Third-Wheeling in a ‘Bicultural’ Society

Being tauiwi in Aotearoa can feel like third-wheeling in a ‘bicultural’ society. You struggle to find a way to chip into the conversation, feel a bit awkward or invisible, and kind of wish you could go home… but isn’t Aotearoa also a home for us? Podcasting can be a powerful way for tauiwi to navigate and carve out their identities, find their place in Aotearoa, and ultimately provide a platform for us to tell people our stories. It allows us to create our own spaces.

Since this is the first time Salient has done an Immigrant issue, five tauiwi Salient podcasters have decided to collaborate and create an episode together. We’ll discuss the complexities of each of our experiences and identities, as well as questions that we all grapple with. Below, three of us have shared snippets of our experiences, with more to come in the episode that will be out by the end of the week. Stay Tuned on ig: @salient_podcasts for release updates.

Alex: Stranger At Home:

I hadn’t lived in my home country until I was 19. My experiences are on the flip-side: I was a migrant my whole life until I moved to Aotearoa. I’m a third-culture kid, I grew up in a culture entirely different to that of my home country and the culture of my parents. When I moved here, I was definitely hit with culture shock. I realised I had a completely different frame of reference compared to everyone else my age. My sense of identity has always been in flux and it’s been a challenge to define myself to others here.

Sahir: Smooth Brain Society Podcast:

The immigrant identity is a complex one around the world but particularly in places like Aotearoa, which are strongly grounded by the idea of being ‘bicultural.’ I was born to immigrant parents in one nation who then moved to another nation while I was still a child. I became an immigrant to the nation my parents called home but, when I finally came back to Aotearoa, I was  perceived as an immigrant in my birth country. As someone who has had a really unique experience of being an immigrant, the factors impacting the immigrant experience have always been of interest to me—how well can we fit in while still being outsiders?

Jess: Zeitgeist Podcast:

Having time to be creative feels like a privilege that my immigrant parents did not have. When they first immigrated to Aotearoa from China, they had to juggle learning English, raising my sister, working, and restudying all at once. Aotearoa was entirely unfamiliar, so they needed job security more than anything. However, creativity and the ability to care about more than survival, is something that is available to my sister and I. Podcasting has been a creative way for me to make my identity visible and comfortable, challenging the coloniser myth of model minority and enabling tauiwi to discuss how we can support tino rangatiratanga in Aotearoa.

This column contains the experiences of both tauiwi of colour and pākehā tauiwi.