asian people reported higher levels of discrimination than any other minority in New Zealand. K. Emma Ng shines light onto the persistence of anti-Asian sentiment in New Zealand. Her anecdotal account is based on her personal experience as a second-generation young Chinese-New Zealand woman. When Asian people have been living here since the gold rushes of the 1860s, she asks, what will it take for them to be fully accepted as New Zealanders?

To most New Zealanders, the word 'Hauhau' conjures up a picture of bloodthirsty fanaticism. This book, the definitive study of the Pai Marire or 'Hauhau' M&āori movement in the 1860s, presents a different view. Pai Marire is shown as being a search for ways of meeting European settlement and domination, and of using European skills and literacy, on M&āori terms and without compromising M&āori identity. Sources include the Ua Rongopai notebook, which contains a record of the words of Te Ua Haum&ēne, the prophet of Pai Marire, himself.

This book provides a detailed historical and sociological context for Maori-Chinese New Zealanders concentrating on the role that schooling has played in the formation of their identity. Lee (Ngati Mahuta, Zhong Shan and Taishan Chinese) shows how racism in New Zealand's schools has impacted on members of this community. She shows that the identity of this unique cultural group is the result of a fascinating history on the margins of mainstream New Zealand society, one often intersected by racism, exclusion and colonialism. However, Maori-Chinese draw strength from their different traditions, taking pride in their unique identity while moving between the different worlds of Chinese, Maori and 'mainstream' New Zealand

This book focuses on new immigrant families from the People’s Republic of China to New Zealand and investigates how these families have adapted to New Zealand immigration policy regime, which does not accommodate their cultural preference to live as multigenerational families easily. The book analyses a three-generation framework: First-generation adult immigrants, their children and older parents. It examines how migratory mobility and intergenerational dynamics configure migratory trajectories of individual family members and shape their family lives and sense of identity. The book sheds light on how different family generations pursue their own interests and goals while maintaining family unity and cohesiveness in contexts of increasing transnational mobility opportunities and constraints. It also investigates how familial ties, transnational connections and a sense of identity and belonging are defined and redefined during the process of transnational migration. This book can serve as a heuristic reference to and meaningful comparative parameter for studying transnational family migration in other contexts. As a significant theoretical contribution to the theory of transnational family formation in contexts where restrictive immigration policies result in members of multigenerational families living across different countries, this book will be of interest to academics in the fields of sociology, anthropology, race and ethnic studies as well as Asian and Chinese studies.

The only book that comprehensively covers the fortunes of Chinese immigrants in New Zealand from the earliest encounters in the mid-1800s, to the present day (including transnationalism) offering valuable data and expert viewpoints for international study and comparision. A timely book that will strike chords with the Chinese communiities in Australia, Canada and the United states, because of the strikingly similar expieriences of members of those communities at the hands of colonial governments and sometimes xenophobic societies.

"Collects fiction, poetry, personal accounts, historical episodes, anecdotes, transcribed oral narratives, newspaper articles and more, all bearing in one way or another on New Zealand perceptions of China and contacts with China and the Chinese"--Jacket flap.