Ethnic Identity: This Place that I call Home

I live in Auckland, New Zealand. I have always been concerned with the sociological concepts of race and ethnicity - particularly their relevance and relationship in the New Zealand context. I wrote this today in a cafe.

Every few years the government produces mass amounts of paper forms. This is quickly followed by a flurry of bureaucratic action to ensure that every individual in the country receives said papers. We are to list our personal details and answer questions classifying ourselves according to increasingly smaller pigeon-holed titles; married; Christian; Muslim; in good health. We are to tick a box indicating our ethnic heritage; Maori, Indian, Polynesian; Asian; Pakeha of European descent. There is no box for ‘New Zealander.’

As a British colony our nation was built by settlers. Migrants. Foreigners. Even our ‘aboriginal’ Maori originally migrated from ‘Hawaiki.’ For nobody was this truly home.

When a small movement to include the group ‘New Zealander’ in our census arose a few years ago I, as a racially sensitive teen, patriotically wrote the term in the ‘Other’ section of my form. Concerned only with my stubborn affront, I did not pause to consider what the label ‘New Zealander’ really meant to me. What I was indicating by selecting it.

What do those little boxes mean? What is the reason for this obsession with classifying race and ethnicity? These terms are so closely tied but are in fact two separate notions. Our census forms assume that our racial identity necessitates that our ethnic cultural identity correlates, but why the fixation with labelling either? In terms of a New Zealand context I feel that it highlights the fact that we largely base our identities on our culture or the colour of our skin. In a place that ‘is not really home’ our culture is defined by where we or our families came from. Perhaps this tendency is relevant for some more recent migrants such as the more recent Polynesian, Indian, Asian, and African arrivals. Our government tells us to particularly respect the relevancy of Maori culture and identity. But what about the white majority or others who may not tie their ethnic identity to their racial roots? Where is our cultural identity based if this is not really our home?

My own family arrived with the first settlers in 1830 to mine gold. When parts of my family have been here for 180 years does the box ‘Pakeha of European descent’ still apply? Is it really relevant? To whom?

For the first century of European habitation, new and descendents of British settlers continued to refer to England as ‘home’; the motherland. A language; spelling; an individualistic society; the nuclear family; an education model; tea; an assumption of white supremacy. This is the legacy which England imbued in the fledgling nation it assumed as a child.

For a long time and in many ways we continued to imitate the offshore trends of ‘the motherland’. In other ways our isolation, environment, experiences, and exposure began to lead to the deviation of our culture from the traditional British archetype given to us. Our English roots were (and still are) strongly evident but other elements began to influence our culture and identities.

Our environment and our struggles with it built a strong male culture and eroded the centrality of women in the home. Our position as a politically experimental ‘melting pot’ gave white women a political voice and cemented their conservative perspectives through the struggle for it. The initial British assumption of Maori assimilation or annihilation and the Maori wars heightened racial tensions and in some ways cemented the white assumption of superiority. Trade and the occurrence of Maori assimilation in turn began to influence white culture in unforeseen ways.

Modern white New Zealand is superficially affiliated with jandals and gumboots (neither of which I wear), tomato sauce (which I have no particular feelings for), sheep (which I do not see on a daily basis), an agricultural background (which I do not have), buzzy bee toys (which I have never owned), and sports and rugby (which I detest). I suppose on a deeper level our ethnic identity is heavily tied to the land - to the farms, forests, and beaches that we interact with. But I am a city dweller. I am a young white middle class woman living in a relatively urban setting in New Zealand’s largest and most culturally diverse city. I use English terms and spelling, include Maori words in my daily lexicon, consume texts, art, and media heavily influenced by Maori and Polynesian histories and cultures, and eat a mix of cuisine from Europe, Polynesia, Asia, and America.

This internal multi-culturalism is further complicated by our external cultural influences. Even in my short life spanning just two decades I have seen a further shift away from our ‘motherland’. In my childhood our tabloids were filled with English royals and celebrities. I watched the British Top of the Pops and our music charts largely reflected the British ones. I drank tea with my grandmother and we didn’t have a Starbucks. Coronation St earned some of the top television ratings and our American influences were limited largely to sit-coms, boy bands, and Hollywood blockbusters. The American accent still sounded strange, even on television.

In my teens we were inundated with rap music and American television shows. Coffee replaced tea as the drink of choice. Fashion and music trends now took their model from the US. Our Maori and Polynesian youths, historically fiercely ethnically loyal, associated with the culture of the African-Americans as they saw it on television. Rap, hip-hop, break dancing, a new fashion, and a new way of speaking were adopted by our ‘black’ teens. Gang warfare was also emulated with ‘Bloods’ and ‘Crips’ fighting based on the colour of their clothing and family ties rather than over overpopulated ghetto territory. Traditional ethnic identities were in flux and the changes show no sign of slowing. Identity and ethnicity are increasingly fluid notions, influenced by a huge number of factors in an increasingly media saturated and digitally accessible world.

For those with a traditionally strong ethnic identity I see this modern phenomenon as altering the face of those identities – layering various new factors over top a strong core of heritage and ideals. But for those like me who do not associate with a particular culture, it is easy to be caught up in the media tide of the individualistic West. Without a base or strong sense of community or allegiance we are simply products of this media. Some of us choose to affiliate ourselves with a religion, or the land, or a culture that is not our own. Some of us are left wondering what our cultural identity means and if it is even relevant any more.

By ticking the ‘New Zealander’ box, what are we indicating? That we are without an ethnicity and our bond to this land is our only cultural tie? That this is where we were born and think we belong? That we do not feel that our race is an indication of our ethnicity? For me I think it is a combination of all these things. Yes, this place is my home. Though I am not a farmer and do not have any real physical relationship with the land, I feel an affinity for it. For its particular shades of green, for its position in the lower hemisphere, for its unique cultural blend of inhabitants and influences.

Older white New Zealanders often bemoan that this is not “their Auckland” or “their New Zealand” any more. This reaction to changing external influences and an increasingly culturally diverse populous is based on the fact that New Zealand is no longer neatly divided into ‘whites’ and ‘Maoris’. I understand their qualms. These changes mean the destruction of the home they knew as children, of what shaped them, and of what they were comfortable with. But that was never my New Zealand. My New Zealand is diverse. Changing. Modern.

In classifying myself as a New Zealander I am not asserting that I am white and that my family has been here for many years. I am confirming that I am a product of this unique environment. I am confirming that ticking the Pakeha box does not reflect my ethnic identity. I am confirming that being a ‘New Zealander’, to me, means that I am a product of all the cultural influences present in this place that I call home.

xoxox