From Samoa to Hawke's Bay: Jillian Scanlan with her husband, Esekia, and their children, 8-year-old Seanlan, left, 6-year-old Billy, 3-year-old Feauai and 4-year-old Kirisimasi. Photo / Rafaella Melo
At the De Marco family table in Poraiti, dinner comes with subtitles.
“I speak to the children in Spanish, my wife speaks to them in Portuguese, and they respond in English,” Santiago De Marco told Hawke’s Bay Today.
This is everyday life for the Argentina-born father, who lived in Brazil for more than two years, and has been calling Hawke’s Bay home for over 25 years.
His household reflects a growing multicultural reality across the region.
According to the latest Census data, more than 30,000 people living in Hawke’s Bay were born overseas, nearly 18% of local residents compared with about 28% nationally.
The data shows the numbers continue to rise with communities reflecting connections to almost every continent.
De Marco is one of them.
Born in Buenos Aires, a city of more than 15 million people, he later lived in Sao Paulo, a metropolitan area of about 20 million residents, more than 100 times the population of Hawke’s Bay.
In 1999, De Marco arrived in the Bay almost as a pit stop. He, his Brazilian wife Sandra and their son were travelling through New Zealand on their way to Europe and volunteered at Hōhepa, a Hawke’s Bay organisation supporting people with disabilities.
“We were only supposed to stay for a few months ... then we cancelled our flight to Europe and decided to stay,” he said.
“It was a deep sense of connection with the land, Māori culture and people, and with the disability community, which became an integral part of our lives.
“The pace here is very different from big cities. Hawke’s Bay has a special balance between people and nature ... big enough for cultural events, good food and festivals, but with a way of life that feels calmer and centred on wellness.”
Over the years, their family grew. Children were born. Parents and siblings followed his move to the Bay, and now, multiple generations also call Hawke’s Bay home.
De Marco went from volunteer to CEO of Hōhepa, which was recently named the supreme award winner at the 2025 Hawke’s Bay Business Awards.
Newcomer to the Bay, Samoan Jillian Scanlan arrived in June last year with her husband, Esekia, seeking a “better future” for their children, aged 8, 6, 4 and 3.
The move was far from easy.
Their original job offer fell through, leaving the family without work when they first landed, and the language barrier made even simple tasks difficult.
“Everything was new, and it was only me who knew a little English,” Scanlan said.
Local support networks, particularly Kāinga Pasifika and the Samoan community through the church, helped the family settle.
They both work full time now, and their children have adapted quickly.
Now, well settled, they can see themselves staying long-term.
“We love it here in Hastings. It’s peaceful,” Scanlan says.
For Sonam Bhandari, who moved from Uttarakhand, India, the journey has included community connection, but also moments of cultural misunderstanding.
She arrived in Hawke’s Bay in 2011 with her husband, Dan Singh.
As a young mother studying at EIT while helping run the family’s restaurant business, Star of India, Bhandari balanced pregnancy, coursework and work without extended family support.
To cope, she became a founding member of the Indian Mums’ Group, creating a network for women navigating motherhood, migration and isolation.
Over the years, Bhandari has encountered support but also prejudice.
“When my daughter started school, I sent her with Indian lunch a couple of times, and then she refused to take it afterwards. She said someone said it looks like feet,” Bhandari said.
She worked with schools to introduce Indian food and Diwali celebrations, helping classmates understand what once felt unfamiliar.
“It’s all come from learning ... I learned about their culture, and they learned about ours,” Bhandari said.
“There are still questions. That’s curiosity. But my kids are more confident to take the food and talk about it and show their culture to their friends.”
Renata Lehmann, who arrived from Germany more than four decades ago, first visited New Zealand in her early 30s and stayed after falling in love with both the country and a Kiwi man.
“There was just something about the light of New Zealand’s sky. And still, every time I come back from a trip, that’s what I look forward to: the light of the sky.”
Before getting married and having her second child, Lehmann arrived as a solo mother with a 2-year-old son.
She first struggled to find work but never saw her experience as a hardship.
“I never regarded it as a struggle. It was more like an adventure and a challenge,” she said.
Now, at 75, she says she doesn’t miss Germany.
“Hawke’s Bay is my home.”
While Lehmann’s son recently returned to Germany, she now finds herself on the other side of distance, understanding more than ever, what it means to belong to two places at once.
“He wanted to find his roots.”
At the centre of many of these stories is Rizwaana Latiff, president of the Multicultural Association of Hawke’s Bay.
“Hawke’s Bay is more multicultural than many realise,” she says.
Arriving from Durban, South Africa, in 2000, Latiff rebuilt her life as a single mother, nurse, midwife and community advocate.
Volunteering was her way to meet new people and help the community at the same time, she said.
Raised in a conservative environment and once part of an arranged marriage, she later married her Kiwi neighbour, Greg.
“We do things differently, but we compromise and meet each other halfway. Sometimes we don’t. We argue about things, but it’s okay, he knows the South African way always wins.”
Latiff says Hawke’s Bay’s diversity is growing fast, and so is the need for connection.
“Get to know others ... talk to people around you, talk to your neighbour, and who knows? You might even find a love.”