I know a man from a developing country who migrated to New Zealand for work. He brought his entire family from the Middle East into NZ. His children took up spots in schools that could have been for Kiwi kids. The family members occupied priceless housing and precious spots on hospital waitlists. I know them because that’s my whānau.
Pākehā people like me immigrate without facing racist or xenophobic treatment. Racists treat any people of colour as foreigners in their own country. Chinese settlers broke their backs on gold fields in the 1800s. Their descendants are rewarded with questions about whether they’re from “Korea or Japan?”, not “Otago or the West Coast?” Iwi who arrived seventy decades ago are warned not to encroach on their own lands that were taken in the last eighteen. Media organisations honour successful Māori and Pasifika people like Taika Waititi by erasing their identities, describing them as Kiwis or New Zealanders; they typically emphasise indigenous identities of people they shame. New Zealand oughta quit being racist as fuck.
Aotearoa would also be wise to welcome actual immigrants. Certain jobs require strong motivation or particular skills that are hard to come by. We fill those jobs, and we buy Kiwi-made products. Moreover, young immigrants replace aging populations. Successive septuagenarian governments are failing Japan because of their ethnonationalist rejection of other identities. Conversely, Angela Merkel gifted Germany a million more members during the 2013-9 refugee crisis. Older-and-older citizenries from Nippon to the EU err in opposing immigration. Who will staff their rest homes?
Immigration has drawn leftist critiques from Labour, TOP, and the Māori Party. One is housing: immigrants raise demand and prices, when so many people live here without a home. Counterpoint: Ōtautahi was rebuilt in no small part by immigrants, and housing supply has now caught up with demand, flattening prices. Two: immigration keeps down wages and serves big companies like Fonterra. I will not accept blaming workers for the moneybagsing machinations of corporate boards. Campaign against who underpays you, not your underpaid immigrant neighbour.
Aotearoa shouldn’t just accommodate immigrants to maintain our development. We should be free to immigrate simply for a better life, and free to live our lives by whatever identity we hold. Immigration skeptics fear importing hateful and reactionary beliefs, and demand assimilation as a solution. They identify the wrong problem group. Immigrants are not perpetrating systemic discrimination. The people tarring immigrants as “backwards” are. Prejudice cannot be solved by compelling newcomers to cast aside our identities; we must learn to live with each other. The only magic mechanism to educate bigots, besides education itself, is exposure to diversity.
I identify as an immigrant first, not as a Kiwi. I don’t feel I can be proud of being a Kiwi, because in this country, the way it seems to be right now is that only Pākehā, and those who meet the expectations of Pākehā, get a right to that pride. We have a term for that.
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