Sukhmani Khorana, Bhavya Chitranshi and I recently completed research about the experiences of six cisgender South Asian-Australian women who gave birth during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Design by Georgia Hodgkinson.

A note about language in this report: The South Asian “women” in our study identified as cisgender. However, we have used a gender-additive approach to language to be respectful and inclusive of trans, genderqueer and intersex people by using gender-neutral language alongside the language of womanhood. For example, both ‘maternal’ and ‘parental’, ‘breast- feeding’ and ‘chest-feeding’, and so on (Green & Riddington, 2020).

Prior to the pandemic negatively racialised women experienced barriers to healthcare and a lack of social support, which were further exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic. International border closures in Australia combined with local mitigation strategies inhibited social and cultural support from families, impacting many migrant mothers who gave birth for the first time in Australia. Many hospitals in New South Wales and Victoria instituted restrictions to birthing services as a way of reducing exposure to the coronavirus during the pandemic. These restrictions varied, but included not allowing partner attendance for antenatal appointments, reducing support people to one person that could be present during the labor and birth, and sometimes not permitting partners on postnatal wards.

South Asian women were recruited via social media, and qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted between May and October 2021 via video, following ethical approval from the RMIT University Ethics Committee. Findings from our in-depth interviews indicate that perinatal experiences were adversely impacted by:

a) limited face-to-face support from healthcare providers;
b) limited access to partner support during appointments and in childbirth;
c) isolation and mental health impacts of not having access to family networks, particularly to those who could provide culturally specific perinatal knowledge and postpartum support;
d) increased reliance on an ecosystem of online support including apps, social media groups and credible websites, which had mixed results in terms of being culturally appropriate.

Our research suggests that pre-existing limitations of healthcare providers, services and apps with regard to culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) women in Australia have been amplified during the pandemic. Disruptions in the physical and social presence of family, friends and healthcare workers, caused by international travel restrictions and changing healthcare practices during the pandemic, add significantly to the everyday stress, anxiety and challenges faced by new parents. That responsibilization – the shifting back of responsibility from health services to mothers and their families – has led to mothers shouldering many of the burdens of a new transition by themselves, rather than in a system of collective care by wider family or partners as they might have expected.

These health system reconfigurations combined with the absence of support from family could have longitudinal adverse consequences for new parents and their children. Online Facebook groups from the mothers’ countries of origin or cultural backgrounds, or for mothers who had babies due in the same month, represented a significant source of information and support for the participants. This was particularly important at a time when women’s capacities to engage in traditional cultural practices, which provide practical, emotional and informational support, were compromised by the inability to garner familial support. In the context of a long-term pandemic, we suggest that health services: use flexible harm reduction approaches to facilitate parental support (rather than institute blanket bans), engage in active outreach, and that services are better integrated and smartphone enabled.

At the weekend it was my parents’ wedding anniversary. They got married in Dar es Salaam and one of the distinguishing features of their wedding was the hockey stick “guard of honour” that their friends created for them outside the church after the service (my Mum played hockey for Tanzania). The family capability and Goan cultural propensity to excel at sport (take Seraphino Antao the first Kenyan athlete to win a gold medal at the 1962 Commonwealth Games) skipped right past me. Mostly I enjoy the social, political and cultural issues in relation to sport like the national anthems, the medals and the underdog winning. The recent completion of a PhD (yes really) has also given me some confidence and time to begin to explore questions like the neocolonial exploitation of African players by European football clubs and how raw materials in the form of players are sourced, refined and exported for consumption and wealth generation in Europe leaving the African periphery impoverished. But that’s another blogpost. This post is about racism and sport, but I needed to do a geneaological manouevre and trace my own relationship with sport through my experience of being a Goan via East Africa now resident in Aotearo New Zealand. I’ve mapped some of the ways in which sport has been mobilised such as the re-shaping of personhood for colonised peoples and in turn the ways in which western sport has been appropriated by diasporic and marginalised communities as a form of resistance. I then talk about the prevalence of racism in sport, the contributing factors and what can be done.

Photo of Goans in Dar es Salaam via Jo Birkmeyer-submitted to Mervyn A Lobo’s blog 

The establishment of sport in colonial contexts was linked with Western Christian church activity and colonialism. Sports were introduced to meet both the needs of churches and colonial governments in transforming bodies into desirable shapes and capabilities so imperial reform could be undertaken by locals thereby creating physical and moral reform against existing less palatable indigenous norms. Games like cricket and football were intended to reinforce the superiority of colonial culture and transmit a particular moral order and values that were seen lacking in the colonised group such as team spirit, commitment, the sacrifice of individual aspirations to the group, bravery and so forth. Particular versions of masculinity were also being promulgated in a context where many Asian men were seen as effeminate.

In the diaspora, Goans formed clubs and institutions replicating village ties and loyalties back home which helped to allay loneliness, cultural alienation and the challenges of navigating a new country. In 1921 it was estimated that almost half a million Goans lived in Goa, Dama and Diu and that up to 200,000 Goans lived in British India, East Africa or Mesopotamia (James Mills, 2002). One quarter of that number lived in Bombay. Expatriate sports confirmed ties with the homeland, created a sense of community and provided an oasis from the demands of navigating belonging in racially stratified communities. Every Saturday after mass at the Holy Family Cathedral in Nairobi my parents would make their way with us to the Railway Goan Institute founded in 1909 which later became the Railway Institute in 1967. I have great memories of hurtling around (we seemed to do a lot of running along those wooden floors) and being spoiled rotten by my parent’s friends who would provide us with bottomless supplies of coke and crisps. Goans in Kenya also formed other clubs like The Goan Institute Mombasa in 1901, Goan Institute Nairobi in 1905 and the Goan Gymkhana in 1936 with sports an important focus of diasporic life.

Closer to where I live now in New Zealand, Indians in Wellington formed their own hockey team in 1936, which also marked the year that the Auckland Indian Sports Club (AISC) was established.

