你好, நமஸ்காரம்

Kia ora e hoa mā!

Clearly, we look a bit different from the usual editorial suspects. This issue is guest edited by us—Joanna and Cileme. “Diaspora” exclusively focuses on immigrant and refugee stories!

Joanna: My real name is Zhao Fan (you can find the respective characters by my signature at the bottom of this editorial). My immigration journey has been a bit complicated. I was born in Beijing, China and lived there for five years. I moved to New York City at age 5, and learnt English there (would you believe, it actually comes in handy). In 2012, I moved to Aotearoa, first living in Ōtautahi, and later moving to Te Whanganui-a-Tara in 2019 to study. You could call me a third culture kid—I still don’t know quite where to call ‘home’. To give all of this a single label, I am a first-generation Chinese immigrant. To me, my language, Mandarin Chinese, has been my most valuable cultural link. Growing up, we exclusively spoke Mandarin at home, and still do to this day. I think it's such a privilege to be raised bilingual, and I am infinitely grateful to my immigrant parents for granting me this gift.

Cileme: Whenever people ask where I’m from and where I grew up, I always say “New Zealand born and internationally raised.” Born in Papaioea, I spent my childhood darting around the world before moving to Pōneke to study. Technically, I’m a second-generation Indian New Zealander. It’s funny to me that people love to ask ‘so where are you from?’, when my go-to answer is almost always ‘uhhhh, good question’. I don’t speak Tamil, or Bengali. I feel like I’m making up everything about my cultural identity as I go. As a brown girl with a not-white and not-Indian name, a thick New Zealand accent to my family, but an oddly not fully New Zealand accent to New Zealanders, and no tangible cultural ties to being Indian, nothing about my identity has ever really made sense. I’m still figuring out what ‘home’ means to me. I’ve been searching in academia, fiction, travel, and food—when I find an answer, I’ll let you know.

What, then, does it mean to be a part of a diaspora in Aotearoa? Diaspora is defined as ‘the dispersion or spread of a people from their homeland’. Naturally, this issue focuses on both immigrant and refugee experiences—diaspora manages to embrace these two displaced identities, the combination of migration, and forced exile. In Aotearoa, we are perfectly placed to explore what diaspora means: we are a country built on a fraught history of migration. Whilst we are somewhat familiar with our colonial past, how do we as immigrants or refugees make sense of where we fit in Aotearoa society? To us, diaspora means finding a place of belonging, even if it isn’t where you might expect. Finding community, reconciling trauma, sharing food, inheriting intergenerational memories, and carrying our cultural legacies with us wherever we go.

In features this week, Kiran cracks us up with a painfully relatable and heartfelt account of reconnecting with their linguistic background. Fran and her mum Stefania dive deep into their refugee background, filled with both strength and sorrow. Bella retraces their connection with their Jewish heritage through the Menorah on their living room bookshelf. Snigdha gives you a fool proof guide to immigrant family reunions through the good, the bad, and the Aunties. Janaye mourns the loss of language with an edge of humour, teaching us her favourite Marathi and Hindi curse words. Through nasi goreng, Guy explores the integral connection between cultural identity and traditional foods. And if you’re feeling like a bit of a chef yourself, go try out Sarah’sdelicious dumpling recipe—you won’t regret it.

Some final notes from us: keep using or learning your language, find your past within the photos you take, measure ingredients with your heart, keep your grandma’s ancient family gossip alive, and force your friends to watch a Bollywood movie on your next dusty Sunday.

We hope you find a piece of home in this issue.

Arohanui,

Cileme and Joanna