Beyond 'model minority': The overlooked histories of Asians in Aotearoa

A new collaborative project aims to show a more nuanced point of view of the history of Asians in Aotearoa, past the “grateful migrant” or “successful entrepreneur” narratives.

Te Papa Asian New Zealand histories curator and editor Grace Gassin’s new book, Between Dreams, compiles essays from the likes of Tze Ming Mok, Sapna Samant and Keith Ng about what it means to be Asian in Aotearoa.

“When I was growing up, I didn't really see a lot of stories around about people like me. And the ones that I did, they were very much the stories of the model minority, you know, someone's become a successful doctor or businessman or something like that,” Gassin tells Culture 101.

“But we never really got the stories about the activists or maybe the misfits or the troublemakers, the people who didn't quite fit the mould - and for some of us, that's a little more relatable.”

The book was inspired by discussions in 2021 about the Aotearoa New Zealand history curriculum in schools. Gassin believed a more “critical take” of the overall history was missing.

“So how do Māori, Pacific and Asian histories, for instance, how do they fit together? How might you actually go deeper and tell these stories differently? How the stories were being put together or told - rather than just what stories were being included?

"I want people to be able to think more expansively about what kinds of stories could be included as part of our history."

The ‘Not your model minority’ chapter tells the stories of figures who found their place among society’s outsiders, like Nancy Kwok, who was politically active as a communist, Mongrel Mob member Harry Tam and Black Power political adviser William Maung.

“I think some of those stories are a little - they're out there, but they aren't often included in histories about the successful migrant in the traditional sense.

“So those kinds of stories, I think probably would surprise people that they're in there.”

While cautious to draw parallels between Indigenous Asians and Māori in Aotearoa, Gassin co-wrote a section on the similarities of reclaiming identity among Ainu in Japan and Indigenous Taiwanese.

“There's stories about language loss, cultural loss, shame around identity, but also reconnection and finding ways to reconnect with Indigenous heritage throughout their life or to protect what they have grown up with against other structures.

“So one of the women in the book that I write about, for instance, grew up quite connected to their Indigenous heritage in Taiwan. But as they went further and further in their education, they felt themselves becoming more and more alienated from that.

“They made a bold decision to reclaim their Indigenous heritage. They've changed their name on their birth certificate, so that they are known by their Indigenous name first rather than their Chinese name, for instance, and went and studied Indigenous education.”

Gassin also writes about how ‘multiculturalism’ - while sounding great on surface level - is limiting because diverse cultures are structured around “the state white dominant core”.

“So it doesn't really change the power structure in terms of race relations.

“But also, I guess, if you think of the different ‘cultures’ that are often represented in multiculturalism, like Chinese or Indian or Japanese, for instance, what tends to happen in practice is that a lot of times there's some sort of representative culture that is used to represent all of Japanese, for instance, or Chinese. That's usually mediated by cultural leaders within the community.

“There's lots of power imbalances within communities as well … that can sometimes be to the disadvantage of more marginalised people within that community. So it actually exacerbates some of the issues that can go on within communities.

“And it's very limiting in that it promotes this idea that Chinese is one thing, for instance, or Indian is one thing, and it's that dominant representation.”

The book cover draws inspiration from the Hong Kong Lennon walls, where messages of support for protests were posted on sticky notes. Gassin says John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ and the storied history of Lennon walls is tied in with the book’s concept of dreams and resistance.

“And we've got a lot of taonga now in our collection that looks at Hong Kong New Zealanders and their connections to Hong Kong, as well as their involvement in some of those protests, both locally and in Hong Kong itself.”