New Zealanders like Asians!

A good close friend in New Zealand (that’s by Australia to all you geographically challenged folk) pointed me to an article from the New Zealand Herald declaring that New Zealanders like Asians!

In rather broad strokes (and the rather odd picture from the Asians that was included in the online article), the article talks about the positive impact that Asians have had in New Zealander culture, stating that Asians bring “much needed cultural diversity” and will be a more positive force to New Zealand, more than North America or Europe.  Given the proximity of New Zealand to Asia, it seems to obviously make sense that Asians would have a broader impact on the New Zealand economy than us in North America or Europeans.  It doesn’t say specifically what the positive impact Asians have in New Zealand, though I’m assuming it means pumping in money to the national economy and providing New Zealand with technical skills.

What’s particularly infuriating, but alas, not surprising, is that the term “New Zealanders” are meant to include everyone white or indigenous, and that New Zealanders who are of Asian descent simply don’t exist.  My friend stated that there are people of Asian descent in powerful positions in the national government, but that fact has been glossed over to make  a rather insidious backhanded compliment to the Asian New Zealander community.

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About Efren

Efren is a 30-something queer Filipino American guy living in San Francisco. In the past, he was a wanna-be academic even teaching in Asian American studies at San Francisco State, a wanna-be queer rights and HIV activist, and he used to "blog" when that meant spewing one's college student angst using a text editor on a terminal screen to write in a BBS or usenet back in the early 90s. For all his railing against the model minority myth, he's realized he's done something only a few people can claim--getting into UCSF twice, once for a PhD program in medical sociology which he left; and then for pharmacy school, where he'll be a member of the class of '13. He apologizes profusely for setting the bar unintentionally high for his cousins. blog twitter
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