I was born in 1976. Of course I don't recall much of that though my mother says it was a harrowing experience and that being an unwed mother did not bode well with the medical practice much in those days. One can only assume she means that they were less than understanding.

Cultural identity wasn't something I thought about at the age of 3 or 5 but much further down the track. For me it is a continuous journey and at varying stages of which I am trying very hard not to runaway from. What I mean by that is its hard when youre 25 years old and still feel very disconnected from your heritage and it takes a lot more effort to address that gap in your life.

What makes things difficult for me linking to my cultural heritage, I think, is because I did not meet my father until I was 15 years old. It never really bothered me that I didn't have a dad who lived with me like my other friends. A lot of mum's friends were also solo parents so I thought it was the norm. And to be truthful I thought it was better. Mum is one of seven children so there was always an uncle around to show me how to ride a bike, make a proper punching fist, fly kites etc. My grandfather also lived with us for extended periods of time when I was young and so I certainly didn't feel I lacked for male role models.

Did I think about my colour at a young age? No. I don't recall many kids of colour at my first primary school and didn't see myself as any different to other children. There was Jonathan who lived down the road and he was Maori and we got on okay cos I think he thought I was Maori like him too. I didn't incur the racial slurs some of the darker kids did I think, because you're just a girl with olive skin a half-caste, slightly exotic looking, and could be part Italian maybe Spanish - rarely did people even think of the pacific islands. To this day people still ask me if I am Italian or Spanish but mostly people think I am part Maori.

Things changed dramatically for me around the age of 10, when my mother married. Soon after Mum was pregnant and I was told that we would be moving to accommodate this family that had suddenly doubled in size. These events had a snowball effect and in what felt to be instantaneous, we were living on the other side of town and I was on my way to a new school. Where we had moved was in fact where Mum had spent some time growing up and where we had first lived with my granddad. Some of Mums friends still lived in the neighbourhood and their kids whom I sort of knew went to the same school.

It was at this school one day when I recall what some might call an identity crisis. My friend Randall and his mate got into an argument with some Samoan boys about me about what I was. I think Randall was saying that I was Maori while the other three boys were saying "No she's Samoan". They seemed to think they knew me or probably of me and in hindsight I think they did. They ceased their argument to ask me what I was and to my horror I couldn't answer because I wasn't 100% sure. I had a feeling the three boys were right but I certainly didnt feel like letting them have one up on me. It was weird to think that these kids could know things about me that I didnt, considering I did not know them. Here I was face to face with real Samoan kids and I wasn't like them at all!! Acting like the indignant little 10 year old that I was I said it was none of their business and stormed off, noting to myself that the first thing I was going to do when I got home was to find out for sure. Fancy not knowing if youre Maori or Samoan - I felt pretty stupid.

I was very flustered and exasperated when I got home that day and asked my mother straight away
"What am I?"
"What do you mean what are you. You're you. "
"No what am I? Am I Maori, Samoan - what? "
"You're you - a New Zealander, like me."
"No, but I'm something else too - what's my dad?"
"He is a Samoan."
"Oh."

At last I knew. I had a label for it, and for me, and though that was all well and good it didn't really mean anything. Now that I knew my Dad was a Samoan and that meant that I was half Samoan it didnt alter my life in any way. People still thought I was part Maori, Italian or Spanish. What did being Samoan mean anyway? I certainly couldn't identify with those three boys from school with their dark skin and flat noses. Mum was right I was just a New Zealander.

For years after that whenever there was a form to fill out requesting ethnicity I always hesitated and when it came to ticking the box that said Samoan. I would tick New Zealander but that other box gave me so much grief. On one hand I technically was Samoan so I should tick the box, but then again I had no idea what a Samoan was like and was sure I certainly didn't act like one so it would be wrong for me to assume that identity - I would be a fraud. So sometimes I didn't tick the box.

At high school it gradually dawned on me that I had a need to find out who my father was. Not for some of the soppy reasons youll get in published fiction but for the simple reason that when walking down the street that dark skinned Polynesian man could be my Dad and I wouldnt even know it. This disturbed me to no end and so at the age of 15 I wrote a letter with the help of my mother to my father suggesting that we could meet.

What may have been a couple of weeks later - I don't recall, was a visit not from my father but his wife. She arrived at our house and spoke to my mother first. When she saw me she hugged me and I think she was crying. Though I don't remember much about that day I do recall that she made it quite clear that as far as she was concerned I was her daughter and a welcome member of her family. She is a very special and loving woman whom I care for and respect very much. Her continued support in her own unspoken way gives me the sense that I have a second home.

