Steven Young Thesis

http://beta.acks.org/ NZST 511 STEVEN YOUNG
October 2005
FROM ASSIMILATION TO MULTICULTURALISMEvidence of an evolving model of settlement for the Chinese community in New Zealand from 1950 to the present.
1. INTRODUCTION
In the literature review undertaken as the first part of this exercise I reviewed the early history of the Chinese in New Zealand which included their first arrival as sojourner gold miners, their later move to urban centres and official discouragement of further migration and racial discrimination in the form of the Poll Tax and restrictions on the migration of women. I noted that at the beginning of the Second World War the Government allowed only the temporary entry of a group of Chinese women and children as a humanitarian measure, but at war’s end the Government relented and allowed them to stay and also allowed further family reunification - but not migration of unrelated persons. As a result more children were born, but because of cultural isolation, (arising from generally uneducated parents and the Communist takeover of China) these all grew up adopting the English language and local culture and lost contact with their Chinese heritage. I concluded that it also appeared to be official policy to encourage assimilation of the Chinese into the host culture in the hope that within a generation or two the Chinese would be fully merged through free inter-marriage and the “problem” of their existence as a separate racial group would largely disappear.