Yvonne Van Dongen: Butter Chicken Tsunami

Flood a nation with different cultures at warp speed and watch what happens

Twelve years ago I had an Indian flatmate on contract to an IT company. He’d already worked in the United Kingdom and the United States and found New Zealand to be the most welcoming country he had lived in. I doubt he would say that now.

Now we have reports of anti-Indian racist grafitti outside an Auckland primary school where over 60 percent of the pupils are Indian, police data shows South Asians are the group most experiencing racial abuse and, on rare occasions, this abuse has led to violence.

What’s changed?

Yvonne Van Dongen: The AEWV - New Zealand’s Gateway to Indentured Labour

How a visa scheme designed to fill labour shortages led to exploitation—and a pathway to permanent migration.

Ever wondered why so many vape shops, dairies and bottle stores you see these days are staffed by Indians?

You’re not imagining things and it’s not racist to notice. It’s called pattern recognition, a survival strategy humans evolved over millennia for a good reason.