Side by Side

04/07/21 • 50 min

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."...

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

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.

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."

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.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Previous Episode

Red Chicken with the Big Wings

It took Juliana eight long years to gain residency after moving here from Brazil. She and her mum Nadmea discuss New Zealand's immigration system, second chances, and Tinder-ing in your 50s.

Content warning: This episode makes references to suicide and mental health.

Watch the video version of the episode here

It took Juliana eight long years to gain residency after moving here from Brazil. She and her mum Nadmea discuss New Zealand's immigration system, second chances, and Tinder-ing in your 50s.

Nadmea and her daughter Juliana came to Aotearoa from Brazil. Juliana and her siblings came first in their adulthood, and Nadmea followed in 2014 once she heard how much they enjoyed living here and after she had finalised her divorce from her husband of 30 years.

As a 19-year-old in Brazil, Juliana fell ill suddenly and lost the use of her legs. She found the process of learning how to be independent again challenging, and Nadmea found letting her daughter grow on her own difficult in its own way, saying, "My family has a big trouble. They have too much mother. I always knew that."

Nadmea and Juliana discuss the real growth and learning that came from Juliana learning to live independently in a wheelchair, and that this was made possible after she spent a month in a rehabilitation centre, and got to know other young people in wheelchairs.

Unfortunately, Juliana's challenges did not stop there, and she had a difficult time gaining residency in Aotearoa, "largely because our immigration laws deem people with disabilities to be 'too expensive' for our economy," she says.

Describing the toll this took on her, Juliana says, "I think the immigration process was the hardest thing I ever fought. It was harder than becoming paraplegic."

In July, 2020, Juliana was finally granted permanent residency. This milestone was important in reflecting her relentless commitment to bringing attention to New Zealand's discriminatory laws pertaining to immigrants with disabilities.

Juliana's siblings and her mother Nadmea, especially, went through a lot of these challenges with her. Their views on immigration have been informed and affected by Juliana's experiences, and as Nadmea puts it, someone's outward appearance is often not a reliable assessment of the strength of their contributions to a society.

"There are lots of people with a visible disability, but you cannot see immediately the internal disabilities when someone is deeply racist, or sexist," argues Nadmea...

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Next Episode

My Dad Is My Mum

In Kirikiriroa, Donally and her father Alfredo discuss parenting that contradicts society's expectations, how Filipino men are expected to 'get on with it,' and life after tremendous grief.

Content warning: This episode refers to mental health, grief, and death.

Watch the video version of the episode here

In Kirikiriroa, Donally and her father Alfredo discuss parenting that contradicts society's expectations, how Filipino men are expected to 'get on with it,' and life after tremendous grief.

Alfredo Bernal immigrated to Kirikiriroa from the Philippines and met and married his first wife soon after. They had a daughter, Donally, but divorced when she was 18 months old.

Alfredo took custody of Donally after the separation and was her primary caregiver, though the breakdown of his marriage took a toll.

"I've always thought that marriages are lifetime things. You don't get unmarried. I grew up in an environment where there's no such thing as divorce, so, when I married your mum, I thought that I will be married for life. But, unfortunately, it didn't work. Honestly, I cannot remember why. And in my second marriage, I tried harder. So that lasted longer."

Growing up with her father as her primary caregiver meant Donally always felt a bit different to her classmates and friends. The two of them discuss the quizzical looks they would receive from other mothers and parents at playgroups or at the mall.

"There's a stigma to fathers raising daughters," muses Alfredo.

Alfredo grew up Catholic in the Philippines, but didn't raise Donally as strictly in the church. During her high school years in Kirikiriroa, Donally experienced difficult times, and she was aware of how her relatives' opinions about this were influenced by their faith.

"The normal is to be Catholic in the Philippines, so I remember a comment that someone gave to you about me and they said, 'Well, why didn't you send her to church? You should have sent her to church so that she wouldn't be depressed and suicidal,' or whatever, as if it was your fault and you'd done something wrong by not raising me the way that all the other Filipinos were raised."

Fortunately, Donally has reached a point in her life now in her early 20s where she feels truly settled, and currently lives with her husband Austin in Tauranga. She and Alfredo are still close despite living in different cities, and this episode explores the depth of their relationship, Filipino identity outside of religious and cultural norms, grief, and parenthood...

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details