Photo reproduced with permission from Te Ara. Original article: Nancy Swarbrick. ‘Indians’, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, updated 1-Sep-11
URL: http://www.TeAra.govt.nz/en/indians/5/5

Many other communities also made sport a focus of their activities, for example the New Zealand Chinese Association Annual Sports Tournament (AKA Easter Tournament) started in 1947 and runs every Easter Weekend. It consists of a sports tournament and cultural event for Chinese members and competitive sports like basketball, volley ball, touch rugby, netball, lawn bowls and golf are enjoyed. Similarly pan-ethnic events like the Ethnic Soccer Cup at the Auckland International Cultural festival are eagerly awaited and full of good natured fun and tough competition.

Photo by the Localist

Sport seemingly offers a transcendent space, where cohesion and connection is possible not only within and across diasporic communities, but also across dominant and minority communities. A phrase bandied around frequently last year was the way in which hosting the Rugby World cup in New Zealand “brought us together as a nation”.  Who of us will ever forget the ferocious and irrepressible passion of the Tongan community in New Zealand supporting their team? I love the ideal that sport can be a place where people with diverse interests, histories and values can be unified in one setting. I’ve watched with growing feelings of warmth the ways in which our Pacific players have infused “the game” of rugby with flair and energy and increased the ratio of tattoos, dreadlocks and eye-liner.

This illusion that sport can be a connecting force is challenged in Sara Ahmed‘s critique of the “happy” multicultural film Bend it Like Beckham. Directed by Kenyan-born, Punjabi British filmmaker Gurinder Chadha, Ahmed suggests that the central message of the film is that “the would-be- citizen who embraces the national game is rewarded with happiness”. The feel good vibe of this film ignores the negative affects surrounding racism and unproblematically represents visibly different migrants as patriarchal, closed, traditional, fixed and unchanging. White people can be inspired and warmed by Jess’ migrant success, as she bends the ball (a metaphor for disrupting cultural barriers) without needing to feel guilty about racism. The film plays into the notion that success is the reward for integration and is also proof that racism can be overcome.

My fantasy that the arrival of the first Asian All Black will give Asians more street cred and admiration has taken a battering with the racist responses to the “Linsanity” phenomenon. Jeremy Lin, the Asian American son of Taiwanese immigrants and graduate of Harvard has experienced spectacular NBA basketball success but the headline “Chink in the Armor,” or the tweet by Jason Whitlock referring to “two inches of pain” have deeply hurt many Asian Americans. Understandable, given the limited representation of Asian Americans in mainstream media and because the blatant racism provided a barometer reading of how this group are viewed in a racially charged landscape. But as Long, Tongue, Spracklen and others have noted, we live in a racist society so why should there not be racism in sport? Racist taunts and chants at matches and the throwing of banana skins at players have been supplemented by attacks via social media adding a new viciousness. A Welsh student was recently been imprisoned for using twitter to spread racist rants about acritically ill footballer Fabrice Muamba and locally, unhappy fans took to twitter to racially denigrate Blues coach Pat Lam.

Sport media coverage contributes to inequity by not reflecting social and cultural diversity. The MARS – Media against racism in sport programme– developed by The Council of Europe and the European Union recognises the following inequalities in representation in sports news stories:

  • Gender under-representation -where women comprise only one quarter of all stories despite making up half the population.
  • Migrants making up around 10% of the EU population but representing less than 5% of the main actors in the news in Europe.
  • Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) people representing roughly 6% of the population of the United Kingdom but accounting for less than 1% of the population seen on TV.
  • 20% of the British population has an impairment or disability but less than 1% are represented on British TV.

These inequalities in sports media coverage reflect broader societal inequalities. The New Zealand Human Rights Commission’s annual review of race relations Tūi Tūi Tuituiā, Race Relations in 2011 released in March 2012 noted a “continuing degree of racial prejudice, significant racial inequalities, and the exclusion of minorities from full participation in all aspects of society”. The Commission identified racial prejudice in the form of: “negative attitudes to the Treaty, to indigenous rights, to Māori, Pacific peoples, Asians, migrants and refugees”. The report noted that these prejudices were implicated in discrimination, marginalisation, and inequalities, ultimately proving a barrier to the realisation of the social and economic benefits of diversity.

The racist soup of Pakeha media culture not only excludes particular groups but it also reproduces pathological, deficient and destructive representations of groups that are already discrimiinated against and marginalised. Take the “common sense” racism of Paul Henry, Michael Laws and Paul Holmes who all compete for New Zealand’s top racist.Take the comments by the former All Black and World cup Rugby Ambassador Andy Haden, who referred to a “three darkies”selection policy by rugby franchise The Crusaders. When Haden made an apology it was “to anyone who was offended” by the comments. He received a smack on the hand with a wet hanky from our Prime Minister John Key despite the outrage and I don’t think he had to resign. Key defended Haden’s actions as having a precedent in Paul Holmes‘ “cheeky darkie” comments in 2003. The gutless and useless Broadcasting Standards Authority refused to uphold 10 complaints over the  comments on Radio station Newstalk ZB. They acknowledged that the comments went beyond the limits of acceptability and breached broadcast standards, but they were happy that the actions taken internally by broadcaster were adequate. Thank goodness for writers with a conscience like Tapu Misa who is my only reason for continuing to purchase the morning newspaper and the long missed Karlo Mila from the Dom Post who can still remind us through her poetry that words scar.

Poster by Dudley Benson (2012)

Where there is power, there is resistance (Thanks Foucault). Racism (and anti-Semitism) in sport have also provided a space for protest and resistance. American sprinters Sam Stoller and Marty Glickman who were the only two Jews on the USA Olympic team, were pulled from their relay team on the day of the competition in the 1936 Berlin Olympics,. There was speculation that the American Olympic committee did not want two Jews to win gold medals in the context of Nazi Germany and Hitler’s Aryan pride. These are the same games where Jesse Owens won four gold medals.  Fast forward to the 1968 Olympics when Tommy Smith and John Carlos powerfully raised their fists on the podium in a Black power salute. The symbolism of this gesture referenced the black American community (black gloves); black American poverty (black socks, no shoes), black American lynching (Smith wore a scarf and Carlos a bead necklace).

