Touted as the world’s most Polynesian city, Pacific Islanders make up 15% of Auckland’s population. But does the dream of a better life match reality?

It’s Thursday morning in Auckland and the Tongan Older Persons Group is gathering for lunch. Stuffed kūmara (sweet potato) is on the menu. So is a presentation on bowel cancer, and then a few rounds of bingo – using peanuts, fruit and Oreo biscuits instead of cash.

Meleane Mafi, 85, leads a song with lyrics speaking of a longing for palm trees and white shores.

There’s no more life left in Tonga. Just plant, eat and repeat Meleane Mafi

“My family is here, so my life is here,” says Mafi, who migrated to New Zealand 18 years ago. “There’s no more life left in Tonga. Just plant, eat and repeat.”

Settled by Māori and colonised by the British, Auckland is the largest Polynesian city in the world.

Close to 200,000 Pacific Islanders live here, making up roughly 15% of the city’s total population, according to the 2013 census. The highest number hail from Samoa, followed by Tonga, the Cook Islands, Niue and Fiji.

Some Pacific Islands, such as Tokelau and Niue, now have more of their people living in New Zealand than at home, a trend that is predicted to soar with the rising threat of climate change.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Members of Auckland’s Tongan Older Persons Group. Pacific Islanders make up approximately 15% of the city’s population. Photograph: Eleanor Ainge Roy

The south Auckland suburbs of Otahuhu, Ōtara and Papatoetoe feel like Apia or Nukuʻalofa, many residents say. Stores are piled high with taro, tapioca and cassava, shopkeepers greet customers in Samoan and clothing stores stock puletasi and sarongs.

“You know those people that have American dreams?” says Fijian Soneel Kumaran, 25, who works at the Pacifica Style Quality Clothing shop at the Ōtara shopping centre. “New Zealand is pretty much like America for all the Pacific Islands.”

But for many Pacific migrants, the New Zealand dream is increasingly illusory.

Pacific parents used to bring up their children to be doctors and nurses. Now migrant parents just aim for them to get a job Wesley Talaimanu

The city is struggling to provide adequate housing, transport and social services for its booming – and very youthful – Pacific population. The median age of Islanders in Auckland is just 22.6 years, and they are disproportionately represented in low socioeconomic indicators.

Overcrowding has become an entrenched issue, social welfare agencies say, as new migrants squat with relatives for extended periods of time, straining relationships and resources. In recent years, as Auckland has become one of the most expensive cities in the world to live, reports have emerged of families living in garages, tents and shipping containers.

Michael Vaa, 13, migrated to Auckland last year. He lives in a state house in the south Auckland suburb of Otahuhu, which he describes as “full of fighting”. Since arriving, he and his family have lived in five different homes, two of which were paid for by the government as emergency housing.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Shops like this one in Otahuhu sell products typical of the Pacific Islands, making the area feel more like Samoa or Tonga, many residents say. Photograph: Eleanor Ainge Roy

Back in Samoa, Vaa worked his family’s taro and banana crops and occasionally went to school, where he was frequently caned for minor misdemeanours.

“It’s better for our family here,” he says. “In Samoa you just stay home and have to work in the fields every day for your food. If you don’t work, there’s no food.”

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“The dream [of Auckland] is still valid, even if the expectations are now much lower,” says Wesley Talaimanu, the executive director of Fonua Ola, a social support agency for the city’s Pacific community.

“Pacific parents in the 1970s used to bring up their children to be doctors and nurses in New Zealand. Migrant parents today just aim for their children to get a job.

“Domestic violence happens a lot when families move over. The frustration of the transition is so much harder than people realise.”

Although older Islanders are beginning to “boomerang” home with their New Zealand pensions, the same is not true for younger migrants, who frequently describe their island homes as “boring” and “slow”.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Former rugby player Ali Lauitiiti, left, with 13-year-old Samoan mentee Michael Vaa and executive director of Fonua Ola Wesley Talaimanu. Photograph: Eleanor Ainge Roy

Talaimanu says the biggest trap for young Pacific Island migrants now is a lack of skills when they arrive in Auckland, and the temptations of easy credit, alcohol and drugs.

Many migrants feel hoodwinked by credit schemes that allow them to enjoy the “bright lights” of Auckland, struggling with the resulting debt and often turning to substance abuse to cope.

Pacific Islanders earn less than any other demographic group in New Zealand, with a median personal income of just NZ$18,900 a year, roughly $10,000 less than other Aucklanders.

We have always highlighted that New Zealand is a Pacific nation, but I think over the years the county has struggled with that identity Aupito Tofae Su’a William Sio

“The dream is still able to lure people here, but the dream is now one of dependence and entitlements, not independence,” says Talaimanu. “Migrants come and they see they can get a car, free credit, state housing, and that is really attractive. But it’s so easy to fall into a cycle of poverty, and after that crisis is never far away.”

As New Zealand has tightened up its immigration requirements it has become harder for Pacific Islanders to migrate there, though citizens of Niue and the Cook Islands have automatic residency. Other Islanders have to apply through the Pacific quota system, and year-on-year thousands more people apply than places are available: last year, nearly 17,000 Samoans applied for just 1,100 places.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern at Polyfest, which celebrates Polynesian culture and heritage. Photograph: Hannah Peters/Getty Images

The minister for Pacific peoples, Aupito Tofae Su’a William Sio, says a review of the quota system is planned for next year. Born in Samoa, Sio moved to Auckland in 1969.

“Myself and people in the Pacific community have always highlighted that New Zealand is a Pacific nation, but I think over the years New Zealand has really struggled with that identity,” says Sio.

“Pākehā [European-descended New Zealanders] have thought that this is their world, and Māori have thought that this is their world. That’s a lot of contested interests for a small country with limited resources.”

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Sio and his nine siblings grew up in an Auckland suspicious of Pacific Islanders. Racism was overt, recalls Sio, and the mid-1970s saw the beginning of dawn raids where police stormed the homes of Pacific Islanders accused of overstaying their visas. Samoan and Tongan families were singled out.

“It was traumatic – in the early days there was a lot of tension,” recalls Sio. “We weren’t necessarily welcomed by the local kids. We were called coconuts or ‘fobs’ – fresh off the boats.”

Vaa, the 13-year-old, has never been called a coconut, and despite all the house moves he says he likes his new life in Auckland: the ready availability of food, the ban on corporal punishment, and the fact that all the homes they’ve had have walls, doors and separate bedrooms.

When his family earn enough money they’ll bring his grandmother out, and then his aunts and uncles and maybe his cousins, too. But at night he still dreams of Samoa: of walking to the bridge near his home after Sunday lunch to go swimming.

“Sundays I miss, ioe [yes],” he says. “Sundays by the bridge in the sea.”

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