Greetings, my name is Tutaki Poumale.
My theme for today is knowing my language
and identity is important for my future success.
The Niuean language has been described as one of the
fastest dying Pacific languages here in New Zealand.
Majority of our youth don't speak Niuean
but when we come here to this house,
it's like the whispers of our ancestors are in the walls, you know?
I remember the space being used for so many different reasons.
For 21st birthdays, Christmas parties.
We've had language classes here, preschool here.
We used to have Zumba class here as well.
This house is the one thing that
keeps all of us connected physically.
When we think about our efforts,
our fight to preserve our Vagahau Niue.
The fact that we have this house that’s a blessing,
that's an advantage.
This is our greatest asset.
Hakupu is one of the most southern villages in Niue.
The full name of our village is Fineone Hakupu Atua.
In the early ‘60s,
some of the members of the village
start to migrate to New Zealand.
They got together and decided
at a meeting to buy a property or a house.
It was given to us,
it was a gift from heaven through our tupunas
and we are very lucky.
The only village from Niue to own a property here in Auckland.
This place became our place where we were able
to connect, unite, see one another before going our different ways.
This is where the village life for us was.
Yeah so this is Dryden Street, which is an old street here in Grey Lynn,
where I grew up, where all my memories are,
and this is my grandparents’ house here on the right
that's up for sale!
Oh my gosh it’s for sale.
This is where pretty much everyone grew up.
Our house had story and it had life
and it had a family.
In 2011 we sold the house and we all had to move out
and say goodbye.
My cousins were the last ones to live here.
It was kind of like when my nana died that everything had changed.
Yeah, I guess my relationship to Grey Lynn now,
is pretty much our house that we have on Ariki Street.
My family migrated here in the seventies.
My dad was born in Tonga and my mum was born in Niue
but both my parents are of Niuean heritage as well.
I'm involved now as one of the leaders.
I do lots of work around performing arts
and using our language and teaching our younger ones.
Just his energy and his passion to convince us,
like, “Hey your language is beautiful go and learn it,
hey your culture is important, pick it up and embrace it, and be proud,
take it with you everywhere in the world, wherever you go,
don’t leave it at the doorstep.”
His love for the village, that was infectious.
Personally, when I was growing up,
I didn't want to learn Niuean language.
I didn't like being Niuean.
I was insecure in my culture and in my identity
and I just had this real resistance to learning the Niuean culture.
It’s just so hard living in a Pan-Pacific kind of world,
like Auckland,
because everything’s mish mashed together,
we lose the nuances of the Niuean culture.
We lose the things that are specific to us as Niuean people.
It wasn't until I went to performing arts school and I kind of like
unraveled those layers and dealt with some of the trauma
from my childhood.
I went from not wanting to learn Niuean
to now fully embracing being Niuean
and learning and loving my language
and living in my culture.
Mele, are the leaves finished?
Do we need to add some more?
Should you add lemon to it?
Lemon and onion?
Yeah!
Where's the top chef Derrick?
This is a pālagi spoon, we never have this spoon back home.
Me, myself and my generation, we’re New Zealand born.
So, the only time we got to hear Vagahau Niue was
predominantly when we came to this house.
So 95 percent of all Niuean people are based in New Zealand.
That’s way more than Niue because Niue is very small.
Less than 11 percent can actually speak.
So when you consider those stats,
it's terrifying, it really is.
If we don't do enough to extract
as much information or as much of that cultural richness
that content from Derek, from Rewa, right,
from those guys, it will die.
The language will die, the culture will follow suit,
and all those stories,
our connection to our tupunas before us, that’s gonna be dead.
To be honest a lot of Niuean kids don’t wanna learn their culture.
They go and hide or they go and like,
you know, they want to be Samoan or they want to be Tongan
or they want to be pālagi.
They turn away from their culture for whatever reason.
So we’re all brainstorming together,
trying to come up with ideas
to engage the young people and keep them interested.
The way we look at us like we're in a war,
we just need more soldiers to jump in our army,
to fight for our language, to keep it alive.
Outside of the Hakupu House
I do a lot of work in the community, but my day to day, 9 to 5 job
is as a school teacher at Marcellin College.
I’m one of very few Niuean staff members at my school.
It's kind of a sense of responsibility and the duty to serve
the Niuean students and families in our school community.
So I work a lot of these students and
try and mentor them and encourage them
to use Niuean language.
We are going to ASB Polyfest 2023.
Today is the speech comp.
Yeah, really excited to see them participate
in the speech competition
and to see them being proud of their,
their mother tongues and their languages.
It’s been a while, like I said it’s been a while,
since Marcellin has been on the Niuean stage.
But we like to encourage our students,
no matter how big the group is or how small the group is
come through to the Niuean stage.
Do you guys wanna have a little practice over here in the corner?
Come, do this, do you know what will help you?
Do a speed run, without stopping.
We're going to hear from a student from
the school of Marcellin College,
his name is Tutaki Poumale, pasi pasi mai.
Greetings to you all. My name is Tutaki Poumale
I'm from the beautiful village of Alofi Tokelau.
Thank you Aunty!
My theme for today is knowing about my language
and identity is important for my future success.
I hail from the beautiful villages of Togulu Tamakautoga and Fineone Hakupu Atua.
The land where people live harmoniously and are fluent in the indigenous language
as well as being very immersed in cultural traditions.
Togulu Tamakautoga!
I felt really proud to see my students up on stage.
It feels rewarding to hear our language being spoken
and to see our young people giving it a try
because a lot of them don't have the confidence and skill set
to just break out and speak Niuean.
Now in Central Auckland there’s accessibility issues
for our community.
So the fact that we get to come here for free
and be ourselves is a bonus to all of us.
I know the developer next door,
they even talk about selling them half of the property.
There's no money in the world that will buy this house,
even if the offer is ten, twenty million dollars.
It's kind of nice when we come here
and not everyone looks like us on the street
and we take up the whole street, we park everywhere,
we’re loud, we sing.
So even though it’s rachety, and it’s run down,
and you know, the toilet doesn't work
and there's no hot water on that side
and there's a missing window, whatever,
it’s still home for us.
You know we acknowledge we’re not the tangata whenua,
we don't own land or anything like that, but it's somewhere
where we feel comfortable and we feel safe to be Niuean.
Yeah, if we ever lost this house
it would be a great loss for our community,
and to those who fought for this vision.
Our former Premier of Niue, the Honourable Young Vivian,
he’s one of our village elders,
we've decided to put this special event on for him
to acknowledge him, to celebrate him while he's still alive.
So he's empowered so many of our young people
to learn their culture and fight for Niue
and so that’s what we’re doing,
we're showing him, your vision has come to life.
I see all their faces up there.
They had an idea, they fundraised themselves,
to put this community house for us.
Back then, I used to think, what do you mean
for the children in the future? What do you mean?
And now I think I've benefited from that vision.
The biggest challenge for my generation is to see whether
we will be able to use the next ten years to revitalise Vagahau Niue
and extract, or learn, our culture.
How do we communicate the value to New Zealand born Niueans,
"Hey, our language is important, our culture is important."?
But I am hopeful that with the likes of Leki, myself, all our cousins,
that it is possible.
I just want this house to thrive,
to become a hub for all of our future generations,
for our New Zealand born kids to not struggle
with their identity and to know that they have a place
where they belong and a place where they can call home.
A place for our language and our culture to thrive.