Source Jonny Weeks:The Guardian

Closer to home, look at the stand many New Zealanders took against the Springbok rugby tour of 1981. 150,000 people took part in over 200 demonstrations in 28 centres and 1500 people were charged with protest related offences. The protests were in response to New Zealand opposition to the apartheid and segregation practiced in South Africa. These apartheid policies had impacted on team selection for the All Blacks, and Māori players had been excluded from touring South Africa by the New Zealand Rugby Football Union (NZRFU) until 1970. I take my inspiration from this event that “New Zealanders” might take their history into account and challenge the unacceptable comments against Pat Lam and show leadership over such behaviour.

So what are we to do about racism in sport? How can we use the values of sport, ostensibly fairness, teamwork, a fair go, equal opportunity, respect and care for each other to help us create a real level playing field, locally and globally? We can protest the sponsorship of the London Olympics by Dow (Union Carbide was merged into Dow and responsible for the tragedy at Bhopal not least 25,000 deaths and much much suffering). We can ask much more of our junk food media and not consume it as Jennifer Sybel suggests.  We can ask that the groups in our communities that are under-represented (disabled, women, LGBTQ, visibly different) get a fairer go and that  stories that purport to represent them contribute positively to our cultural and social diversity. We can take more responsibility for the actions of racist tweeters and taunters and recognise their actions come from consuming the same junk food media that we do. Rather than individualising their behaviour we can ask questions about what kind of playing field we have created and whether we want to put any effort into creating an alternative.

Illustration by Jim Sillavan for the Guardian

 

 

Originally published in: DeSouza, R. (2010). New mothers in a new land: Indian migrant mothers talk. In S. Bandyopadhyay (Ed.), India in New Zealand: Local identities, global relations (pp. 207-217). Dunedin: Otago University Press.

Ethnic identity and acculturation become important issues in the transition to parenthood. The birth of a child presents parents with the opportunity to consider what values are important to them and whether they will look to the future or the past (or both) to determine what will sustain them in their role as parents and nurture their newborn to adulthood. This sifting process involves parents interpreting and accepting or rejecting the values, beliefs, and practices from both their heritage culture and their current community.

Migrant Indian mothers play a pivotal role in such negotiations. This chapter presents research findings from a study on the maternity experiences of Indian migrant women living in Auckland, New Zealand in late 20062. It begins with a brief discussion of the literature around the process of acculturation and its influence on Indian health and maternal health in particular. It then looks at the inherited beliefs and practices that shape the maternity experiences of Indian mothers, especially the centrality of motherhood to identity, and the idealisation and rewards of self-denial and good behaviour. Finally, the chapter discusses the study’s findings. These exemplify how motherhood is idealised and viewed as a socially powerful role among immigrant Indian mothers, and that these mothers have also taken on the messages of New Zealand models of motherhood (and parenting in general) where self-monitoring is required in order to be ‘a good mother’.

Originally published in:  DeSouza, R. (2011). ‘All of me meets here, an alchemy of parts’ – Negotiating my identities in New Zealand. In P. Voci & J. Leckie (Eds.), Localizing Asia in Aotearoa (pp. 231-245). Wellington: Dunmore Publishing.

He could not see that i could be both … The body in front of him was already inscribed within the gendered social relations of the colonial sandwich. i could not just ‘be’. I had to name an identity, no matter that this naming rendered invisible all the other identities of gender, caste, religion, linguistic group, generation (Brah, 1996, p. 3).

Introduction

The title of this chapter comes from a poem by Chris Abani (2000) whom I met many years ago at the Poetics of exile conference. This line from the poem captures the intention of this chapter, to bring parts of myself together. I am often asked the question ‘where are you from?’ Depending on the person asking, it can imply that I have come from somewhere else, not here; that I am visibly and noticeably different; and sometimes reflects a desire on the part of the person asking to either connect, name or categorize. For the sake of economy, choosing one identity and keeping things simple inevitably backfires. answering Tanzania, the country of my birth, and that of my parents, or Goa, India, the place of my ancestors, results in more questions. The question has different nuances in the place of my ancestors and in the place where I choose to live: Aotearoa/New Zealand. Being asked where one is from more easily translates to ‘whom do you belong to?’ and the reference points are intimate, connecting me to a village and to a family. In Māori contexts, similar notions of belonging to place and people are invoked, where intimacy and connection rather than categorization are emphasized. such a question highlights issues of identity, difference and belonging. The process of active negotiation of identities in relation to oneself is the focus of my chapter. I centre on a little-known minority group within a larger indian umbrella identity – the Goan diaspora living in New Zealand. My aim is to provide a complex answer to the question of where I am from and, in doing so, provide a platform for further scholarship about the Goan diaspora in New Zealand.

 

This piece was originally published at Tangatawhenua.com http://news.tangatawhenua.com/archives/14051

On October 3rd 2011 as part of the series: Are we there yet? These articles are being written as a prelude to the election in November, and focus on the ‘wish list’ of Generation Xers; their hopes, dreams, aspirations and vision for New Zealand society.

I have two enduring memories of arriving in New Zealand with my family in June 1975. On the drive to our new home from Mangere, I was stuck by two sights, the first were the abundant citrus trees, promising sweetness and growth in this new life and the second, the Blockhouse Bay Foodtown supermarket where we shopped for our first meal before it closed (and no I don’t remember what that was!).

The supermarket too represented abundance but the shopping trip was a portent of the self-reliance my family would need to develop to survive in this country. A marked contrast to the hospitality of home cooking that we might have expected as newcomers from the other side of the world. Later, I found out that Tom Ah Chee a New Zealand-born Chinese, was one of the three small business owners to invest in the Foodtown, New Zealand’s first American-style supermarket.

