I am a Pākehā of Irish, English and Cornish ancestry. Over 30 years ago I attended Māori language classes at Henderson High School with Awa Hudson as our tutor. Awa was a wonderful teacher. She not only introduced us to te reo Māori but also to te ao Māori (the Māori world), both its culture and political critique. This was for me a beginning of a long, slow process of conversion: from an identity shaped almost entirely by a colonialist view of our country [...]




