My home now: Migrants and refugees to New Zealand tell their stories

Biruktayet Alemayehu writes about following her father, a politician threatened with death, to freedom in New Zealand

My home now: Migrants and refugees to New Zealand tell their stories
Edited by Gail Thomas and Leanne McKenzie
Published by Cape Catley, $24.99 


Migrants and refugees to New Zealand tend to be described in impersonal numbers, as a dehumanised group. They are, say, the 750 refugees we accept annually, or the 45,000 who obtained residency in the last fiscal year. They are faceless "Chinese students".

Such collective descriptions tend to reinforce a notion of them and us; they might be Kiwis on paper, but they don't really belong. This book, then, is welcome: it puts faces, names, hopes and dreams to the numbers, reinforcing our common humanity in telling the stories of how people born elsewhere come to call New Zealand home.

It's a series of short but detail-packed yarns, many quite intimate and chatty, and would make a great secondary school resource.

Some of the stories are shocking, some reassuringly banal. All record the desire for a better life, whether that's framed as a higher salary, more sun, or safety from marauding soldiers.

Among the subjects are the Scottish husband-and-wife academics who moved here in 1975 and the Korean couple who came for their daughter's education more recently. A Greek woman tells how she responded to New Zealand's call for domestic workers in the 1960s.

A Baha'i tells of fleeing Iran, where followers are relentlessly persecuted; a young Ethiopian tells of following her father, a politician threatened with death, to freedom.

They arrive with burdens: fear of the unknown, psychological scars, the weight of dislocation, feeling like inarticulate children again because they haven't enough English to negotiate the most ordinary day-to-day transactions.

The adjustment, we learn, is invariably tough, even for those with adequate English. Some parents worry about the liberal values their children learn in a new land; for others, maintaining their culture and language is a preoccupation.

The longing for the familiarities of home is a recurring theme, even if home is not a safe or pleasant place to be.

Identity becomes an issue. The question "who am I?" suddenly becomes problematic. A lasting sense of loss strikes many: loss of friends and family, loss of income, loss of lifestyle, loss of possessions.

Sunila Wilson was 40 and her husband 44 when they migrated from India to give their three children a better education.

"In India we had achieved a certain status and place in society ... John and I were facing an identity crisis ourselves. From being a somebody, each of us became a nobody overnight."

Guilt dogged some of the migrants on their journeys to New Zealand.

This from South African migrant Johann Schoonees, who moved his family from Cape Town to Auckland:

"What does one say to a dear friend whose formal wedding photographs show her haggard with insomnia? She surprised two burglars in her mother's house the weekend before and they raped her on the way out. She kept her eyes tightly shut so that they would not kill her. She refused to postpone the wedding.

"So I cracked. We cracked. We became part of the cowardly brain drain, skulking off to a safe haven."

The backdrop, of course, is South Africa post-apartheid, as the crime rate soared.

The context of many of these stories is great social change: from the Balkan conflict to Zimbabwe's economic collapse, from South Korea's notorious "cram schools" to the British handover, in 1997, of Hong Kong to China.

There are also insights to the way refugee communities work once they are reconstituted here. Amina Timayare feels the local Somali community is tribal and conservative. "My impression of Somali people who have moved to New Zealand is that are very traumatised and vulnerable. As a result they are dominated by a few who are backward and domineering."

The ingrained habits necessary elsewhere can be hard to break, says Johann Schoonees. He repeats a piece of advice he received soon after arriving: "When Kiwi friends come around to visit, don't lock the front door as soon as they're inside. You'll scare them."

Although there are a few typos here and there and the book won't win any design awards, the editors have done a good job in making the stories honest and accessible.

The authors haven't forgotten, either, to answer the perennial question New Zealanders put to newcomers - "so, what do you think?"

They think that sometimes Kiwis can be intolerant. Chilean woman Marisol Valensuela-Dillen relates how she phoned a medical clinic, to be told "speak English, woman!" and hung up on. "I was left shaking and crying - I hated being an outsider."

Some migrants feel they are "plodding through" life, the thought of returning home and starting again just too daunting.

Overall, you are left with the impression that, collectively, moving to NZ has offered more gains than losses, but that migration is a tougher journey than it appears.

Yuki Kodama Kamiya, born in Japan, loves the environment here and says that "quality family time compensates for the lack of money". For Kate Callard, born in Zimbabwe, "New Zealand is my paradise on Earth, and even though life has been hard I wouldn't want to be anywhere else."

* Julie Middleton is the Herald's race and demographics reporter.