The neoliberal narrative of migration is that my family came to New Zealand (like other migrants) for a better life. Another explanation is that we were pulled to New Zealand as a result of the unevenness of life chances created by colonial capitalism. As South Asians in East Africa we were what Avtar Brah calls the filling in the colonial sandwich. Occupying a precarious uneasy place that had neither the imperial support of the British coloniser nor the entitled weight of indigeneity. Migration to New Zealand offered an escape from the colonial sandwich to maybe a liberal pizza, a place of equal footing, a safe haven, replete with economic and academic opportunities. “New Zealand has no ‘colour bar’” I remember my Mother proudly telling friends. Unfortunately, like the settler colony we’d left, the dynamic was the same but the nuances were different. In East Africa Asians had a symbiotic relationship with Africans and were understood (a checklist of some of the popular foods in Kenya, shows how our culinary destinies were interwoven despite the imminent exclusionary nationalist future: kachumbar, chapati, pilau, chai, samosa to name a few). In New Zealand, food provided an entry point in a different way. I sold Maori cookbooks to raise funds for the Hoani Waititi marae in Henderson.

The migrant’s new life is characterised by a delicate dance between preservation and hope. Treasuring a past that might never be retrieved while hoping to succeed and make good on the sacrifices that have been incurred. But other kinds of reconciliation are also necessary; requiring that migrants develop what Ghassan Hage calls an ethical relationship with the history of colonial capitalism/colonisation in which they are implicated. The narrative of migration as an individual choice framed by the desire for betterment must be considered against the collusive role of migrants in usurping the indigenous. As must being subsumed into larger stories of ethnic communities as uninvited foreign guests, in need of careful management and modernisation so as not to lower the cultural standards of the receiving society (“our way of life”).

Reckoning with a colonial history requires coming to terms with New Zealand’s history of racism. Knowing that anti-Chinese and anti-Indian sentiment has been evident since the arrival of these groups in the 1800s, where they represented the largest groups of migrants and refugees, and were viewed as threats to jobs, morals and sexuality. Chinese particularly were the targets of exclusionary immigration legislation through the 1881 Chinese Immigration Act, which exacted a poll tax of £10 from all Chinese arriving in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Indians, as British subjects were not exempt from hostility nor restrictive legislative practices despite their status. The 1899 Immigration Restriction Act restricted Indian and other Asian immigration and the formation of the White New Zealand League, in 1926 epitomised this hostility. The latter formed to counter the potential for contamination of bloodline, values and lifestyle posed by Chinese and Indian men. The introduction of the 1920 ‘permit system’ reflected demands for increasing prohibitions and excluding and/or repatriating Asian migrants.

The end of an unofficial White New Zealand migration policy was not brought about by a desire for equity or fairness. Economics was central to this policy shift, and the 1986 review of immigration was a response to a ‘brain drain’ and decreased immigration to New Zealand. Consequently migrant selection shifted from preferred source countries (largely European) to being skills based in the Immigration Act of 1987, whereby a points system was introduced. The introduction of the Business Immigration Policy and  ‘Family reunification’ and ‘Humanitarian/refugee’ categories plus the growth of a thriving export education market consolidated this long-term trend to diversity. Consequently Asians grew in number and became more visible and central to the national economy and the number of people from Middle Eastern, Latin American and African communities (MELAA) increased. However, the residue of the old attitudes and fears remains, migrants and refugees are held with great ambivalence- disadvantaged in the employment stakes but welcomed for the spice and innovation their presence adds.

I began this piece by talking about my family’s welcome to New Zealand through consumer capitalism at Foodtown. On reflection, the supermarket is an apt metaphor for migration, both for the visibility and promise of its products and for the invisibility of its processes. Neoliberal narratives of individualism and ‘choice’ render invisible both the dispossession of the local and indigenous and the economic imbalance necessary for the movement of goods and people to the West in order for capitalism to flourish. Yet if these two aspects of migration were made visible, in the same way that more ethical consumptive practices are becoming a feature of contemporary life then other kinds of relationships might be made possible. In the case of ethnic communities, direct negotiation with Maori for a space where indigenous Maori claims for tino rangatiratanga, sovereignty and authority are supported while the mana of newcomers to Aotearoa is upheld hold promise.

So, I close this piece with an alternative story of welcome. Two years ago we had a Refugee conference at AUT University, where Tainui, Refugee Services and a group of refugees talked about the powhiri process they had instituted as part of the orientation of newly resettled refugees in Hamilton. Their presentation included a powhiri during which a refugee participant delivered his mihi in Swahili. Much to his astonishment when he came to sing his Swahili waiata I joined in. It was a moving experience. In his korero he said that the original powhiri in Hamilton had helped him to stand tall and regain his mana after the dehumanising experiences of his refugee journey. On a larger scale, Maori King Tuheitia, invited ethnic communities members to a special powhiri during the 5th Koroneihana (Coronation) celebration at Turangawaewae marae in August this year. Isn’t this the kind of Aotearoa we want? Where standing tall is possible for all of us?

Ruth DeSouza
Are we there yet? Contributor


Footnote

The process of direct negotiation with Maori has already begun and there are many resources available.

The Indian community is a growing minority in New Zealand, making up the second largest group in the category ‘Asian’ after Chinese communities.

You can watch a short video (4.38), excerpted from the TV Series Here to Stay about Indians in New Zealand. by clicking on the link. I talk about my parents’ decision to migrate and the experience of arrival: Ruth DeSouza: Arriving in New Zealand.

I’ve also provided a very brief background of Indian migration to New Zealand from an article I wrote: DeSouza, R. (2006). Researching the health needs of elderly Indian migrants in New Zealand. Indian Journal of Gerontology, 20 (1&2), 159-170.

