Minority Groups United: the East Asian diaspora and Indigenous relationships within Patricia Grace’s Chappy and Eleanor Catton’s The Luminaries
Given the way in which East Asian migrants were “humiliated by their marginalisation”[1] within New Zealand, and the Māori community had little “protection against settler aspirations”[2], it makes sense that historically these were two communities which found solace in one another. Manying Ip asserts that “We believe that knowledge of the interaction between these two [Māori and East Asian] groups hold the key to real insight into this country’s race relations and national identity”[3] and that “studies of New Zealand’s race relations have been largely focused on the Pākehā-Māori relationship. The intergroup dynamic with the Chinese, the country’s oldest non-white migrant group, has been largely ignored”[4]. This is certainly a line of argument which fits with Patricia Grace’s approach whilst writing Chappy – which, interestingly, is her first novel interrogating the way in which the East Asian diaspora is presented within New Zealand. Chappy is a novel which both does exactly what Ip is saying there needs to be more work on – the interrogation and focus on the relationships between two non-white groups within New Zealand – but also explores a nationality (Japanese) within the East Asian diaspora which has even less presence within New Zealand.
An interesting point to be made immediately is the way in which Grace manages to both portray Aki (a Māori character) as having shared ground with Chappy by them both being ethnic minorities; yet by immediately making Chappy reliant on Aki, and then the Māori community that Aki brings Chappy into, Grace is also showing us the relative privileges that the Māori characters have over other ethnic minorities – New Zealand being officially recognised as a bicultural nation, with supposedly equality between the Māori and Pākehā communities emphasises this. Despite the racism the Māori community absolutely faced, they also “acquired a distinct legal and political status by virtue of being ‘in place’ at the point of colonial contact”[5] and thus “Māori persons were formally recognised as British co-subjects and subsequently as New Zealand co-citizens”[6]. Pearson does point out, however, that this position still left Māori individuals as “marginalised”[7] and “did little to prevent widespread land loss, social and economic neglect, and disregard of Treaty rights until well into the twentieth century”[8]. This last piece of historical information adds yet another layer of potentially why Grace chose to set Chappy during and just after the Second World War; not only can she explore the nuances within the East Asian diaspora by having a character who is Japanese (and thus an enemy of New Zealand at the time), she has also written the novel at a time where Māori rights were becoming more prominent. Whilst Māori communities were still marginalised in comparison with their Pākehā counterparts, this recognition within New Zealand “provided them with a foothold denied to immigrant minorities”[9], and it makes for an interesting comparison as the novel unfolds, and we witness Chappy, Aki, and Oriwia struggling with how best to get Chappy back home to New Zealand. It also makes for an interesting comparison right at the start of the novel, where Aki is immediately placed to rescue Chappy, highlighting to him “where he should wait for me”[10], as by having certain privileges that Chappy does not have, Aki is immediately in a position where he can aid him.
When Aki first encounters Chappy in the boat, he immediately acknowledges that this man will be hungry and thirsty having been in hiding for so long, thinking to himself, “The eye’s owner would be hungry by now. You can’t be a man if you let another man go without food and water”[11]. Aki immediately feels responsibility for Chappy, noting once he brings him water that “the little Chap’s hands were shaking so much he couldn’t hold the cup, so I did that for him”[12]. What is particularly interesting about Aki and Chappy’s first interaction, however, is the way in which Aki thinks to himself “Because I could see that this was not a native man like me, I thought I had to try to speak to him in English. Although I’d seen men like him in various ports and cities and heard their singsong language, I still thought that if I spoke to him in English, he would understand me”[13]. When it becomes clear that Chappy cannot, in fact, understand much English, Aki reverts to “whispering to him in my own language [Māori]. Though he couldn’t understand a word of it, what a relief it was to be speaking my own tongue.”[14]
Aki’s immediate instinct is to try and reach out to Chappy in English, as he assumes it will be a common language between the two of them; but as soon as he realises Chappy cannot understand much English, he reverts to speaking in Māori, and feels a great freedom in doing so. This is an immediate example of a bond being shared between two men of ethnic minorities, with Aki immediately trusting this man and speaking his mother tongue to him. However, it is also worth briefly mentioning the fact that Aki refers to Chappy as speaking a “singsong”[15] language; to me, this emphasises the way in which those of the East Asian diaspora were seen under one umbrella by New Zealanders, and not instinctively separated into their different nationalities. Even though Aki himself is an ethnic minority, and shows an immediate bond with Chappy because of this, he too falls into this trap of summarising East Asians as a monolith – in the way that I spoke about in more depth in Chapter One of this dissertation.
