Tala Pasifika - The Overstayer

You and the kids, you're my first, real family...and now they're going to take me away from you.

– Joe (Eteuati Ete) on being sent to Samoa, and separated from his partner and children

How do you sleep at night, picking on us when there are criminals running around?

– Sandy (Sarah Smuts-Kennedy) expresses disgust after Sergeant Saunders (Wayne England) bursts into her home in the early hours

I was so embarrassed for my kids; the police, they just stopped the car, and made everyone line up against the wall.

– A Samoan-Kiwi woman at Aunty Nua's house complains about the way police treat Pasifika people

I don't think there is any Pacific family who was not touched by the Dawn Raids or the random checking in one way or another ... there are Pacific people who find it difficult to stand tall because of that, to live a full life carrying this burden.

– Reverend Alec Toleafoa on the lasting pain of the 1970s Dawn Raids, Radio New Zealand website, 19 April 2021

I don't understand it, Joe. It's like you're ashamed of your family or something.

– Sandy (Sarah Smuts-Kennedy) questions why her partner Joe (Eteuati Ete) hasn't introduced their young family to his Samoan relatives

You have two policemen walking in and without saying anything they pull your blankets away from you and if you’re naked they say ‘get up, put something on’ and they stand there looking at you while you shyly jump around trying to have something to cover yourself … and if you take your time they grab you and throw you into the lounge … the language is the coarsest most obscene language you can use like ‘fxxxxx get up! You black bitch, put something on … whore!’

– Tongan policeman Joshua Liava’a recalls witnessing one of the raids, Te Ara website