In today’s New Zealand, it’s not about being just Māori or Pākehā - everyone must belong | Philip McKibbin

While some of us are both, many of us are neither. The urge to separate us out is used to marginalise people around the world

It took me a long time to embrace my Mori identity.

On my mother's side, I whakapapa (relate, through ancestry) to Ki Tahu, the largest iwi (tribe) of Te Waipounamu (the South Island of New Zealand), but I grew up believing I was only Pkeh (NZ European). I spent most of my childhood living with my Pkeh father. Even though my Mori ancestry was mentioned occasionally, I resisted the suggestion that I was Mori. I didn't grow up on a marae (Mori village), or speak te reo - and I didn't look like the Mori kids I knew.