Conversations With My Immigrant Parents

How do we search for something we've never seen? The last episode of the series sees the Arif whānau reflect on their years in Aotearoa and dream of a better future.

How do we search for something we've never seen? The last episode of the series sees the Arif whānau reflect on their years in Aotearoa and dream of a better future.

The Arif whānau settled in Kirikiriroa in the 1990s. Dad Mahmud is originally from Iraq, with Turkish heritage, and his wife Mayssaa is Syrian and Egyptian.

Their daughter Shayma'a is one of six children, and joins them on the last episode of the series. Shayma'a lives and works in Te Whanganui-a-Tara as a human rights lawyer. Mahmud recently retired and Mayssaa volunteers in many capacities, working with the refugee community and supporting the local Arab community in Waikato.

This episode dives into feelings of loss that can be hard to define or give voice to, particularly the loss of home. The family discuss being unable to visit either Iraq or Syria - Iraq because of Mahmud's family's background in politics, and Syria because of the ongoing war and humanitarian crisis.

Shayma'a pins down one thing about separation from home which she has found particularly unsettling, saying, "I feel like I really wanted to see Syria, but now it's too late.

"I see all these white people going there all the time. I always see on YouTube all these Europeans going to Syria and visiting, even during the war, but they're fine and they enjoy it. This is what I get really sad about. How come they get to go back to our homelands and enjoy our countries, but we're not allowed to go and enjoy our own countries?"

Mahmud initially came to Aotearoa as a skilled migrant with years of experience as a dermatologist, but according to New Zealand's laws around doctors with foreign licences practising here, was unable to work in the field he specialises in.

For the last 12 years, he has been travelling back and forth from Aotearoa to the United Arab Emirates, working as a dermatologist there and returning to be with whānau here when he can. The fractured living and working environment and disruption to his family life has not been easy for Mahmud.

"I'm not regretting coming here, but I'm disappointed," he says.

Mayssa and Mahmud have their two youngest daughters still living with them in Kirikiriroa, and now that Mahmud is retired, they hope he is able to spend more time with his whānau.

In this last episode of Conversations with My Immigrant Parents, the discussion explores how differently immigrants and refugees experience Aotearoa, displacement, grief, having children, and kittens...

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Francisco and Vibeke are parents to teenagers who regularly switch between Argentinian and Dutch cultures. They talk about why coming from different countries means navigating more than just language.

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The Blaha/Brethouwer whānau live on Waiheke Island and have roots in three different countries: Argentina, Holland, and here in Aotearoa. Dad Francisco migrated here as an adult; Mum Vibeke was born in Aotearoa but grew up in Holland; and their teenage children, Kika (14) and Felix (17), were born in Auckland.

Francisco left Argentina because he saw no place for himself in a system he saw as rigged, with a corrupt military government. He hopped on a boat with little clue of what he was going to do, and spent the next few years working on boats in the Pacific, eventually finding Aotearoa through a serendipitous weekend.

"I was in Tonga and they asked me to bring a boat down to New Zealand to do survey, which is like a warrant of fitness. So I arrived here and I had a very good weekend and I decided to jump off the boat and never ."

Vibeke, on the other hand, feels she's left a large part of herself in Holland.

"I left New Zealand when I was three years old, so I had no real memories... I'll always feel like I'm going to be almost split in half. When I'm in New Zealand, I miss things about Holland, and when I'm in Holland, I really miss things about New Zealand. I've now literally lived half my life here, so I'm completely torn forever."

Many threads in this episode explore the cultural differences between Dutch and Argentinian people, the difficulties for kids of immigrants raised in multiple cultures, and the privilege of the family being perceived as being more 'ex-pat' than 'immigrant.'

Kika points out how often she doesn't get recognised as being from an immigrant background: "Until I say, 'Oh, my dad's from Argentina,' or until they see a photo of him - because you're tall and big and dark - people don't think about the culture, or the history, or, 'Oh, what if this chick has some super cool... what if she can speak Spanish or speak Dutch.'"

"I feel like I have to try and present that culture a lot more, and I really want to because it's something I want to have presented and I want to have a part of me."

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Sisters Avi and Eva sit down with their daughters and talk about white men who travel to Indonesia, the fetishisation of Asian women, and leading parallel lives in Whangārei.

Watch the video version of the episode here

Sisters Avi and Eva sit down with their daughters and talk about white men who travel to Indonesia, the fetishisation of Asian women, and leading parallel lives in Whangārei.

Sisters Avi and Eva did not plan to both end up living and raising their whānau in Whangārei. Growing up in Indonesia, as two of five siblings, they were similar in age and had a close relationship.

Eva, the eldest of the two sisters, started working at a company owned by her later husband Colin. When Colin's friend Tim travelled to Indonesia, her sister Avi was picked to be a guide for him, with Colin secretly hoping they might take a liking to each other.

