October 2018 Issue: subtle Asians and Crude MPs

If you know, you know that Asian New Zealanders have been going through a bit of a moment recently. The reason? A Facebook group called "subtle asian traits". The group is hard to define. It has memes, it has heartfelt reflections, it has simple statements of shared experience. The common denominator is that everything is shamelessly Asian New Zealand/Australian. This is a significant event, the closest thing to a Kiwi Asian "community" that I've seen in my life. The most beautiful thing about it is how it has united all of my different Asian friend cliques in a hot pot of shared understanding and belonging. And that is the overriding tone of the group, one of joyful realisation that one's childhood experiences weren't just unique to them. There's no telling if the group will fizzle out or turn into something more, but we've had a real moment and one that might help develop a more concrete Asian New Zealand identity.

It doesn't appear that our politicians will be much help for that development though. One of the depressing sidenotes from the Simon Bridges/Jami-Lee Ross tapes was their dismissive attitude towards Asian representation. The two discussed Asian MPs in terms as simple terms as "Two Chinese would be more valuable than two Indians". This confirmed what we had all feared: that Asian MPs are selected mainly for their ability to raise donations and as tokens for ethnic voters - something former ACT MP Deborah Coddington casually confirmed on Twitter, justifying it using the "everyone does it" excuse.

In a country that is 12% Asian, it is a tragedy that the only Asian representation we can get in parliament are from those who are potential donors, and who are often recently arrived, wealthy, and with political ties to their countries of origin. As Sudhvir Singh argues in The Spinoff, this not only opens us up to foreign interests but also represents a missed opportunity to hear the diverse ideas of those who are actual leaders in the community. (And it's not just National at fault. Labour's two Asian MPs were high on the list [$] yet missed out on Cabinet positions to those lower. Of the minor parties, Golriz Ghahraman is literally the only one). Whether anything ends up coming out of this remains to be seen (Bridges insisted he had nothing to apologise for). But it appears that while Asians New Zealanders are findings new ways to assert their place, those at the highest levels of politics are showing they couldn't care less.