Describe New Zealand’s four waves of immigration and explain using specific example how each migrant group has contributed to New Zealand national character.

Starting from Polynesians (Maori) and to Polynesians Islanders, New Zealand had many interesting migrations. The four waves of immigration, Polynesians, Europeans, Asians and Polynesian Islanders each contributed priceless contribution to our national character. Because of these immigrations New Zealand is now a wonderful and multicultural country.

Firstly, Polynesians (Maori) came to New Zealand from Hawaikiki around about 470-1100AD. They came to New Zealand from China and through many generations they came down to islands to another islands and eventually arriving to New Zealand. Polynesians Maori contributed culture, art, food and history. In culture, they contributed Kapa Haka which is Maori war dance. Presently New Zealand performs this dance widely. Even the famous All Blacks rugby team does Kapa Haka when they were at the Rugby World Cup. In food, they mainly contributed kumara with them which now is eaten widely around New Zealand and cooked in various ways. In art, they contributed their own way to carve bones and jades. These carvings, also made out of wood, can be seen almost every marae throughout New Zealand. In history, they contributed their own story of their ancestors. One of the famous stories was Maui and the Sun. In addition, Maori arrival had a great impact of naming of places. Because they were the first people to arrive in New Zealand, they had the advantage to name the places of New Zealand and native New Zealand plants and animals. The pohutukawa (NZ’s Christmas tree) and Rotorua can be the famous examples of Maori naming.

Secondly, a wave of Europeans came to New Zealand in a period between 1700s and onwards. This wave included explorers, missionaries, whalers, sealers, military and settlers. This wave contributed many things: religion, technology, politics, language and culture. In religion they contributed Christianity. This had a massive religious impact to Maoris and some converted to be Christians. In politics, the Europeans contributed the ways to govern a country. This probably included absolute monarchy and democracy. In language, the Europeans contributed many different languages to New Zealand: English, French, Dutch, Spanish and etc. In culture, they contributed music, tradition and sports. They probably contributed many sports and one of the well known examples may be soccer. In music, they contributed their violins, cellos, pianos, clarinets and all the other European music. In tradition, the Europeans may have contributed the calendar system and their time system. Because the Maori had no knowledge of keeping time, they contributed the calendar and time system to teach them how to keep track of time. On the other hand, Europeans contributed a bad factor as well as all the other good factors they contributed to New Zealand’s national character. They contributed diseases. The Europeans brought diseases that the Maori had no immunity of and this resulted in many deaths of the Maori. Overall, the European wave contributed not only positive factors to New Zealand like religion, technology, politics, language and culture but they contributed negative factors like disease to the New Zealand national character.

Thirdly, the wave of Asians came to New Zealand between the periods of 1870 to 1940. They came because there was the discovery of gold in New Zealand at that time. In this wave, the Asians were mostly Chinese who left their remaining family in their homeland and came to New Zealand to make some fortune out of gold. Again, their contribution to New Zealand’s national character was quite noticeable. They contributed their culture (music, clothes, religion, and language), food and skills. In music, they contributed the Asian style of music. The Asian type of music is performed throughout New Zealand and even schools perform it through individual groups like Chinese dance group or Korean drum group. They contributed their type of clothing which is now worn even by Europeans and the local markets also sell them. In religion, the Asians contributed Buddhism. Because of this there are now temples of Buddha throughout New Zealand and many people in New Zealand believe in Buddhism. They also contributed their language Chinese, to all the other languages that were in New Zealand before Chinese. This included English, Maori, French and Dutch. Food was a great contribution to New Zealand, this included sushi, noodles, Korean Kim-bab and etc. Now, there are many Asian restaurants widely spread across New Zealand and even many Europeans love to go there. One example is Sura. This traditional Korean BBQ restaurant is located in Highland Park and countless Europeans go there.

Lastly, the waves of Polynesian Islanders are coming from 1970s to present time. They are coming to New Zealand looking for jobs and to start a new life. This is a great impact of New Zealand’s economy. It has developed New Zealand’s economy in a great scale. However, although this is great factor for the whole country, the Islanders themselves have manual labour that no-one in the country wants to do. Inspite of the job problem they have, they contributed to New Zealand’s national character in terms of culture (art, music and fashion), food and skills. Because the Maori and Polynesian Islanders were very similar in all perspectives, their contribution of art, music, tradition and fashion were very similar. Their carving of bones and jade and their fashion of wearing hand-woven plant clothing were similar too. Their food was similar also. Therefore, the new contribution was their skills. The Polynesian Islanders contributed how to weave flax to make baskets, clothes and other souvenirs that tourists wanted to buy.

Overall, there were in total four major waves of migration to New Zealand: Maori, Europeans, Asians and Polynesian Islanders and between each of them small ripples of migration came as well and are still coming to New Zealand. Because of these migrations, New Zealand is unique, because of its cultural mix. Other countries like Australia are similar, but will never be the same as New Zealand because of how they treated Aborigines. To add, there are not just positive sides of an immigration wave but there can be some negative factors as well. For example, the European wave contributed disease that brought many deaths to Maori. To conclude, New Zealand is a multicultural country because of these four waves of immigration which each contributed to New Zealand’s national character.