The 2006 Census found that European New Zealander’s make up 67.6% of the population of people in New Zealand, 14.6 % of people as Māori. Pacific Peoples make up 6.9% of the population, Asians 9.2% and Middle Eastern, Latin American & African people 0.9%. The Census also found that 11.1% of people identified themselves as New Zealanders (Statistics New Zealand, 2006). Within the Asian group, Indians had the highest percentage increase in population between 2001 and 2006  increasing from 62,190    to 104,583 a 68.2% increase. The previous Census of 2001, found that Indian-New Zealanders were highly qualified and more likely to receive income from wages and salaries than the total New Zealand population and as likely as the overall New Zealand population to receive income from self-employment thus Indians have the second highest median annual income among the Asian ethnic groups, are involved in white collar employment and, at 77%, had the highest labour force participation rate of all the Asian ethnic groups (Statistics New Zealand, 2002a).  A relatively high level of home ownership (41%) was also found. This profile of Indian New Zealanders is a recent development, early Indian migration was primarily derived from two rural areas of India, Gujarat and Punjab, and arrivals were mainly traders, farmers, artisans or small businessmen (Tiwari, 1980).

The Indian connection with New Zealand began in the late 1800s through Lascars (Indian seamen) and Sepoys (Indian soldiers) on British East India Company ships that brought supplies to the Australian convict settlements. The earliest Indian to arrive in New Zealand is thought to have jumped ship in 1810 to marry a Mâori woman. The Indians that followed came mainly from Gujarat and Punjab, areas of India which had been exposed to emigration, and were driven by economic factors. Initially Indians were considered British subjects and could enter New Zealand freely. This changed with the passing of the Immigration Restriction Act 1899.

Indian migration increased until 1920, when the New Zealand Government introduced restrictions under a ‘permit system’ (Museum of New Zealand: Te Papa Tongarewa, 2004). In 1926, the White New Zealand League was formed as concern grew about the apparent threat that Chinese and Indian men appeared to present in terms of miscegenation and alien values and lifestyle. Discrimination against Indians manifested in restrictions around joining associations and accessing amenities such as barbers and movie theatres. By 1945, families (mostly of shopkeepers and fruiterers) were getting established and marriages of second-generation New Zealand Indians were occurring. As well as Gujuratis and Punjabis, smaller numbers of Indians came from locations such as Fiji, Africa, Malaysia, the Caribbean, North America, the United Kingdom and Western Europe. The proportion of Fiji-born Indian immigrants to New Zealand rose significantly as a result of the Fijian coups of 1987 and 2000 (Swarbrick, 2004).

DeSouza, R. (2006). Researching the health needs of elderly Indian migrants in New Zealand. Indian Journal of Gerontology, 20 (1&2), 159-170.

The older adult population in New Zealand is increasing and becoming more ethnically diverse. With this change comes a requirement for health and social service professionals to become more knowledgeable about the cultural needs of their clients and to provide care that is cognisant of language, culture and religion. Indians have a long history of settlement in New Zealand; however this has not been reflected in policy or service provision. The reasons for this include a focus on the bicultural relationship with indigenous Mâori and a relatively small Indian population. The Immigration Act 1987 has led to an increase in the cultural diversity of migrants and the number of Indians. Policy has not kept pace with demographic changes and there is a need to develop the health sector to work with Indians and other migrants. This article begins by tracing the changing demographics of age and ethnicity in New Zealand and the relationship with migration policy. Indian history, settlement and health in New Zealand are explored then a brief overview of existing research is presented along with the identification of gaps and recommendations for an expansion of current health research and practice agendas such as cultural safety and ethnicity data collection.

Keywords: Indians, health, settlement, Asian, older adults, New Zealand

This piece was previously published in the Goanet Reader: May 22nd  2005

We often think of migration as moving between two places, my story is one of many journeys that spans the generations.

I was born in what was then Tanganyika and is now Tanzania, into a Catholic family originating from Goa, India. As a child, I was exposed to multiple heritages and languages; Maragoli, Swahili, Konkani and English. My family’s migration history began with my great-grandfather leaving Goa to work in Burma and both sets of grandparents subsequently migrated to Tanganyika. My parents own double migration took them first to Kenya in 1967 and then to New Zealand in 1975.

Leaving Africa was a result of the unease caused by the expulsion of ‘Asians’ — meaning people from Bangladesh, Pakistan and India — from neighbouring Uganda in 1972. East Africa in the early 1970s saw increasing crime targeted against Indian people, who were the shop owners and business people and our daily lives were being increasingly affected by the process of ‘Kenyanisation’, which privileged Kenyans over all others.

I recall going to sleep frightened and being told to pray for safety. My parents wanted to live away from fear, be able to take advantage of educational opportunities and above all build “a better life” for their children.

In 1975, they decided to emigrate and after some failed attempts to get to the United States we made arrangements to move to New Zealand. Our family knew little about this country; one promotional film and a friend who lived in Wellington. In order to afford the cost of the airfare, we had to sell virtually all our possessions, others were given away, even my parents wedding presents were left behind.

To understand my family history of migration, it is important to put it in context. Goa is located in the middle of an abundant coastal strip on the south west Coast of India which has an area of 3,701 square kilometres and a primarily agrarian economy with, more recently, a tourism and service industry.

The name ‘Goa’ comes from ‘Gomant’ of the Mahabharata and apparently “Goa was reclaimed by Lord Parshuram from the mighty sea by shooting an arrow into it.” (Mahajan, 1978, p.22). This sounds remarkably like the Mori mythology of the discovery of the North island Maui. Goa was renowned as a port as far back as the third century BC, when Buddhism was spreading through India. It was a Portuguese colony from 1510 until 1961, at which time Goa was liberated by the Indian army. On May 31, 1987 Goa became the 25th state in the Republic of India (Newman, 1999).

The arrival of the Portuguese led to Goans becoming a migrating society. The Portuguese came to Goa “to seek Christians and spices” (Albuquerque, 1988, p.25) and Catholicism became entrenched in Goa due to the intense proselytising campaign using “bribery, threat and torture” by the Portuguese (Robinson, 2000, p.2421).

