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    Acculturation and negotiation of identity : the case of five adult Filipina migrants in New Zealand : a thesis completed in part-fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy in Second Language Teaching at Massey University
    (Massey University, 2007) Corby, Judith
    This investigation is based on a qualitative study of five Filipina 1 For the purposes of clarity and simplicity, the following terms are used in this study: Filipino (sing.)/Filipinos (pl.) - somebody who comes from the Philippines, either masculine or neutral form Filipino - the official language of the Philippines Filipina (sing.)/Filipinas (pl.) - feminine form of Filipino/Filipinos migrants in New Zealand. Using open-ended interviews as the primary source of data, the study examines the women's personal experiences and subjective understandings of migration and acculturation. Its focus is on the ways in which Filipina migrants negotiate the social constraints they encounter during settlement, and how they construct social identities within these constraints. The questions that this study seeks to answer concern the understanding of the participants' motivations and personal investment in migrating to New Zealand; the stages that they go through while adjusting to a new environment; the factors that influence their negotiation of identity and competence; and the relationships between power relations and language socialization. The investigation reveals that the positive factors in New Zealand, such as better standard of living and better educational system, and the negative factors in the Philippines, such as unstable economic, political, and social conditions, were stronger than the positive pull factors in their home country, such as strong family ties, thus influencing the participants' decision to leave the comforts of a familiar culture, and migrate to New Zealand. The participants reported that the difference between Philippines and New Zealand in terms of food, weather, language, beliefs, values, and general standard of living have affected their adaptation processes in different ways and in varying degrees. They also claimed that their positive and negative experiences, especially with the issues of legitimacy and acceptance have influenced their perceptions of New Zealand, as well as the degree of their frustration and contentment, hence, affecting their personal "investment" in their host country. Their stories also indicated that negotiating roles and identities was an important factor in their adaptation process, and that their identities and membership in New Zealand society determined and were determined by power struggles and by their participation in their new environment.
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    Immigrants in Auckland : a contribution to human ecology : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Geography at Massey University
    (Massey University, 1974) Trlin, Andrew D.
    New Zealand's post-war pattern of immigration and immigrant settlement has been characterised by three features. First, although British immigrants still formed the dominant group of new arrivals, the migrant stream has included a broader spectrum of national, cultural, and racial groups. Second, the immigrants have settled mainly in the major urban areas, especially Auckland and Wellington-Hutt. Finally, within the urban areas the various immigrant ethnic and racial groups have become spatially differentiated in terms of their relative residential concentration or dispersal as compared with the host population. Together these features have confronted New Zealanders with a variety of broad social adjustment problems. This study of immigrants in Auckland examines the extent to which intra-urban immigrant residential patterns can be attributed to the operation of four basic factors identified in a review of the seminal literature. The four factors are: (a) the spatial organisation of urban land use; (b) the nature and relative importance of dimensions of (or factors underlying) urban residential differentiation; (c) the the social, cultural and demographic characteristics of the immigrants; and (d) the social and cultural characteristics, attitudes and values, of the host population. It is asserted that these four factors are inter-related and together form a socio-ecological system, wherein there is a close association and interaction between the two dimensions of social distance and physical distance. The operation and interaction of the four factors and the nature of the socio-ecological system as perceived by the writer, are examined via seventeen hypotheses. These hypotheses have been tested largely via (a) case studies of five selected immigrant groups resident within the Auckland Urban Area, and (b) a survey of the attitudes, beliefs and expectations of the host population. The five selected groups - the Dutch, Hungarians, Niueans, Samoans and Yugoslavs - are held to be representative of the broader post-war spectrum of immigrant arrivals. Apart from Chapter 1 which is concerned largely with methodological problems - especially data collection - the findings of this study are reported in six major chapters (Chapters 2 to 7 inclusive). The seventeen hypotheses were either wholly or partially substantiated - only Hypotheses 1, 4, 7 and 15 falling within the 'partially substantiated' category. Thus it is concluded that immigrant intra-urban residential patterns can be attributed to the operation and interaction of the four basic factors listed above. In particular the findings of this study support: (a) the close association of physical and social distance; (b) the role end function of ethnicity as a factor underlying social and physical distances between populations! and (c) the role and function of ethnicity within a cycle of causation that may contribute either positively or negatively to the integrative and/or segregative adjustments of the immigrant and host populations.