In the end, Avi and Tim immigrated to Aotearoa in 1995, with Eva and Colin following in 2003. Both sisters have two children; Avi has daughters Cinta and Aimee; and Eva has kids Cindy and Tom. Cinta and Cindy join their mothers in this conversation.

Being the daughters of Indonesian women who married Pākehā men is a large part of this episode.

Avi talks about observing the ways white men behave in Indonesia: "In Indonesia, when you are an expatriate, some of them like to play with women."

Her daughter Cinta explains feeling hyper-visible and conscious about the way her father is treated in Indonesia: "Whenever we go over, walking on the street with Dad, everyone's kinda coming here and crowding around Dad because they're, like, 'Ooh, rich white man.'"

Since moving to Aotearoa, Avi and Eva have done a lot to create and involve themselves in a community of immigrants, and of Indonesian immigrants, specifically.

Avi spends a lot of time volunteering with WINGs, the Women's International Newcomers Group in Whangārei. Both sisters have made a concentrated effort to bring Indonesians across the North Island together to form a community.

Cindy and Cinta live and work in Auckland, and return to their family homes in Whangārei and Tutukākā when they can. They talk about the close relationship their mothers share, and Eva confesses how important it is to have her sister so close.

"I feel really blessed to have Avi here. If she weren't here, maybe I would have a best friend or something, but it will be different how we talk, how we let go of our feelings, everything different."...

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Tooba and her husband Habib chat with their teens about community and strength in Ōtautahi, a place that has been both a source of immense grief and love since they arrived in 2007 from Pakistan.

Content warning: This episode contains discussion of the white supremacist terror attack of March 15th, 2019.

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Tooba and her husband Habib chat with their teens about community and strength in Ōtautahi, a place that has been both a source of immense grief and love since they arrived in 2007 from Pakistan.

Habib, Tooba, and their children Fatima and Usman have lived through some of the darkest events in Ōtautahi's history. The family moved from Pakistan in 2007, and have lived in Ōtautahi ever since. Habib works for the Ministry of Ethnic Communities and Tooba doesn't formally have a job, though she does a great deal of work providing support to many members of her community. Fatima and Usman, despite being a year apart, are in the same year at high school.

After arriving in their new home town, the family moved around a number of times, living in rental houses all around Christchurch from their arrival up until 2021. According to Tooba, leaving one house and moving into the next was a test of strength: "The bad thing about moving houses was the inspections. They were giving us the dirtiest house and then we were cleaning and making it like new, and after three months, taking photos, even if there was one piece of grass growing, and they were saying, 'You need to mow like this.'"

The 2011 earthquake was a crisis felt by the whole country, though the magnitude of it was hard to comprehend for anyone outside the city, and especially to those unfamiliar with what Ōtautahi pre-earthquake might have looked and felt like. But unfortunately, they were only the first of two major tragedies to be suffered in the same decade.

2019's white supremacist terror attack at Al Noor mosque and the Linwood Islamic Centre was, in Tooba's words, "the worst nightmare of our life." The family describe realising the magnitude of the violence against their community more and more over the course of the day, as they learnt about what exactly had unfolded. Fatima says she started wearing her hijab after the attacks, and doesn't think she would have done so if not for that, and Usman talks about his school facilitating more Muslim groups since the attacks. Tooba and Habib's community work leveled up following the March 15th attacks, and remains an important aspect of family life...

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Hương fell pregnant at 20, but she didn't know it was twins until it was time to push. In this bilingual episode, she talks with her daughters Hà and Ly about dependence, marriage, and homecomings.

This episode is available both in the original Vietnamese and with an English dub.

Watch the video version of the episode here

Hương fell pregnant at 20, but she didn't know it was twins until it was time to push. In this bilingual episode, she talks with her daughters Hà and Ly about dependence, marriage, and homecomings.

Hương Nguyễn didn't know she was having two babies when she was pregnant.

"I delivered Ly first. I had absolutely no idea about the twins. The doctor said I still needed to deliver one more baby."

In this penultimate and special bilingual episode of Conversations with My Immigrant Parents, Hương sits down with her twin daughters Hà and Ly and talks about wishing she had more support with raising them, what going back home to Vietnam for the first time since she left as a young woman was like, and a closeness with her daughters that is like sisterhood.

The Nguyễn whānau arrived here as refugees from Vietnam, via Hong Kong, where Ly and Hà lived for the first two years of their lives. There was little food, baby clothes, or things to buy or share in the camp, and Hương tried hard to provide for her daughters. When cooking, she had to balance one on her front and the other on her back. Her descriptions paint a clear picture of how different life with two babies was instead of the one she had expected.

The pandemic started right when Hà's long-term relationship ended and she moved back in with her mother in her 30s. In many ways, Hà and Hương believe this physical closeness has helped their relationship grow. As Hương describes it, "I know her more, can understand her more, and really empathise with each other's stories. It's quite pleasant, actually. Fun at times, too!"...

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