 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
Danielle's Story Here we stand at the crossroads (from, Baskets of Stories
Talofa lava, Greetings I was born at the crossroads of many cultures, Irish, English, Samoan, Chinese, German. These family webs were woven together by my parents Eileen Briget O'Halloran and Sam, Ulisese Fanavae Auimatagi. I am 5th generation born in Aotearoa New Zealand on my mother's side and 1st generation on my fathers side. My Dad came to NZ following his Uncle Robert Auimatagi from their village Malie in Upolo, Samoa. I was baptised Danielle Louise O'Halloran and brought up in Otautahi Christchurch in a strongly Catholic community. My mother and my Grandma Claire were the main caregivers in my life and for the first three months of my life we lived at my Grandma Claire and Grandad Ray's house in Riccarton where my Mum grew up. I felt welcome and loved there and when we moved into our own flat in Linwood, I still looked forward to weekends at Grandmas. My Mums relationship with my Dad had been brief and so she kept in contact with his family through my Uncle Robert Auimatagi and my Aunty Shirley in the early years. Later, when my Dad married for the first time, Sandy (my stepmum) and my Mum worked hard to establish regular contact between Dad and his previous children, including myself. I am so grateful for the effort they put in as it made it possible for me to know my Dad and my brother and sisters. My mother never married and so I was raised an only child but I have 4 siblings born to my father and they are each very special to me. It has been a long journey for us to all be able to be together in the same room, but this year we all met together for the first time. Blessings upon all my fathers children and their mothers and their other siblings, blessings on the newly born grandchildren, Izaiah and Song, blessings and thanks to all my family throughout the generations, this story is a part of your story too. The early years of my life, growing up in a Linwood block of flats, surrounded by concrete and busy roads, holds a lot of good memories. My Mum put in a pretty garden, a sandpit and my Uncle Norm built me a play house. It was a troubled place to live at times, but mostly for us kids in the flats, it was heaps of fun. We would play cowboys and Indians and I would always be the only girl, so I'd be Wonder Woman. Daniel my best friend next door would help me fix stuff in the garage, like our old TV set, with a hammer and some nails. I went to playgroup and kindy at Aranui, but I found it all pretty scary, same with school. In my first term of primary school at St Pauls in Dallington, an older boy called me "black" and I knew he meant something mean. I didnt wan't to go to school anymore. It was the first time I had thought of myself as looking different from other white kids, and from my Mum, so it was a shock. It was around the same time as the Springbok Tour and I remember being really afraid the Springboks, who I thought must have been some kind of army, would be coming up the driveway so I'd better not go out on the street. When I asked my Mum what Apartheid was she said it meant if we ever we went to South Africa we wouldnt be able to live together because she was white and I was brown. Like a lot of people living in Aotearoa New Zealand, the 1981 Tour had a big impact on my young understanding of colour and identity issues for myself and others. At age 6, moving from multicoloured, working class Linwood, to the predominantly white, middle class neighbourhood of Riccarton/Fendalton, I noticed the differences. There were no kids playing in driveways together, there weren't many kids around. Walking through treelined streets, old houses-newly renovated and the stonewalls of comfortable money, my Dad would walk with me at Christmas and on birthdays, through my neighbourhood. "You're lucky to live here, it's nice, these trees must be old," he would say. Most of my cousins on my Mum's side lived close by in those days and we were a big gang of fun and games. These were great times, playing dress ups in Grandmas ballgowns and costume jewellery. I desperately wanted to be a ballerina for a while and I had a tutu. As I grew older and tried ballet, which was a bad joke for my body type, and then Irish dancing, there was no suggestion that maybe I should get into a Samoan cultural group. It was unthinkable then, although there was a brief stint in the P.I. culture group at highschool, but that fizzled out. For me, and my Mum's family who I grew up with, it was easier to deal with my colour and my disconnection from my Dad's family and Samoan culture, if I could be a beautiful Spanish dancer or a dramatic Snow White. Maybe that is why theatre and performance have been such a big part of inquiry into my sense of identity. My Dad would always tell me, "Make sure you marry a rich man, make sure you go to University, be a lawyer or a doctor..." Throughout highschool the performing arts had been my passion and so I did go to university, but to do a Theatre and film major for Bachelor of Arts Degree. In all the papers I did, I always took opportunities to