For a brief time, things were not going to plan for businesswoman Mihi Sorensen.
Having grown up all her life in Christchurch, she left her whānau and friends for the big smoke - Auckland - to study law and health science at the University of Auckland.
Very quickly, however, shefelt that her identity was being challenged and that she was being judged by her fellow students wrongly portraying her as coming across as Pākehā.
“I’d been private school-educated, so I was very used to being the only brown person in a room,” she said.
“Being in these spaces with other Māori, in particular, who really knew who they were, who had either been raised with parents who spoke Māori to them or just understood more about their whakapapa.
“There were Māori students who didn’t like me because they felt that I was portraying myself as a Pākehā girl.
“Unfortunately, not the case. I talk like this because this is just the way that I have always spoken. This is the way that I articulate my words - I’m not trying to sound better than you.”
Sorensen’s whakapapa and roots are based in the North Island. She was not raised close to her marae with te reo spoken at home - which led to judgment later in her life.
“It’s not something that I hold against my parents. They were raised with parents themselves who had Māori beaten out of them,” she said.
Mihi Sorensen grew up in Christchurch.
“What it meant is by the time I started university and I moved to Auckland, I had no idea who I was - and it was very confronting.”
She felt her experience at university began to be overshadowed by not knowing her Māoritanga.
‘I did what she said I couldn’t do’
After a year, Sorensen lost passion for health science and decided to finish her law degree back home.
To make up for lost time, she talked to a student advisor about fast-tracking the completion of her studies.
However, she says she was discouraged from doing so. She was told “Māori students typically fail at law school” and that it was risky to take on an increased workload.
Those words from the advisor, who was Māori herself, left an impact on Sorensen, who wondered how many other students had been given the same advice and ultimately decided to follow it.
“I think that rhetoric is incredibly harmful. It’s very dated. I did finish my law degree early.
“I did what she said I couldn’t do.”
The young woman has since moved overseas and is working on ticking off a number of life bucket list items - including travelling to different parts of the world - before she turns 30.
Island Roots, Auckland Ways is hosted by Flava radio host Mariner ‘Maz’ Fagaiava and academic Allyssa Verner-Pula. New episodes are available every Thursday. You can follow the podcast on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