I had a short visit to my Dad's house and it was strained to say the very least. He didn't say much except that he didnt know that I had been born as my mother had never told him. I had a different version so this did not sit well with me. Secondly he thought that I wanted money from him, which at the time I found insulting but now, years later I understand that he wasn't being cruel. There's always some family member who needs money, a fale needs to be built or a funeral to be attended by the whole family, thats just the way it is and he may very well have thought that he would also have to take responsibility for me financially as well as his other commitments. So I guess we got off on the wrong foot through a simple misunderstanding due our very different cultural backgrounds.

The cool part about that first visit was meeting my other siblings. I recognised the eldest girl from my school and recalled the strange looks we had exchanged over the past few weeks. It turned out my stepmother had told her daughter of my letter and she had wondered if this new sister was me. Her hunch had been correct and we grinned at each other knowingly. I have a lot of half brothers and sisters. Last count there are three older brothers, (whom I've never met) me and then seven others. I'd like to be part of a family reunion one day, especially to meet my three big brothers and their families.

For a period of time, perhaps a year I would see my Samoan family most weekends and attend church. Now there's an experience! I was completely out of my depth, was reminded of it constantly and didnt like it one bit. Can you believe that those three Samoan boys were the first three faces I saw going into Sunday school! And then there were the linkages that I had no idea of. Not only was I a Tanielu but so and so was my second cousin and also been a Lancaster, my good friend from school who lived across the road from me turned out to be a cousin in some fandangle way and someone knew someone else that knew me or of me. In fact it was surprising how many people did know of me considering my own father never had.

I didn't fit in at church. It was not my scene at all and I used my Western upbringing to exert a little independence by getting out of attending Sunday school and later, the Samoan service. Being a non-speaker there really wasnt any point as far as I could see, so instead I opted to walk into town and hang out. I clung to my sisters for guidance but felt very much the outsider, a little too western perhaps in that I had a lot of freedom that I wasn't willing to give up. My friends from school would often drive in to church to pick me up and go off somewhere and I could see the other kids looking at me as if I was some kind of alien - maybe a rebel?


So I tried the church thing as it was the only real connection I could form with my father. I was seeking his acceptance and the only way I could do that was to be the good Samoan daughter. I could see his disappointment that I was half white. I was hurt when my sisters gently told me that he did not approve of the things I wore, jeans or skirts that were too short, so I changed but later resented this and felt that nothing I did would ever make me fit in. I thought that I would achieve a sense of father-daughterness with him and a sense of the family that I never knew, that is to say my Samoan family and where we came from and grandparents etc. This never evolved for one reason or another. I tried to learn the language but felt inept and foolish and the one text book I had had been written in the early 1950s. Not having the language was and still is a barrier. I couldnt communicate with my peers or elders and for older family members English was still hard so instead there were a lot of smiles and nodding.

My father never really talked about his family and I have often thought of sending a list of questions that I would like answered. I want to know who my grandparents were, the village my dad is from, his siblings and all that stuff that gives us some sense of grounding and the of knowing where we are from. I care very much about being Samoan and though it may be different from what you or your family see PI to be I am no less pacific islander than those born in the islands, those that speak their language or are raised in a pacific island household.

It's been 10 years since I first met my father and I still don't have all of the answers to my questions. Im working on island time. I keep in contact with the two older girls in the family who keep me up with all the goss. There is a trip planned to go to Samoa at the end of this year and perhaps another sometime in 2002. One excursion for Dads family and the other for my stepmother. My sisters and I have often talked about this trip and I have said that I would like to go with them in 2002.

I have been fortunate enough to be adopted into this group, Daughters of the Pacific. To be perfectly honest I find all this stuff about cultural identity rather intimidating and could not embark on this journey without my sisters who support and encourage me. One of the things I have learnt from this group is that there are no set guidelines to being PI. I may choose to take Samoan language classes, learn to weave or learn a dozen Samoan songs and dance routines or - not. I can just be me, a woman born in New Zealand to a European mother and Samoan father. I'm a new kind of woman, a new kind of pacific island woman. I have sisters just like me where once I thought I was alone, far and wide and reaching out, speaking out and standing out.

So if you ask me what makes me Samoan, what makes me a pacific islander it's simply this;
I am.