Reflection Copper-hued, not white: An ethnic minority educator in New Zealand Edwina Pio Seagulls calling. A breeze in the pohutukawa trees. Breathtaking cloud formations that transform dawn into the moth hour of eve, and I am a part of it. Copper-hued, not white, an ethnic minority educator in New Zealand. A migrant, here to stay, and New Zealand is now my home. I stand in front of my university students, and encourage them to look deeply into the nuances of diversity, into the lived-in and lived-through lives of women and minorities, and challenge them to develop strategies to maximize the potential of this diverse group. The tiny island nation of New Zealand with its population of four million has people from more than 200 nations represented. A country built on immigration, primarily from Britain and Europe, in the last fifteen years it has started accepting people from non-traditional source countries. And as I facilitate the movement of my Master of Business Administration and Bachelor of Business students, hopefully leading some to the threshold of their minds, I know that the assignments on diversity, which I have inbuilt into the Human Resources Management curriculum, are an acknowledgement of my grief, ambivalence, hope and healing in my journeying in my new homeland. Yes, extraordinary mistakes by an ordinary person, for when I saw the students shock as I entered the class, I mistakenly thought my expertise would get through. But I tasted the bittersweet communication of student’s disbelief in wrestling with my diversity…who is this little third world person? Early days and I was tongue tied. In my internal meanderings, I acknowledged the gift of mistakes. So holding to my heart my copper sheened credentials, I inscribe my calligraphy in the first class of the next semester. I unwrap who I am, what I bring to the class and why I am in education. I breathe lighter, and so do they. It is a defining moment for a petite woman from a developing country. Refusing to be sucked into powerlessness and the sapping of my strength, I seek acknowledgement of the gifts that I, like other migrants, bring to this country. The gift of different perspectives; of international travel, teaching in Universities in Asia, Europe and America, a rich heritage and a wealth of experience. In my restlessness and refusal of stasis, I enter the portals of a university and learn to transmute the often unintentional, though fairly regular, stereotyping of what I am perceived to represent externally – copper-hued. I develop a subterranean survival culture to enfold my daily existence, as inch by inch I carve my space within the scholarship of teaching and learning. I make a stern commitment to myself to smudge colours and a fierce will to hold onto the dream of softer silhouettes in a multicultural workforce. I gradually develop a sophistication to crisscross the gossamer borders of difference that can be bands of steel. I laugh about my use of phrases and accents and ease my student’s and colleague’s transition to exploring a copper phenomenon. I seek to walk intelligently by quoting research and international statistics and gradually tint the experience of learning. Fluidity, interdependence and a gradually developing wonderful community of colleagues sustains me in my life patterns. For I realise that I have no choice but to engage fully in unravelling the knots created by past mental models or stereotypes, for my history is also our common history. So when I touch my bruises, I touch my strength and forge assignments and research projects that will subconsciously and consciously facilitate constructive overtures towards peoples of all hues. I go through equity training and become an interview panellist for our university, and publish work on my copper-hued sisters. “Go by data” I tell my students, “research local, national and international scholarship on diversity”. For the students who grace my classes - just like other students in far flung corners of the globe - are the future CEO’s, leaders, police force, judges, ecological activists and the implementers of policies on diversity. I look at my scars, and know that as I make meaning for my students, so too does my life become more meaningful. As a knowledge-maker, encapsulated in the actions and images of my every day, I shake loose my fears of being different, of being an ethnic minority, and give voice to my difference. I seek to play a part to ensure fewer victories for stereotypes of the copper-hued, and in so doing perhaps embroider my tiny pattern in the fabric of humanity. And as my students get excited about their progress in the diversity literature, a quietness enters me, and I lift my face towards a future of hope, miracles and possibility. Seagulls call and take my prayer to the skies. |