Significantly, in a study about perceptions of Asia, it was shown that New Zealanders who
had more personal involvement with people from Asia had warmer feelings towards Asians
as a whole. About three out of four people who have a lot of contact with Asian people (77%)
feel warmly towards people originating in Asia, whereas only one in two people (49%) who
have hardly any contact with people from Asia feel warmly towards them. It was shown that
contact occurs in various spheres of life, including shopping, via friends and family, through
work or business, travel, in the neighbourhood, or through the schools or the health care
system (Asia:NZ Foundation, 2009).
Finally, a commonly held belief about migrants to New Zealand is that “they stick to
themselves” in ethnic enclaves and do little to try to fit in (Gendall, Spoonley & Trlin, 2007).
Sixty six percent of New Zealanders think that they could do more to learn about New
Zealand culture and 34% believe that Asian people do not mix well with other New
Zealanders (Asia:NZ Foundation, 2009). This conception is partially true; Asian migrants
often report trying to reach out and make social connections with New Zealanders to no avail
and in the end they live and socialise primarily with people from their own ethnic
communities (Chang, Morris & Vokes, 2006; Lidgard, 1996). The feeling that new migrants
should “try harder to integrate” (but struggle in fact to do so) has been found among many
host societies besides New Zealand (Rohmann, A., Florack, A., & Piontkowski, U., 2006).
1.2 Asian People’s Experiences of Discrimination
Some studies have been conducted with Asian people directly, to find out whether they have
in fact experienced discrimination in New Zealand. When broadly asked if they had
experienced discrimination in the past 12 months, 23.2% of Asian respondents said that they
had (Statistics New Zealand, 2009); a higher proportion than all other ethnic groups,
including both Māori (16%) and Pacific (14.1%) respondents. In a different study conducted
with all applicants approved for permanent residence in NZ between 2005 and 2007, Asian
participants reported experiencing more discrimination than other groups. East Asians (e.g.,
China, Japan and Korea) were the group most likely to report discrimination (42%), with
slightly less discrimination reported by South East Asians (37%; e.g., Indonesia, Malaysia
and Philippines; Department of Labour, 2009). This can be compared to the majority of
participants representing the other regions reporting less, but still significant levels of
discrimination, with between 20 and 30% of South Asians, South Africans, North Americans,
Europeans (and “other”) having reported it. And finally, respondents from the UK/Ireland and
the Pacific were the least likely to report experiencing discrimination, with 15% and 12%
respectively (Department of Labour, 2009).
1.3 What Sort of Discrimination Do Asians Experience?
In the Longitudinal Immigration Survey: New Zealand conducted with new permanent
residents; those who had experienced discrimination were asked to identify the situations in
which they felt they had been targeted. The three most commonly reported responses were:
(1) in a public place such as a street, (2) working at a job, or (3) applying for a job. East
Asians were reported to be the most likely to experience discrimination in a public place, but
otherwise Asians were not specifically identified. However, a large amount of other research
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