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Two worlds
One body
A battle going on inside
Who am I?
Life is,
Either black
Or White
Where does that leave,
The grey area
In between?
Brown mother
White father
Inter-connected, but worlds apart
Kei hea toku turangawaewae?
Where do I stand?
This decision is tearing me apart
I thought I knew
Now I’m not so sure
Why must I choose?
“Tick the box you identify with most.”
“You can only tick one.”
How can I?
When either way I’ll be
Denying half my heritage.
Two worlds
One body
One person
Kotahitanga
Me.
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Writer Profile
Marino
Tena koutou,
Ko Marino Harker-Smith toku ingoa.
No Aotearoa (Niu Tereni) au.
Ka mahi kairipoata ahau mo te nupepa Te Whetu O Te Wairoa. Ka tuhituhi hoki au i oku ake pakiwaitara moku.
My Name's Marino Harker-Smith and I'm from New Zealand, also known as the land of the long white cloud.
I work fulltime as a journalist for the Wairoa Star community newspaper in a small rural town. Also the only town/district in the country where Maori make up the majority race. yup yup! Considering Maori are only about 14% of the country or something.
I am not full-blooded Maori though. My mum is half Maori and my dad is white.
As well as working as a journalist, in my spare time i like to work on my creative writing and have several fictional shortstories and half-started novels filed away on the computer.
Yeah well, that's ME.
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Comments
kia kaha Alex Matthews | Jan 19th, 2007
being Aotearoan is something that goes beyond blood. it's about mana and connection to the earth. personal integrity and warrior spirit.
i gave a speech about this on Te Rau Aroha Marae in Bluff last time i was there with the NZ Future Leaders Programm. we feel conflicted about our identities because Maori and European values seem so paradoxed - the rampant capitalism of europeanism and the staunch communilism of Maori.
maybe there is a single standard that we can judge our blood and our identity against. maybe it is the earth that is the true parent for all of us, and maybe we earn our identity by loving it.
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