Unit 2 Urban Migration Stories · 2025 Edition

"The letters from my brother in Wellington were like messages from another planet. He wrote about the wages at the factory, the picture theatres, the crowds of people. Back home, there was nothing. The farm work was hard, and there was never enough money. Our land was small, not enough to support all of us. The old people were sad to see us go. They said the city would swallow our culture. But what choice did we have? I packed one small bag with my best dress and a photo of my grandmother. I remember standing on the train platform, looking back at the green hills of home, feeling a mix of terror and excitement. The city was loud, grey, and lonely at first. But there were jobs, and for the first time, I had money in my pocket that was my own."

Push/Pull Factors: Lack of rural jobs (push), promise of wages and excitement (pull).

"The hardest part wasn't the work at the freezing works. It was the silence. Back home, you knew everyone. You were never alone. In the city, you could walk through a crowd of a thousand people and feel completely invisible. I missed the sound of my own language. I missed the marae. For a while, I was lost. Then, we started finding each other. A few of us from Ngāti Porou would meet on a Friday night. We'd pool our money, share a meal, sing the old songs. We started a kapa haka group. It wasn't the same as home, but it was something. We were building a new kind of marae, a city marae, without land or a meeting house, built out of people and shared memories."

Challenges & Responses: Loneliness and cultural isolation (challenge), creating new urban communities and cultural groups (response).

"My children were born in the city. They are city kids. They speak English better than they speak Māori. They know the bus routes, not the paths through the bush. I try to tell them the stories, to teach them the songs, but it's hard. Their friends are Pākehā, Samoan, Tongan. Their world is a mix of cultures. Sometimes I worry that they are losing their connection to the whenua, to their ancestors. But then I see them at the kapa haka practice, standing proud, and I think, maybe they are not losing something. Maybe they are creating something new: a new kind of Māori identity, one that can stand strong in the city, one that can navigate both worlds."

Identity & Change: Fear of cultural loss (challenge), emergence of a new, urban Māori identity (change).