New Zealanders of Asian Origin.

• Author: Moloughney, Brian

Authors: Raj Vasil and Hong-key Yoon Published by: Institute of Policy Studies, Wellington, 1996, 60pp, $18.

These two books, or pamphlets, are the first in a series of studies which seek 'to promote public understanding of what it means for New Zealand to increase its linkages with the Asia-Pacific region.' The project is an initiative of the Institute of Policy Studies and the ASIA 2000 Foundation. Both books make valuable contributions towards the stated aims of the project, and the importance of such a project is underscored by the experience of the recent so-called 'immigration debate' here, as well as by the nastiness we have seen erupt out of the Pauline Hanson affair across the Tasman. These books show that the New Zealand situation is distinct, but that does not mean that we cannot learn from what happens in Australia.

McKinnon's essay is the more innovative of the two. Studies of the role of migration in New Zealand's history are not new, but what distinguishes McKinnon's essay is that he approaches the issue of immigration in conjunction with an analysis of what citizenship has meant in this country. Up until 1986 migrants to New Zealand were predominantly British, and McKinnon argues that this created the sense of an ethnically homogenous country, where boundaries were set as much by ethnicity as citizenship, and this in turn meant that as a community we were ill-prepared to deal with the new wave of non-British migration of the last ten years. The challenge to this sense of an ethnically homogenous community has, of course, come not only from an increase in non-British, and particularly Asian, migration, but also from a diversity of Maori perspectives on the present and future shape of the country and a re-fashioning of our relationship with Britain.

By placing Asian migration within this wider historical context, and by associating immigration with citizenship, McKinnon gives us a better understanding of the background to recent tensions, and he offers some concrete suggestions about how these might be resolved. He notes that while citizenship has not been a sharp marker of identity in New Zealand, it has been in the United States and it is increasingly seen as an important unifying factor in Australian life. Both of these countries have had a longer experience of non-British migration than New Zealand and McKinnon believes we can learn from their experience. Placing more importance on citizenship will help open up the notion...