I was lucky enough to spend my childhood in the lands I’m indigenous to: Tahiti and Norfolk Island. However, like many of us immigrants, my family moved to Australia in hopes of a better future. Here, I lived on the lands of the Biripi and Warimi people and, later, Anaiwan country. I then embarked on my own journey, this time, moving to Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa. I’ve spent my life traversing Indigenous lands, airports, departure and arrival gates, customs, and different embassies.
As tauiwi, we recognise our fortune in settling on this whenua, albeit unceded. We recognise our responsibility to tangata whenua and honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi, which has allowed us to be here today. As immigrants and refugees, we recognise the global fight for indigenous sovereignty. We recognise the urgent need for freedom. A free Palestine, Kanaky, Eritrea, West Papua. Let us be guided by them in achieving mana motuhake, worldwide.
This edition of Salient highlights our students’ migration stories. Whether it be of safety, survival, or opportunity; each so special. What a blessing it’s been to read and share all of your stories.
From my ancestors to yours, māuruuru roa.
Mauatua Fa'ara-Reynolds (she/they)
I was only a toddler when we immigrated from The Netherlands, and just an adult when I became an Aotearoa dual-national. But despite being born in Utrecht and raised around Auckland, the taste of home is neither stamppot nor fish and chips. It’s sticky kwee lapis and steaming roti koekoes, it’s gado-gado slathered in warm pindasaus. These tastes have filtered from Indonesia through my mother’s family; so I fall into this weird Indo-Dutch New Zealand in-between identity.
Which I think is the most beautiful and painful thing about migration. You’ll never quite fit any one mould, you’ll never not pause at the ‘ethnicity’ question. It’s shit sometimes, when you wish you had a single soil in which to set your roots. But it’s oh, so wonderful to see the world through different cultural lenses, to sing with a multilingual tongue and smell familiar spices in a foreign kitchen.
Neither Mauatua nor I are refugees; our migrations have always been by choice. Not everyone is in a similar position of privilege, especially not those who have been displaced and had to rebuild their lives on unfamiliar land. All us migrants, with the infinite histories we carry, add to Aotearoa’s deeply furrowed cultural landscape. These unique spaces give birth to some of the most beautiful works of art, and I am so grateful to have this issue graced by such stunning wordsmiths.
Van harte bedankt iedereen x
Guy van Egmond (he/him)
コメント