Frontline - Racist Revival

Television (Excerpts) – 1993

The Otago goldrush in the 1860s attracted the first wave of Chinese immigrants to New Zealand. They were greeted with fear and suspicion from the white settler community. 130 years later the racist policies of late 19th century New Zealand are gone, but old attitudes linger. This 1993 Frontline report investigates the tension between older Chinese/Kiwi families and the growing number of first generation Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants. Whatever cultural issues divide them, both groups have experienced racism from Pākehā New Zealanders.

What happens with racism is that to knock another people you must first denigrate them.
– Historian James Ng on the wave of anti-Chinese propaganda in the media in early 20th century New Zealand