Goa’s inquisition began in 1560 and ended in 1812 (Robinson, 2000). Inquisitions were used by the Portuguese to prevent defection back to other faiths and had far reaching implications. In the laws and prohibitions of the inquisition in 1736, over 42 Hindu practices were prohibited (Newman, 1999). They were implemented through the eradication of indigenous cultural practices such as ceremonies, fasts, the use of the sacred basil or tulsi plant, flowers and leaves for ceremony or ornament and the exchange of betel and areca nuts for occasions such as marriage (Robinson, 2000). Methods such as repressive laws, demolition of temples and mosques, destruction of holy books, fines and the forcible conversion of orphans were used (Mascarenhas-Keyes, 1979).

FAR REACHING

There were other far reaching changes that took place during the occupation by the Portuguese, these included the prohibition of traditional musical instruments and singing of celebratory verses, which were replaced by Western music (Robinson, 2000). People were renamed when they converted and not permitted to use their original Hindu names. Alcohol was introduced and dietary habits changed dramatically so that foods that were once taboo, such as pork and beef, became part of the Goan diet (Mascarenhas-Keyes, 1979). Architecture changed with the Baroque style that was in vogue in Portugal becoming popular. Thus, many customs were suppressed and Goans became ‘Westernised’ to some degree as a Catholic elite who came to see themselves as a “cultivated branch of a global Portuguese civilisation” (Routledge, 2000, p.2649).

During Portuguese rule, the ancient language of Konkani was suppressed and rendered unprivileged by the enforcement of Portuguese (Newman, 1999). The result this linguistic displacement was that Goans did not develop a literature in Konkani nor could the language unite the population as several scripts (including Roman, Devanagari and Kannada) were used to write it (Newman, 1999). Konkani became the lingua de criados (language of the servants) (Routledge, 2000) as Hindu and Catholic elites turned to Marathi and Portuguese respectively. Ironically Konkani is now the ‘cement’ that binds all Goans across caste, religion and class and is affectionately termed ‘Konkani Mai’ (Newman, 1999). In 1987 Konkani was made an official language of Goa.

The Portuguese colonisation of Goa was a catalyst that led many Goans to become a mobile population. Socio-economic factors such as the taxation of land to raise funds for Portuguese expeditions, the appropriation of land from villagers leading to outsider control and the removal of people from their original source of livelihood were powerful forces in the decision to migrate. Yet Newman (1999) claims that what drove Goans to emigrate was that they valued a consumerist, bourgeois-capitalist society in Goa and sought more money, despite the relatively high incomes available at home. Historically, there has been a strong Goan ethos of moving up, caused by the small size of Goa and the inability to divide up communal land (Mascarenhas-Keyes, 1994).

As Goans began migrating, English displaced the dominance of Portuguese in the 1920s as many Goans moved to British India and other British colonies.

This migration began as a result of the declining Goan economy, which under Portuguese rule could not provide adequate employment for Goa’s population whereas new opportunities and economic development were available in British India (Nazareth, 1981). Goans first worked for the British in 1779 at the time of the French Revolution. The naval fleet of the British Indian Government was stationed in Goa and found that Christian Goans were eminently suitable to work for them because of their Western dress, diet and customs. When the fleets withdrew from Goa, many Goans went with them. In the eighteenth century Goan began trading with Mozambique, Zanzibar and East Africa. Indian independence in 1945 exacerbated the flow of migrants of Goan origin who were residing in British India (Mascarenhas-Keyes, 1979).

As English became more significant to Goans, schools began to teach it, giving more Goans the opportunity to migrate to British India. Many Goans also gained English language skills in the process of migrating to British territories, due to the greater emphasis on education and on language, as a method of upward mobility.

Goan migration to Africa was not surprising.  Indians had been traders and later sojourners as far back as three thousand years. The Indian diaspora was a 19th and 20th century development related to the impact of the British indentured labour scheme, which sought to replace slave labour with cheap and reliable labour for plantations (Sowell, 1996), or the building of railways, for example in Uganda (van den Berghe, 1970). This scheme was seen by some as a new system of slavery (Tinker, 1974) and though formally abolished in 1916 it continued until 1922 (Brah, 1996). Indian women were the second largest group transported to colonies after African women and they were subjected to fieldwork and received comparable punishment and gross indignities in the same manner. Smith (1999) suggests that the indentured labour system was as inhumane as the slave trade through the in-humanity of captivity and forced labour for capitalist gains.

Large scale migrations of Indians to Africa began with the construction of the great railway from Mombasa to Lake Victoria in Uganda in the late nineteenth century (Sowell, 1996). The British employed Indians because the Africans who owned land would only work for brief periods.

Fifteen thousand of the sixteen thousand ‘coolies’ who worked on the railroads were Indians. They were renowned for their work ethic and competitiveness, but one quarter of them died or returned disabled (Sowell, 1996). Indians (especially Goans) were recruited to run the railways after they were built (as my grandparents were) and Goans came to dominate the colonial civil services (Sowell, 1996).

Goans made up the only significant number of Christian Indians in East Africa, as it was the Catholic rather than the Hindu Goans that migrated there. Catholic Goans spoke Konkani, English or Portuguese and dressed in more Western clothing. They were further set apart from Hindus and Muslims by virtue of religion and because they ate pork and beef. For Goans, migration to Africa was intended as a way of earning some money for retirement in Goa and putting down permanent roots was not encouraged by colonial authorities (Kuper, 1979).

Asians were excluded from certain professions or from living in areas where Europeans preferred to settle, for example the fertile Kenyan highlands (Kuper, 1979). They operated within a milieu of prejudice, suspicion and disadvantage. Land was unavailable for freehold purchase and education provision was inadequate resulting in children being sent back to India (as my father was). Later on, as communities grew, special schools were established and women and children joined their men (as was the case for my mother’s family).

EVERYTHING CHANGED

Moving forward to our arrival in New Zealand everything I had ever known had changed. The availability of traditional foods, ingredients and so on was limited. The weather was cold and unfriendly, colder than anything we had experienced before. I was dismayed by the lack of wild and colourful animals.

