84-year-old Taupaū Makalita Edwards remembers the terror of the dawn raids. Photo / Fiū Mesepa Edwards
By Lydia Lewis of RNZ
A Samoan migrant who witnessed the traumatic impacts brought on by the dawn raids during the 1970s has one last fight for justice on her hands.
Taupaū Makalita Edwards, 84, who has stage four lung cancer, wants pathways to residence for all migrants.
“All the people are the same Palagi, Māori, the Pacific - stand up and speak up,” Edwards said.
She arrived in Aotearoa New Zealand in 1964 by boat.
At the time of the dawn raids, Taupaū lived on the outskirts of central Auckland in Owairaka with her husband and four children.
She said she was rejected by her community for marrying a Māori Ngāpuhi man.
Taupaū explained how every Pacific Island family was living in fear. Her fear was layered with silence because she was already ostracised for her choice of husband.
Because of this, her children only found out this year about the trauma she was living with.
“I just broke down because I had no idea,” her daughter Fiū Mesepa Edwards said. “My siblings - none of us had any idea that my mum had experienced what she went through during the time of the dawn raids.”
She asked her mum if she would share her story and the pair embarked on a journey together to shine a light on the injustices Pasifika experienced.
In the 1970s Edwards said she watched Robert Muldoon on the TV saying “all the Pacific Island people will return back to the Pacific and all Māori will return up north”.
She heard the same message on the radio and thought to herself, “I am one of them in that situation”.
With tears in her eyes she explained the feelings she kept to herself for all these years.
“Living in fear of, if they’ll send me back to Samoa and my husband up north, what happens to the four kids?” Edwards said.
“Can you imagine the fear you are living with at the time? It was so scary, so scary.”
She had all of her papers and managed to avoid deportation but she was still left with a scar from surviving through “absolute terror”.
“Sharing this story seems to be the medicine, for my soul, for my heart,” Edwards said.
One of Taupaū's daughters, Fiū Mesepa Edwards, who only recently found out her mother was living with this story, has been supporting her mother in sharing her story.
At a Teu Le Va event this year where her story was aired, Edwards told Fiū she wanted to organise a peace march to remember what happened.
On September 30, her vision of a peace march came to life.
In the pouring rain she was pushed in a wheelchair leading the silent march she dreamed up.
Edwards is calling on the government to implement pathways to residency for all migrants so no one needs to live in fear, like she did, in the present day.
“What about a pathway to residency?” Edwards requested of politicians.
Part of that is a call for an amnesty for overstayers, something Labour says it would implement if re-elected.
The National Party does not support it.
“Do not support that at all,” National leader Christopher Luxon said. “The reason very simply is we support legal migration to this country.”
Meanwhile, to honour the historic Dawn Raids apology, the Labour Party has proposed a one-off regularisation programme for individuals who have overstayed their visas for at least 10 years.
Edwards’ daughter Fiū is “enraged” at the timing in which Labour has presented that offer.
“How are we going to even trust that you’re going to do it? And if you don’t win the election, we are totally stuffed.”
Her response to Luxon’s comment is: “We are totally stuffed really; we are stuffed if National get in.”
“Christopher Luxon, unless he knows the history of what the Muldoon government did and what National did, they are the criminals really,” Fiū said.
These are strong words, inspired by the call her mother has issued as she faces terminal cancer.
“To not stand up, to not speak out and be a voice for my mum would just not be the right thing to do,” Fiū said. “My mum’s set the precedent now.”
A call to be heard and share your story no matter how painful it is, in an effort to bring healing to the next generation.
“Don’t let the truth die with you,” Edwards said.
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