October 26, 2022
Unmarked graves part of Pukekohe trauma
A researcher behind a television documentary on mid-century racial segregation in Pukekohe says there was lasting trauma which needs to be addressed.
No Māori Allowed exposed segregation into the 1950s and 60’s which included separate toilets for Maori and pakeha in schools, barbers refusing to cut Maori hair, shop-keepers not serving them and a segregated movie theatre.
Dr Robert Bartholomew says hundreds of infants and children died from preventable diseases directly linked to the slum housing on the market gardens.
“The legacy of racial discrimination continues today in the form of intergenerational trauma. I’ve received dozens of emails since that documentary came out and a number of kaumatua said they cried when they watched the documentary and it brought back all of these dark memories,” he says.
Dr Bartholomew says because even the cemetery was segregated, people now are walking over the unmarked graves of more than 200 Maori.
He wants to see those people given their mana back with identification of where they are and headstones.
There are still locals in Pukekohe who argue the Treaty should be torn up because New Zealand was first settled by Celts.
Dr Bartholomew says he began researching racial segregation in New Zealand when he came here from the United States and found himself teaching about the civil rights movement in America .