I had also lost my place in the world, moving from a familiar social circle to where everything was now unknown. Settling in New Zealand was difficult financially, socially and emotionally. In Africa there had been a very strong Goan and Indian symbiotic community that provided cultural links. Despite being ‘foreign’ there was a sub-culture in East Africa that was supportive and understood by Africans. As Alibhai (1989, p.31) stated in an account of her life in Uganda:

The Asians had evolved a very strong network, partly because of the needs and fears that inevitably arise when groups migrate and partly because they were non-dominant in countries where they had no political power and a constant sense of being vulnerable.

In New Zealand we were different again, but less well understood. The ensuing years have  become easier and my ambivalence has decreased about whether I belong to Aotearoa.

The increase in members of the Goan and African communities have rejuvenated and inspired me and invigorated the communities I am affiliated with. The increased availability of a range of ingredients and cultural resources have also made connections with food and other cultural icons more accessible.

I prefer the plus model of identity rather than the minus one. I belong to Goa, plus East Africa plus New Zealand and the places I’ve lived and loved in. Although I experienced changes and loss integral to migration and learned first hand of the isolation that migrants can face in New Zealand (which has led me as an adult to be involved in supporting them) there were also positive implications.

The loss of traditional economic, social and familial restraints allowed me to fulfil my potential in a way that I might never have had, had I grown up in Goa or East Africa. Having to scrutinise my identity closely has led me to see the world through many eyes (an important requirement for an educator) as Edward Said states: “The essential privilege of exile is to have, not just one set of eyes but half a dozen, each of them corresponding to the places you have been.” I believe that my migration and travel experiences give me many ways of seeing the world and that the migrants that come to Aotearoa enrich the country with their lives and experiences.

Background paper for the Asia:NZ Foundation’s Kiwi India Seminar Series. Auckland and Wellington, October 2004

The title of this paper is drawn from a line in a Glenn Colquhoun poem. He draws inspiration from a poem by Allen Curnow, himself inspired by the site of a skeleton of a long extinct Moa in a museum. Whilst Colquhoun’s words are undoubtedly a profound metaphor for the migrant experience, Curnow’s are, perhaps, a metaphor for our failure to adapt to change, whether as a migrant or a member of the host community:
Not I, some child born in a marvellous year, Will learn the trick of standing upright here (Curnow, 1997, p.220).

Aotearoa/New Zealand has seen a significant increase in new migrants over the last ten years. Drawn here from across the world and facing the challenges of settlement, they face another unique challenge, finding their place within a country that embraces the notion of biculturalism, where Māori are positioned as partners with the Crown. As New Zealand society becomes increasingly multi-cultural, it is still required to negotiate the bi-cultural discourses of Māori which some argue positions migrants from places such as India as outsiders. In this presentation I will introduce myself briefly and outline the challenges facing Indian communities in New Zealand by drawing together the history of migration to New Zealand and outlining some possibilities for the future.

Migrants in Aotearoa/New Zealand
New Zealand is viewed as a nation of immigrants, and immigration has been an important factor in economic growth and social development. One in five New Zealand residents was born overseas and this rises to one in three people in the Auckland region (Statistics New Zealand, 2003). The Treaty of Waitangi/Te Tiriti o Waitangi is the founding document of the nation state, recognising Māori as ‘tangata whenua’ (Roscoe, 1999). Te Tiriti defines “principles of partnership, participation, protection and equity” (Cooney, 1994, p.9). Yet this benign notion of ‘settlerhood’ contrasts sharply with the end result of a process that has led to the traumatic colonisation and dispossession of Māori. Favourable policies resulted in subsequent waves of migrants of European descent, resulting in a dominance of this group such that Māori became the ‘other’ in their own land (Du Plessis & Alice, 1998).
The visibly different migrant, such as Indians, Chinese and Pacific Islanders, became ‘others’ because of their physical appearance, religion or culture but without the status of the indigenous Māori (Du Plessis & Alice, 1998). Most Indians migrated to New Zealand from Gujarat and Punjab then from Fiji and. About 200 came from Uganda as refuges in 1971. One of the first Indians to arrive in New Zealand was thought to be a Goan nicknamed “Black Peter” (Edward Peters) in 1853 (Leckie, 1995). The first Chinese arrived in 1866 (Roscoe, 1999). A fear of the impact of foreigners led to restrictive laws being introduced between 1870 and 1899 and these were only repealed later when new sources of labour were required.

In the last few decades other trends have impacted on migration patterns. The first being an initial increase in migration from the Pacific Islands in the second half of the 1970s and again following the Fiji coup in 1987. Pacific Islands migration decreased in the 1990s with a shrinkage in manufacturing jobs and the closure of factories as tariffs on imported goods were removed. An increase in Asian migration was the second immigration trend and was related to the encouragement of foreign investment in New Zealand. Refugees also arrived from Cambodia and Vietnam and migration from Hong Kong related to the return of the colony to China. The third was the increase in migration from Africa and the Middle East, predominantly from South Africa. The above trends led to an increase in the number of migrants from non-traditional source areas. Compounding these trends, there has been the noticeable increase in tension between Māori and Pākehā, particularly around grievances and claims relating to the Treaty (Pawson et al., 1996) and land issues.

Government Policy
Following World War Two, the notion of assimilation dominated. ‘Invisible’ migrants were seen as desirable and the goal was for migrants to ‘fit in’ rather than change the society they had entered. For many, therefore, change, was one-way. There was a philosophical shift in this policy when Canada and Australia embraced multiculturalism during the 1960s, which held that people had the right to retain their culture and have access to society and services without being disadvantaged (Fletcher, 1999). This transformed the notion of settlement into a two way process whereby change was required by both migrants and the host society. New Zealand policy made a strategic move towards multiculturalism in the 1986 review and subsequent 1987 Immigration Act. This Act eased access into New Zealand from non-traditional source countries and replaced entry criteria based on nationality and culture to one initially based on skills and subsequently through the introduction of a points system (Roscoe, 1999). This policy emphasis on attracting highly qualified immigrants was similar to policy changes in North America and Australia (Pernice, Trlin, Henderson, & North, 2000). The adoption of the points system in 1991 led to immigrants who had experience, skills, qualifications and money being selected for business investment in New Zealand (Ho, Cheung, Bedford, & Leung, 2000).

