57 The impoverished path to protest By urbanising, Māori had exchanged the economic poverty and cultural wealth of the rural marae for improved economic prosperity, cultural nullity, and racism of white cities. Migrant Māori concentrated in poorer areas in large centres. Auckland grew from two percent Māori in 1945, to 11 percent in 1986. Initially settling in inner-city slums, the new urban Māori population moved to sprawling new state housing suburbs such as Ōtara, Māngere, Te Atatū, Pōrirua, the Hutt Valley and Wainuiomata (Belich, 2001, pp. 472-473; Walker, 1992, p. 501). Māori incomes were higher than they had been for a century. But concentrated in low-income primary industry, manufacturing, freezing works, wharves, transport, and municipal labouring and construction, Māori were vulnerable. When Britain joined the European Economic Community in the 1973, New Zealand saw reduced demand for its exports, the first oil shocks slowed the world economy in the 1970s, and the New Zealand economy faltered. The government restructured under ‘Rogernomics’ in the 1980s (Belich, 2001, pp. 473-474; Poole, 1991, pp. 122-123; Meredith, 2006, p. 248). During this time, Māori were hit hardest, poverty increased, homelessness rose, and the first group of ‘street kids’ were Māori (Taonui, 2021). Double alienation of Māori youth Nationally, the under-25 Māori age group had risen from 54 percent in 1945 to 82 percent in 1976 (Pooler, 1991, pp. 152, 180). The new Māori urban demographic was therefore overwhelmingly youthful. Urbanisation doubly alienated the new Māori youth generation, firstly by distance from culture and secondly by urban white racism (Taonui, 2021). City Māori were increasingly less able to bear the cost of maintaining contact with tribal homelands and rural tribal communities. Rural Māori stripped of their economic base were less able to maintain links with Human Rights Commission relatives in the cities. Urban Māori made efforts to sustain traditional culture through urban marae, but there were not enough such marae to fill the widening cultural void. Urban and rural Māori communities slowly drifted apart (King, 2003, p. 477). By 2001, one in five Māori did not know which tribe they came from (Statistics New Zealand, 2001 Census): Urban Māori had also disconnected from the cultural capital of learnings from the historical struggles of traditional communities such as during the Wars for Sovereignty and exertions to retain land. These were lessons they would have to relearn in the foreign trenches of white city racism (Taonui, 2021). Dominant Pākehā culture rejected city Māori. Landlords often advertised for ‘Europeans only.’ Jokes described evil-smelling insects as ‘Māori bugs’, ‘Māori time’ meant being unpunctual, and the wrong way to do something was ‘a hōri way of doing things’. In 1959, Dr Henry Bennett, a Kingseat Hospital senior medical superintendent, was refused service in an Auckland lounge bar because he was Māori. A survey of hotels showed one quarter declined bookings with Māori names. The Pukekohe Hotel women’s lounge was European only. Pukekohe restricted Māori to the cheapest seats at the cinema, enforced a segregated area at the local swimming pool, and Pākehā parents advocated for a separate Māori school to avoid their children coming into contact with dirty Māori children (Belich, 2001, p. 190; Harris, 2004, p. 20). Assimilationist policies disguised as integration significantly added to Māori experiences of oppression and colonial trauma. Government policy banning te reo from schools saw Māori new entrants beaten for speaking te reo (their only language). The government policy to eliminate te reo Māori in favour of English language was incredibly successful. Whānau discouraged their youngest generations from speaking te reo to protect them from physical and emotional harm. Consequently, the number of Māori language speakers declined from 90 per cent in 1900 to five per cent in 1980 (Waitangi Tribunal, 1986). The infamous 1961 Hunn Report, which highlighted the difficulties Māori faced in urban centres, classified three kinds of Māori: half-castes, who were more European-like, lived in cities, spoke no Māori and