Social experiment: Being Asian in New Zealand

During the FTVMS 325 course: Race, Indigeneity and the Media, it got me thinking about identity. Since many of my friend are from an Asian background with having been born or brought up in New Zealand, I wanted to know what their experience was like being in their situation in relate to racism.

I posted a mini survey around 4pm on the 8^th of June, to get a general feel for self-identifying Asians in New Zealand and racism.  I conducted this between Facebook friend and got an impressive 42 participates. The survey starts with asking participates what ethic group they identity with, where they were born and when they moved to New Zealand. It then moves to ask if they have experienced racism within the last two years, and what types of racism occurred. It also asks if they told anyone about their racism encounters and how long it took them to tell somebody. This last part is repeated but with a focus of racism at a younger age. The survey ends with patriciates overall view on New Zealand and racism asking questions such as, do you view New Zealand as a racism nation? And if so, to what ethnic groups.

I will now go through the result to come to a common conclusion.

Participates background:

The gender of the participates is 67% female and 33% male with two age ranges being 18 to 24 and 25 to 34. The majority age group is 18 to 24 with 90% of participates being around my age group and most people taking the FTVMS 325 course.

When asked what ethic group they belonged to 70% said Chinese and 41% saying countries within central Asia and Southeast Asia. Only 7% said New Zealander and 5% from non-Asian countries.

When asked if they were born in New Zealand, 62% said no and when asked where they were born, 24% said China. What I find interesting out of my group of friend is that many of them come from Honk Kong and this shows in the survey with 14% saying they were born elsewhere, with 4 of the 6 people in this category saying Hong Kong. This puts Hong Kong in second place equals with Japan and South Korea.

With majority of participates being born overseas, the next questions asks them at what age did they move to New Zealand. 19% said 4 – 6 years old, 17% said 7 – 9 years old and 14 % said 0 – 3 years old, meaning that 50% of participates were brought up in New Zealand despite not having be born in New Zealand. Lastly, they were asked how long they had been living in New Zealand. Besides 36% being born in New Zealand, 17% said 18 – 20 years while tying for second place was 9 – 11 years, 12 – 14 years and 15 – 17 years was all at 12%.

Participates and their experience with racism within New Zealand:

When asked if they had experienced racism in the last two years, a depressing 86% said yes. With only 14% said no. When asked what types of racism they experienced equally at 76% said casual racism (such as racist jokes) and stereotyping. Another alarming result is 40% for overt racism which not only effects the receiver but also how the malicious nature of the offender of that message.

When asked how this sort of discrimination had them feeling, out of the 86% who experienced racism, 64% had a negative response. There was 1 person who replied with ‘very good’ but I assume it is because they have not be discriminated against. 

Participates about speaking up against racism:

Another saddening factor is that when asked if they told anyone about their racism experience, 57% said no, which taking into account people who said they didn’t experience racism leaves with 43 % of participates who did experience racism, did not talk to someone about it. That is exactly half of the people who claimed that they experienced racism.

When asked if they did tell someone, how long since the incident did they tell someone? This shows two polar opposites with 26% who told someone within the hour but also 33% who didn’t tell anyone because they didn’t think it was important. That means that out of the half that didn’t tell someone at all, majority was because they felt it wasn’t important. This to me feels like a double edged sword. While it’s important for mindless racism to not get to one’s self, it’s also just as damaging to not talk about it. Depending on what type of racism was inflected upon them and if it effected them directly (such as overt racism) could have been very hurtful if not talked about with someone else.

Participates dealing with racism at a younger age:

When asked if they had experienced racism at a young age 79% said yes, with 21% saying no. Compered to earlier that is 7% less who experienced racism at a young age compared to recently.

When asked if this racism encountered while living in New Zealand, 74% said yes. This number could include people born in New Zealand, as well as people who moved to New Zealand at a young age due to the longer time being exposed to New Zealand for racism to occur. Another factor for 7% decline, could be related to a lack of understanding of racism at a young age.

When asked again what types of racism occurred during their youth, a scary 60% said overt racism, that’s a 20% increase compared to recently. Casual racism drops by 24% and stereotyping drops by 19%. That fact that there is such a rise in overt racism could be to a number of factors. A lack of filtering by other children, lack of cultural understanding and reasonability for actions and words. However this is no excuse for racism against child, if anything it should be challenged since 60% of participates seemed still troubled by racism in their past enough to bring it up now, it shows that racism is damaging on childhood and also their experience within New Zealand.

When asked how this experience made them feel, while the percentage of negative feelings is the same as recent racism, there was a 15% increase in participates that said this made them feel very bad. This only further demonstrates the damaging effects of racism on migrant children within New Zealand. Another scary factor is when asked if they told someone about their experience 29% said yes, that’s a 57% decrease compared to telling someone in recent times. However there is a 7% decrease in people who said they felt it wasn’t important compared to recently.

Participates on Racism within New Zealand overall:

When asked if they believed that New Zealand was a racism nation 40% said yes, 36% felt indifferent and 24% said no. If participates felt New Zealand was racism, to what ethnic groups did they feel were discriminated against? The top two were Chinese and Maori with Middle East as third. Someone made a note that everyone was discriminated against and another mentioned that sure there are racist people but compared to other countries, New Zealand mostly did stereotyping. What I find interesting is Middle Eastern racism being the third highest since New Zealand is a Eurocentric country, we are no strangers to the attack on terrorism via America who is constantly targeting the Middle East as the main source of terrorism. I wouldn’t be surprised if that point of view was fueled by that notion.

When asked if New Zealand was racism against the ethnic group they identify with, 69% said yes. This is no surprise considering that 71% said their ethnic group was Chinese and 79% felt that New Zealand was racist against Asian cultures. Since they belong to that ethic group, they have only experienced what it is like to be discriminated against as a self-identifying Chinese, but also being an open minded bunch, they have also demonstrated that other ethnic group probably get it just as bad as themselves either witnessed second hand or via media.

To conclude, they were asked once again how this made them feel, 59% had a negative response which is only just under 10% shy of their recent encounter with racism and racism within their youth.

Conclusion:

Since the following participates are friends from my personal life and Facebook, it saddened me to see these results as a self-identifying New Zealander. The one that really hits me in the guts is 60% of overt racism at a young age. With all factors accounted for, this sort of discrimination could go hand in hand with bullying among children as well. It would be interesting to find out how these racism encounter occurred, be it face to face or over technology, mainly social media since “on the internet no one you’re a racist”. Another factor is that racism happens everywhere, and New Zealand is no exception. The only way to combat racism, is to talk about it and to change our attitudes towards things such as stereotypes.

Thank you to all 42 people who took part in my (last minute) social experiment. I was really fascinated by it and hope that it gave valuable insight to all that are reading.