Nicola – Auckland / Taranaki
“I would say to my 11 year old self lots of things, but probably some important stuff would be that whatever life experiences that you have during the next few teenage years will contribute hugely to your future.
They will help you in your career, and in your life. What seems really shitty right now is actually going to be a blessing. Not everything will make sense – you’re not going to figure it all out, and that’s okay – things will be really cool.
I grew up in a small town in Hawera in South Taranaki from a Pākehā mum and a Māori dad. So generations of both my families grew up there, and that was really fantastic as a child. It was really oppressive as a teenager. I got kicked out of school when I was 15. I became a mum when I was 19. I had my daughter, went to drama school – Toi Whakaari in Wellington, where I trained as an actress, and then have worked in theatre, film and television for the last 25 years. I am a mum of two, and my daughter’s just moved to London which is a bit terrifying today, since that stupid man in America’s just launched on Syria.
Cultural identity is really interesting for me, because I am bicultural by birth, and when I was younger there weren’t many half-casts like me in my small town, and you were always forced to choose. Usually people said that you were just Māori or Pākehā, and there were forms where you had to fill out one or the other, and I said that’s like cutting off of my body, because I can’t choose. As an adult I see what a blessing it is in this country to have been born bicultural, because I can see what about the Treaty works and what doesn’t based on two different cultures coming together, because I saw that in my parents’ marriage.
I still think that people like me, of mixed cultures, in this country – of Tangata whenua and whatever, we haven’t had our time, yet. I think it’s a really interesting perspective to be from both, to – as an actress I always get cast in Māori roles, but half my family are white, so I’ve got the experience of both of those things. It’s a really interesting place to be.
I love living in Auckland. I’ve been here for almost 20 years. I always go home to Taranaki, but Auckland feels progressively more like my home, and what I really like about it is the cultural diversity. I love the size of it; it’s not too big and it’s not too small. It allows me to work in my job which is in the arts. I find it really exciting, incredibly beautiful. I feel really passionate about living here. The longer I’m here, and the more I go home, and everyone shits on Auckland and tells me how awful it is, because that’s what happens when you leave Auckland; everybody wants to just tell you how vile they think your city is without having lived here which kind of gives me more of a sense of pride of where I live, and – and unfortunately where I come from is very racist and it’s very homophobic, and living in Auckland I feel quite sheltered from that.
I’ve grown up with racism. It’s like kind of normal, and it’s a thing you don’t challenge, and so this year was the first year I actually challenged it, and I’m 47. It’s taken this long to stand up against family and family friends about it because already when you go home and you live in Auckland people think that you’re an arse-hole so you can’t turn around and tell them that their thoughts and their feelings are wrong but the racism is so endemic I suppose and people, they don’t think they’re being racist when they talk about – you know, I think the slogan that got me was back – black homo c**t.
It was a term that was used in front of me, and people – it’s like they’re stuck in the 50s with their homo jokes and their nigger racist rants and when they talk about Auckland it’s always about Chinese and Indians, and it’s shocking. It’s offensive, but it also comes from a place of fear, because places that are really small. They’re mono-cultural or duo-cultural, and so it’s just a lack of exposure. I think after the election of Trump in the States last year I’ve certainly experienced people being more open about their racism, and maybe that’s a good thing, because maybe we can start pulling people up on it, and letting them know that it’s not okay. Usually people just talk about it in their own circles, but maybe it’s time we just put all our ugly stuff out there so that we can have the discussion.
I think when I was talking about my messages to my younger self about everything being okay is – I think that was a transition period for me in a small town where I started to feel like a complete misfit. I started to feel my differentness. There were a lot of comments made about my differentness about me being a weirdo and a freak and not fitting in, and I see that now that that is a huge advantage because it’s led me onto the career that I have, but when you’re little and you’re in a small town and you just can’t belong anywhere, it feels really isolating and you feel like there’s something wrong with you. And then you grow up and you go, actually there’s absolutely nothing wrong with me – I just had to find my flock. It’s kind of like the um, The Ugly Duckling; it’s about finding your flock. So I think everybody has to go through that. So that’s why I think it’s good to reassure yourself that hopefully you will find your – your people.”
