A minor but significant victory today in the war against beauracracy.
For the first time in New Zealands history I am actually allowed to call myself a "New Zealander" in our census.
Up until this time I could be a New Zealand citizen but under the ethnicity column I was not allowed to be so.
There still isn't a box to check labelled 'New Zealander" where as there is one for Maori, Fijian, Indian, Japanese, Korean, English, Irish, Dutch, et cetera, but for the first time I am 'allowed' to write NZr in the '
others' category.
Up until now if you wrote this, you would be catalogued as 'European'.
Nor was I allowed to state that I was of mixed race, I could only check Maori, which I partly am, or one of the others such as Irish/Scots/English which I also am.
I couldn't and still cannot even be New Zealander/Maori or European/Maori.
So after 5 generations of my ancestors all being born in New Zealand, I'm actually officially allowed to be one. Apparently the reason for the strict criteria was that the statistics were used to define the demographics of discrimination.
So having won that battle, this year I and others of like mind are organising to write 'Pakeha' or 'Ngati Pakeha', which is of course what we truly are