Indian women have a story to tell, writes Ashley Campbell
KEY POINTS:
Think, if you will, of your local dairy. Now think of the people behind the counter. They may be from Fiji, they may be from South Africa, they may have been born in New Zealand. But chances are they are ethnically Indian.
And when you interact with them,
what do you think, what preconceptions do you take to the transaction as you hand over your $5 for a paper and a bottle of milk?
If you take Edwina Pio's advice, you will throw those preconceptions away. "The next time you are being served by an Indian woman in a dairy, she just may be a scientist or a nurse - who also works in her family-owned dairy," she tells readers of her new book, Sari, Indian Women At Work In New Zealand (Dunmore, RRP $39.95).
After interviewing 100 Indian women, and talking to hundreds more, the associate professor at AUT's business school has written about a group of people who most other New Zealanders encounter if not daily, at least weekly. But this group is under-represented at higher income and status levels. Pio gives some of the reasons why that might be.
Take the dairy - almost any dairy. Why so many Indians? Yes, there are the obvious issues of well-qualified immigrants sick of struggling against subtle and not-so-subtle discrimination in a nation only just getting used to real ethnic diversity, and drawing the conclusion that honourable self-employment in a family business is more attractive.
But there is also the issue of caste. "A lot of the Guajaratis come from a business caste," says Pio. "For them it would only be appropriate to have a business and not to be in employment, so that would just be the way they would go. Probably the women are prepared to take a job, but not the men."
Dig deeper, and there is even more - a product of the discrimination that occurred in the very earliest days of Indian migration to New Zealand, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
In the late 1800s, Pio explains in Sari, the British recruited Punjabis and Sikhs for the Army and police. Those recruits were then posted to the outposts of the empire - Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaya - from where they moved to Fiji, Canada, Australia and New Zealand in search of a new life.
The aim for most of these immigrants - mostly men - was to work hard to send money back to families in India. Avoiding conflict by avoiding competition with Pakeha for jobs was essential to achieve that aim.
So they cut scrub and hawked fruit and vegetables on roadside stalls, or sold sweets and chutneys door-to-door.
After World War I, some had saved enough money to buy land and bring their families to New Zealand. But still, Pakeha hostility meant most employment doors were closed.
Pio takes up the story: "I found that a number of the early settlers did in fact sell fruit and vegetables in a basket at a roadside corner, as this did not require much investment. Over the years the basket became a wheelbarrow, then a truck and, when finances permitted, a shop.
"It was possible for Indians to purchase shops and businesses because according to the Shop and Office Act of 1921-22, only British subjects could be owners and Indians, being part of the British Empire, were in fact British subjects."
Who would have guessed aspects of New Zealand's early race relations were a formative influence on the humble dairy?
But Sari is about more than history, it is about the here and now and the experience of modern Indian women - from new migrants to fifth-generation Kiwis - and their employment. Alongside the politics of empire and race go the politics of gender. Just as Pio chronicles examples of women working in the family dairy, reluctantly and despite their impressive academic qualifications, so she chronicles examples of women encouraged to aim high.
Savita is an example of the first experience.
"I was the first Indian girl in our Christchurch community to go to university and graduate with a science degree (BSc). After graduating I moved to Wellington and worked there as a research officer for the Department of Trade & Industries (sic) and then I got married. My Indian husband bought a dairy and I worked there for five years. I did not enjoy those days."
Nalisha is an example of the second. "The most important influence in my life has been my father who is an entrepreneur and has a dairy which is also a liquor store," she told Pio. "When I was in school my father would buy me books on motivation and when we were travelling in the car he would put on motivational tapes. I graduated with a double major in sports science and psychology." She now runs a mobile fitness training business, which she franchises across the country.
With a population of just 104,583 (51,648 of them women) the Indian community is not an obvious contender for a study of the effects of race and gender on employment. But for Pio it was a natural one.
Indian-born and educated, she left her homeland 20 years ago to pursue her academic career. She travelled and taught in the United States, Spain, Austria and the United Kingdom.
Then, seven years ago, she decided to come to New Zealand. "I have a son, I'm a solo mum, I thought it would be better for him."
Make no mistake, there are many aspects of her life in New Zealand Pio loves, and she now considers this her home. For a start, she points out, gender equality here is infinitely better than back in her homeland.
But upon arrival, one aspect of life in New Zealand dismayed her, and continues to do so. "When I came to New Zealand, I found that qualified professional women were struggling to get jobs that were equivalent to their skills, qualifications and experience.
"It's not a cakewalk to enter New Zealand, so why is it that the women, after having things approved by the immigration authorities, come here and then struggle?"
Maybe, I suggest, it is simply a function of migration - new arrivals often have to take several steps back.
Yes, she agrees, there is that, and it shows in the fact that second, third, fourth and fifth-generation Indian women have fewer troubles. But there is more.
"You are a woman, you are a migrant and you are an ethnic minority - I think it's the third aspect that cuts in."
What happens, she asks, when two equally qualified migrant women, one an ethnic minority, the other of European descent, start job hunting? "The chances of the person who is not an ethnic minority are better, primarily because of their dominant ethnicity."
She understands, from the employers' point of view, the issues. Difference is challenging. Language can be tricky. And what is acceptable in one culture may not be in another.
Part of the problem, she says, is that New Zealanders are too scared of causing offence to openly discuss with migrants what may or may not help them in their new homeland.
In Sari she quotes an Indian mentor who understands Kiwi culture and has a few words of advice for job-hunting migrants: "Do not cook Indian food just before going for an interview, as the Pakeha may not like the aromas of garlic and other Indian condiments or do not go with oily hair for a job interview." As Pio herself states, "Such advice coming from an Indian woman would be appropriate, whereas the same statement coming from a Pakeha may be viewed as racist or politically incorrect!"
But equally, she says, employers need to open their minds and throw away some of their prejudices.
"Asians in the workforce will increase over the next few years and hence there will therefore be greater cultural diversity with reference to both employers and employees," she writes in Sari.
"Immigration is not new to New Zealand," she writes. "Perhaps though what is new is that there is a flood of non-traditional source-country migrants, or non-white ethnic minority migrants in larger numbers.
"Migrant sustainability is not an art or a science but a culture of learning and mutual respect that stems from a deep willingness to understand 'the other'. Such a culture does not duck duty, cripple self-esteem or step delicately over inconvenient truths and frayed promises. Rather, it lends credence to the story of an island in the South Pacific named Aotearoa New Zealand."