Such is Aki and Chappy’s bond throughout the novel, that when Oriwia decides she wants to marry Chappy, it is Aki who passes on this news to Chappy; and not only that, but Aki informs Chappy of this in “our language”[16], here meaning the Māori language. Chappy’s integration into the Māori community is to such an extent that he is given a Māori name reflective of Aki’s family when he marries Oriwia:
“The name Star was not one which my mother’s family had plucked from the heavens. Our yellow-eyed great-grandfather who killed with his eyes had chosen it at the time when Māori were required to have surnames. Whetū, the word for star, was already part of his name, so he added the English equivalent. He became Whetū Star, or Star Star, or Whetū Whetū.”[17]
Given the way in which we are very casually told how Chappy often wears “a large shirt that had belonged to Aki”[18], as readers we are already being told by Grace the comfort and safety that Chappy feels within this Māori community; but for this to be taken yet further, with Chappy being given a name which is deeply representative of Aki’s family, Grace is showing us without question the extent to which Chappy has found safety and home amongst these people.
As was touched on before, with Aki feeling comfortable enough to speak in Māori around Chappy, the way in which languages are represented within Chappy is another way in which Grace continues her interrogation of “cultural differences”[19] whilst also keeping to themes of “love and belonging”[20]. In Aki’s recollections to Daniel, he says how:
“Oriwia wrote to Chappy frequently. I would read the letters for him, translating from English into Māori. Although Oriwia could easily translate spoken Māori into English and write it down, she was unable to write the letters in her first language […] If I wasn’t home, Ishy would translate the letters into Japanese. Though Chappy could speak English by then, he couldn’t read or write it. Ah, the fun we had with our languages.”[21]
This extract really highlights the extent to which all of these characters are outsiders in their country, to an extent; they all have differing first languages and differing understandings of these languages and have to work together collectively to understand one another. Yet amongst those differences, there is a solace shown throughout Chappy, a feeling that amongst these differences is the commonality that made Aki determined to rescue Chappy in the first place. The way in which Chappy is firmly brought into Māori society and language by Grace emphasises her intent to draw parallels amongst these two ethnic minority communities who in many ways were very different, but shared “significant cultural values”[22] which created initially a found family, and eventually a family in the legal sense too.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Grace, Patricia, Chappy (London: Penguin Random House, 2015)
Ip, Manying, ‘Introduction’. The Dragon and the Taniwha: Māori and Chinese in New Zealand, ed. by Manying Ip (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2003)
Ng, James, ‘The Sojourner Experience: The Cantonese Goldseekers in New Zealand, 1865-1901’. Unfolding History, Evolving Identity: The Chinese in New Zealand ed. by Manying Ip (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2003)
Oettli, Simone, ‘Disappearance and Loss, Love and Belonging’, Landfall Review Online, 01/12/2015 https://landfallreview.com/disappearance-and-loss-love-and-belonging/
Pearson, David, ‘The ‘Majority Factor’: Shaping Chinese and Māori Minorities’. The Dragon and the Taniwha: Māori and Chinese in New Zealand, ed. by Manying Ip (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2003)
[1] Ng, James, ‘The Sojourner Experience: The Cantonese Goldseekers in New Zealand, 1865-1901’. Unfolding History, Evolving Identity: The Chinese in New Zealand ed. by Manying Ip (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2003) p.24
[2] Pearson, David, ‘The ‘Majority Factor’: Shaping Chinese and Māori Minorities’. The Dragon and the Taniwha: Māori and Chinese in New Zealand, ed. by Manying Ip (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2003) p.36
[3] Ip, Manying, ‘Introduction’. The Dragon and the Taniwha: Māori and Chinese in New Zealand, ed. by Manying Ip (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2003) p.1
[4] Ibid. p.4
[5] Pearson, David, ‘The ‘Majority Factor’: Shaping Chinese and Māori Minorities. The Dragon and the Taniwha: Māori and Chinese in New Zealand ed. by Manying Ip (Auckland: Auckland University Press 2003) p.35
[6] Ibid. p.36
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Pearson, David, ‘The ‘Majority Factor’: Shaping Chinese and Māori Minorities. The Dragon and the Taniwha: Māori and Chinese in New Zealand ed. by Manying Ip (Auckland: Auckland University Press 2003) p.37
[10] Grace, Patricia, Chappy (London: Penguin Random House, 2015) p.29
[11] Ibid. p.19
[12] Ibid. p.24
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid. p28
[15] Grace, Patricia, Chappy (London: Penguin Random House, 2015) p.24
[16] Ibid. p.92
[17] Ibid. p.96
[18] Grace, Patricia, Chappy (London: Penguin Random House, 2015) p.86
[19] Oettli, Simone, ‘Disappearance and Loss, Love and Belonging’, Landfall Review Online, 01/12/2015 https://landfallreview.com/disappearance-and-loss-love-and-belonging/
[20] Ibid.
[21] Grace, Patricia, Chappy (London: Penguin Random House, 2015) p.174
[22] Ip, Manying, ‘Introduction’. The Dragon and the Taniwha: Māori and Chinese in New Zealand ed. by Manying Ip (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 2009) p.7