“Most of the local people are kind and friendly toward new migrants. One time a few young guys said nasty words to me from a bus window.” It can be seen that some of the respondents also expressed the same opinion held by the Korean migrants: that it is not all New Zealanders who discriminate against them (Meares, Ho, Peace & Spoonley, 2010b). It is clear that the perpetrators of harassment and blatant discrimination are perceived to be the younger, less educated and lower class New Zealanders, whereas the majority of New Zealanders are perceived to be friendly and more open to diversity. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the subtle and hidden discrimination is more pervasive. This will be illustrated in Section 3 on the employment inequities. 2.3 Reporting Racism in Nelson/Tasman A survey of migrants and their personal experiences of racism was taken in Nelson/Tasman with the express purpose to design and instate a reporting system for racist incidents (Kohner, 2009). Of the 184 participants of 48 different ethnicities, it was found that 81% of them had experienced racism personally and 86% had witnessed racist incidents. While Asian specific information was not given, several Asian-specific incidents were reported. Part of the motivation for creating a system for reporting racism was a statement made in the Settling In Nelson/Tasman report in 2005 that said that there was “widespread racism against Asians in the street” and that there was no way to deal with it. Focus groups were held with the participants to get a sense of the nature of the racism and discrimination. Among the incidents reported were many Asian-specific examples. The examples were again dominated by discriminatory acts led by young people: “I have witnessed an incident where youths in a car have thrown food and shouted insults at [Asian] friends standing on the footpath.” Referring to threats received, one participant relayed this experience: “Someone said “Asian” and made a motion as if to slit throat.” Included with the reports of harassment were a couple of examples of physical violence: “Last year at fish and chip shop someone hit son, and said „get out‟. Son say „why hit?‟ He say „you look like [Asian]‟.” (Kohner, 2009) 2.4 International Students’ Experiences of Harassment As part of the Safer Students Campaign in Christchurch, an online reporting system has been launched for international students to confidentially report any incidents of harassment they experience or witness (www.report-it.org.nz). In the first year of its launch, it was found that two thirds of the students who had been harassed were Asian. Importantly, several resolutions to the harassment cases were made once they were reported on the website. 9