research stuff to do with culture and identity, especially anything about women, half caste, totolua, "border identities" and so on. I tried to get my head round the culture shock I had experienced as a 16 year old travelling with my Dad for the first time to meet my Samoan family in South Auckland. As a naive catholic school girl from a sheltered palagi world, I felt lost and out of my depth with my Samoan relations. Despite the welcome we received from our family, the split I had down my middle seemed too severe and one side of the split was completely foreign to me - and yet at the same time not foreign at all. When it was impossible to understand myself in relation to my family, I did what comes easiest to me - I researched in books and journals in libraries for answers to my questions. about why...why are my family in NZ and not back in their Island paradise, why a concrete suburb instead of a beachfront fale, what is fa'asamoa and does it necessitate the violence and abuse that sometimes gets wrapped up in the same package, what is it to be afa casi, is there a better description, what is it to be born at the crossroads in Aotearoa New Zealand? Some of these questions have revealed to me through time, parts of an ongoing story imbedded in the colonial history in the Pacific that I still want to learn more about. Reading books by people like Sia Fiegel, Malama Meleisea, Misilugi Tulifau Tofaeono Tu'u'u, books like Pacific Women Speak Out, Daughters of the Pacific, poems by Momoe Malietoa Von Reich, Ruperake Petaia, Albert Wendt, plays like Sons performed by Pacific Underground. Learning about the German and NZ administration, the Peruvian slave ships that took slaves throughout Polynesia in the 1860s, the Mau movement for Samoan independence and the massacre of Samoans in peaceful demonstration by the NZ administration on Black Saturday, learning about the history of mixed race relations in Samoa and the legal classification of palagi Samoan afa casi as European and their consequential landlessness...More often now I am meeting people who I feel comfortable to ask questions of face to face. People like Daughters of the Pacific, Freedom Roadworks from Dunedin, representatives from Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific from Fiji, the Peace Foundation and some of my relations. I have purposely left out my inquiry into my Irish and English roots 'cos it's hard talking out of both sides of my mouth at once and I'm not writing my whole autobiography here. The re-learning and remembering of all my people's stories is important to me - filling in the blanks of history, filling in the blanks of myself, so that I can be the full expression of myself, so that I can pass that on to my children. Aside from that kind of learning, I have been developing creatively, using my angst and turning it into poems that I would perform in different bars and cafes around town. I linked up with the freak scene in Christchurch and within that alternative scene really began to have some fun. Some weirdo artist freaks including myself formed a loose gaggle of performance art poets called Militant Angels. We did a lot of DIY public awareness promotion of free self expression through pornography of soul in the form of rant/rage performance at numerous bars and theatres up and down the country. I finished the few remaining points of my Theatre and Film Degree on the West Coast with my partner Matt Davis, (jazz man, militant angel and special human who I adore). We lived in a cosy octagonal house, no electricity, no phone, in regenerated native bush at a place called Katajuta Farm. A friend, Richard, who is Samoan, told us, "Its just like home over here, except you'd like Samoa better, better weather." While living at Fox River, my Dad had a kidney transplant and a week later died, I was grateful to have been able to see him in this last week and to be at the hospital with him when he passed on. My Nana Tuanafu, died just over a year later and my family still grieves their loss. Soon after my Dad died, we conceived our precious gift, our son, Song Ulisese Davis. I gave birth to my son at home, free to dance and roar, and supported of the people I had chosen to be with me, as well as the ancestors and the unborn in which Song takes his place amongst, well loved. At the moment I am a Mum first and foremost and aside from that I am a member of a group called WEAVE, promoting peace issues using the performing arts. WEAVE has focused mainly on nuclear free and independence struggles in the Pacific, with the Treaty of Waitangi and decolonisation issues in Aotearoa New Zealand as our first concern. We are currently creating a performance called Baskets of Stories that taps into our stories and the differing cultural heritage we bring to our meeting in this place. I will keep you posted on WEAVEs process in the development of Baskets of Stories through this site. Ia, loto tele (be, stay strong). To all eternity To eternity to eternity God lies in labour Giving birth, giving birth, giving birth. (Hildegard von Bingen)
Home -- About Us
-- Whats New -- Our
Stories -- Fono -- Your
Stories -- Contacts |
