For people making the journey to a new life in New Zealand in the 19th century, it was often a perilous journey across the Pacific. For those who did make it here, the welcome was also far from warm.
NZ legislation was particularly severe on Chinese immigrants, as we heard in the previous talk with the introduction of a poll tax in various forms. The Immigration Restriction Act introduced in 1899 prohibited the entry of immigrants who were not of British or Irish parentage and who could not fill out an application form ‘in any European language’.
In today’s talk David Wong-Hop and Lisa Truttman illustrate what this journey would have been like. After David’s introduction Lisa looks at the broader Asian immigrant experience particularly Indian and Syrian including some well known Auckland names.
Haramai tētahi ahua!
Image credit: 'Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, NZG-19090721-31-2
Caption reads: THE TIDE OF IMMIGRATION - Arrival of the Athenic at Wellington on Tuesday, with a further batch of immigrants on board. On being told that the state of the labour market in New Zealand was somewhat depressed, one of the immigrants cheerfully remarked it could not be worse than what they had left behind them (21 July 1909).
Recorded at Auckland Central Library on October 13 2019
