LOOKOUT: NEW STREETS - AUCKLAND FA’A - SAMOA

Albert Wendt is welcomed back to New Plymouth Boys’ High School, where in 1953, as a 13 year old, he came from Samoa to study and grow up among the sons of Taranaki farmers.
According to Wendt “Their friendship made this school and this country a special place for me. So this is the New Zealand I knew first. But, a generation later it is no longer the New Zealand I know best.”

No longer living in New Zealand, Albert Wendt returned to Auckland in the 1980s to see how the Samoan community has adapted to the Palangi way of life. In the 1960s - 1970s, thousands of Samoans came live in New Zealand with little idea of what to expect.

Thursday night late shopping in Auckland’s Karangahape Rd, is the workers’ Queen Street and caters for the needs of Polynesians.

Their church gives them dignity, allows them to run their own affairs and binds people together. Many Samoans living in New Zealand must send money to families in Samoa. This often drains their resources and Agnes Tu-Samoa claims that the church needs to be aware that they are often giving donations that they cannot really afford.

Other topics include: a Fa’a-Samoan wedding; tradition of tattooing; boxing; gangs; leisure and recreation; education; the annual summer sports festival, which is run by the biggest Samoan Church in Auckland.