Kiwis asked: Who the heck do we think we are?
Identity campaign out to widen idea of what ‘New Zealander’ means
Sometimes when Retirement Commissioner Diane Maxwell’s Samoan partner is at functions in their home suburb of Remuera, people ask him to take their coats.
When he’s out walking in the central Auckland garden suburb, others scurry away.
And when the couple’s 5-year-old son took part in a classroom project on family roots, Maxwell pointed to Samoa — only to discover the home of his grandparents hadn’t been included on the map at the school.
”[I thought] How is he going to be proud of his heritage?”
Maxwell knows what it’s like to feel out of place. She spent 20 years in the United Kingdom from the age of 10.
At her new British school she was publicly shamed by a teacher over her feet — hardened by a barefoot Kiwi summer — but her eventual return to New Zealand also sparked feelings of displacement.
“For years I’ve been thinking about what it means to be a New Zealander. I’m not big on rugby . . . but I got the impression very early on that those statements were very ‘Un-New Zealand’. It took me a long time to work out that I could be [myself ] and still be a New Zealander.”
So when high-profile lawyer Mai Chen asked Maxwell to join other Kiwis in talking publicly about identity for a social media campaign she was starting, Maxwell didn’t hesitate.
#myidentity is aimed at showing everyone has multiple identities and, by doing so, breaking down divisive agendas which have driven major change overseas, such as Brexit in the United Kingdom and the election of Donald Trump in the United States.
The campaign, which Chen is championing as chairwoman of the Superdiversity Centre for Law, Policy and Business, will be launched by Governor-General Dame Patsy Reddy on Thursday.
Reddy and several other highprofile Kiwis, including Green Party co-leader James Shaw, former
Prime Minister Dame
Jenny Shipley, GirlBoss founder
Alexia Hilbertidou, comedian Ete Eteuati, psychiatrist Hinemoa
Elder, National Council for Women president Vanisa Dhiru and ACC boss
Scott Pickering have all shared their identity in video clips for the campaign.
Others are also involved, including secondary school pupils. Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has been invited to take part but is yet to confirm.
Maxwell said she hoped the campaign would encourage people to challenge themselves about assumptions they made about those around them.
“Maybe think a bit more about how we are going to make this multi-cultural society work for everybody. I don’t think it will just happen, it needs some intentional work”. Chen is challenging all New Zealanders to film a video of their identity and post it under #myidentity.
She was inspired in part by reading a book by Nobel-winning economist and philosopher Amartya Sen challenging the falsehood that people have only a single identity.
“We all have multiple identities . . . most importantly identity is a choice. You can’t say to me, ‘oh you’re not a Kiwi’. I am a Kiwi — that’s my choice.”
Her own experiences since moving to New Zealand from Taiwan as a child also inspired her.
Chen knows what it’s like to be stereotyped — she’s had people address her using the Japanese greeting konnichiwa, she’s been mistaken for Nadia Lim and Pansy Wong, she’s heard insults in the street.
“People will look at you and they will automatically stereotype you.”
New Zealand was already diverse — fourth most in the world for Auckland and fourth most in the OECD for New Zealand — and that was going to increase, she said.
“In the 2013 Census it found we had over 210 ethnicities and that 25 per cent or more New Zealanders were not born here. Imagine what the 2018 Census is going to find, particularly when you know that Statistics New Zealand has put out projections that by 2025 one in three in Auckland will be Asian.”
It was for everyone’s benefit that our curiosity about each other increased, Chen said.
“We have successfully managed all these years to have numerous different ethnicities and cultures living side by side. We need that to continue for our economic prosperity, because social capital is fundamental to people wanting to be here.
“It’s important we’re not saying to people ‘we’re excluding you, you can never become an insider’, therefore you’re going to have to drive a cab all your life [because] people that look like you can never get the top job.
“It’s not us and them, it’s all of us.”