Implications
Changes in migration policy and the resulting increase in migration have led to much public debate fuelled also by a renaissance in Māori sovereignty, itself related to the global rise in indigenous movements since the 1970s. This has seen the re-positioning of Māori as indigenous to New Zealand and the evolution of a bicultural nationalism (Roscoe, 1999). Many vociferous opponents of increased migration argue that the ideology of multiculturalism is problematic as it negates the primacy of Māori and biculturalism. This, some argue, is problematic because Māori are indigenous, whilst migrants (and refugees) have other places that maintain and preserve their culture. Many argue that because the Treaty has not been honoured, other ethnic groups have had no other option but to relate only to the Crown.

By calling Māori ‘the first immigrants’, it is argued that the rights of Māori as first nation people are negated and their claim for special status as tangata whenua countered (Walker, 1995). The argument continues that the preamble of Te Tiriti o Waitangi allowed immigration to New Zealand from Europe, Australia and the United Kingdom and for any variation to occur, consultation with Māori is required as descendants of the Crown’s treaty partner. Walker concluded that the government consultation process with Māori was flawed because some Māori leaders were not representative and dissenting voices were ignored. Some have also argued that the points system of immigration and active encouragement of migration from non-traditional source countries was
a quick fix for rising unemployment and a stagnant economy driven by the partnership between corporate business interests and the government.

Within this debate between Pākehā and Māori, many visibly different migrants felt marginalised on two levels; firstly as outsiders to Māori and secondly as outsiders and cultural ‘other’ to Pākehā (Jaber, 1998). The process of ‘othering’ of Asian immigrants2 differs from that of Māori. Firstly, Asians are considered to be contributing to the economy even if they are ‘too successful’ by virtue of their skills and working attributes and secondly, elements of Asian culture can be commodified for consumption in the form of food and restaurants (Pawson et al., 1996). In particular this packaging absolves the consumer from caring about “the authenticity of the product, its cultural meaning, its technical sophistication or its historical origin” (Yuan, 2001, p.79). This process of consumption fetishises, foods, clothing and rituals into a decontextualised barren image. Sari material, yoga, ayurvedic medicine and Eastern spirituality have joined the list of consumables that many New Zealanders enjoy without understanding their social, political, cultural and spiritual significance. Despite the consumption of ‘Indianness’, little emphasis has been accorded to visibly different migrants in the debates over citizenship.
Roscoe (1999) sees two ways in which citizenship can be viewed; the first is civic nationalism, underpinning the discourse of multiculturalism, when a national identity is shared equally by citizens regardless of origin. Secondly, citizenship can be viewed as ‘ethnic nationalism,’ when greater standing is given to members of the dominant group.

Far from being the welcoming immigrant nation New Zealand purports to be, the paradigm of ethnic nationalism is more representative of the reality and is based around Pākehā notions of New Zealand. So, there remains a tension between the universalist, egalitarian notion of equal treatment of citizens and the need for recognition of cultural specificity. Docker and Fischer (2000) suggest that there needs to be a recognition of the politics of universalism and the politics of difference and conclude:

Thus, we experience a plethora of overlapping, competing and unresolved contradictions: colonial versus post-colonial, old settlers versus new settlers, indigenous people versus invaders, majority versus innumerable minorities, white against black or coloured, the search for a collective, inclusive or ‘national’ identity…vis-á-vis the search for individual and personal or group identity based on ethnicity, language, country of origin, or religion. All these struggles are played out on the same but rather less-than-level-playing field: social antagonisms, class and gender differences continue to play decisive roles in the game of identity recognition (Docker & Fischer, 2000, p.6).

Critics such as Thakur (1995) argue that the official rhetoric of biculturalism recognises the legitimacy of Māori and Pakeha but excludes migrant cultures that are non-white and non- indigenous. These ‘others’ are excluded from the debate on the identity and future of the country in which they live, leading writers such as Mohanram (1998, p.21) to ask “what place does the visibly different coloured immigrant occupy within the discourse of biculturalism?” This tension exists for many other groups as well, for example Wittman (1998, p.39) has commented “on the exclusionary effect of any others by the ideology of biculturalism” for Jewish people in New Zealand. Many Chinese argue that in New Zealand, a bicultural society, migrant cultures are not even relegated to the margins of society “our place is nowhere” (Yuan, 2001, p.121).

Conclusion
As the global marketplace shrinks, countries compete for people with skills and wealth creating potential. Gone are the days of relying on migrants from the traditional source countries. This transformation in migration means that there is now an urgent need for settlement focussed- resources for new migrants and refugees. New migrants need to be resourced to recognise, understand and value the special position of tangata whenua and to be able to examine their role in relation to the Treaty of Waitangi. Equally, it is necessary for immigration policy and settlement policy to be inclusive of those already here. This means not only Pākehā (represented by government) but also Māori.

Can biculturalism and multiculturalism co-exist or are they mutually exclusive? I would argue that one need not preclude the other. Recognising and celebrating the ethnic diversity of modern day New Zealand need not diminish the rights of Māori. Perhaps we can all work together to create a social and political milieu that is both universal and egalitarian: ironically something many Pakeha New Zealander’s assume already exists. In this model we treat citizens equally, celebrating their diversity but valuing as a central tenet of our society the position of the Treaty of Waitangi and its guiding principles. This ensures a unique position for Māori to be recognised as the guardians of this special land. By doing this we create a dynamic and vibrant society leaving behind a past based on fear (for loss of whiteness), grievance (for abuse of Māori rights) and invisibility (of others arriving in an already formed land).

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