Selu, this is how you do it.
You really get down. You know?
I've been told by families to sell the house.
"Just imagine the money you'd make."
Oh, that's rubbish to me.
We don't care if you offered us a billion dollars.
That's nothing to us.
I refuse to sell the hard work of my parents
who emigrated from Samoa.
Who needs the gym? When you could just do this.
There is a nickname known for Ponsonby now,
and it's called 'Ponsnobby.'
No, we're not rich. It's those who are moving into Ponsonby.
But no, we're not rich.
Flowers are everything, right? They represent our tropical island.
We're rich in heart,
rich in family,
rich in culture.
That's more than enough for us.
Open the door properly, you're going to break the door!
Pull it down!
- Wait, it's stuck.
Oh, Selu!
Oh, it's quite dark in here, eh?
My family have been living here in Ponsonby for 49 years now.
My grandparents migrated from Samoa like a lot of other families,
to create a better future for their families, and they eventually settled in Ponsonby.
And voilà, our pictures.
Oh my gosh. There's so many people in here I still recognise.
That's Nana, that's your grandma.
See how pretty she is. Look at her short hairdo there.
I can't believe it used to be mustard though.
Yeah, it was mustard. Then it was green.
It's pantry of memories — the past.
This is where the mechanics were.
Mum just came and put the pounds down on this foundation, and this became our home.
'Tis the reason why our house is not a villa.
But I'm actually glad that it's not the same as everyone else.
Growing up in Ponsonby for my sister and I,
we were kind of growing up in that transitional period
where it was becoming the affluent suburb that it is now.
So, we were kind of in that grey area of it still being the same
but also like things were changing around us.
It was the heart of Polynesia.
If only I could rewind the past. If you could only see it through my eyes.
All my neighbours were Polynesians.
No disrespect to anyone here, it was like spot the white.
It was just a happy atmosphere.
Neighbours coming out, saying 'hi' to each other.
The laughter.
And if one family had more food than the other, we would go and share with our neighbours
because that is the Polynesian way.
That's changed. That doesn't happen anymore.
Neighbours here tend to keep to themselves now.
When it hit the 2000s, I think that's when everything started going down.
I'm sorry darling, you're a millennium baby
but, you know, mummy still loves you.
I think at a younger age we weren't as aware how amazing it was
to have a family home and still remain in Ponsonby.
But I think as we've grown up,
we've come to appreciate it a bit more just because we understand
the sacrifice that went behind having a family home and just having a place to call our home.
Hi. Can I please get a chicken teriyaki? - Have here?
Yes, have here please.
I've always loved coming to the Ponsonby Food Court, ever since I was a kid.
Because it is such a staple in our neighbourhood.
A lot of Pasifika families will come through to the Ponsonby Food Court.
It's like one of the more cheaper places that you'll find in Ponsonby.
A lot of memories here, coming after church
or even after school as well.
I only really saw other people that looked like me once I actually went to school
because there's obviously like a really large Māori and Pasifika population at AGS
and then yeah, my church community as well, because it is a Pasifika church
yeah, those were like our only connections.
I wouldn't say that there is a lot that I would do in Ponsonby.
So I'm always going to the city, going beyond Ponsonby to do things.
This is kind of like a lot of my childhood right here,
but a lot of it's kind of gone right now, which is quite sad.
So many memories here of us coming to Burger King before we went to the cinema to sneak in food
because cinema food was like not really cheap.
So this is the next best thing, you're not allowed to but it's fine, it's whatever.
I've just recently finished studying at AUT.
I did a Bachelor of Communication Studies, majoring in screen production.
I've always had a massive love of film and now that I'm finished
there still is that passion to kind of get into it.
And also just like working with a lot of my mates who are majority Māori and Pasifika as well,
being able to create storylines as well that we wish we could've seen when we were growing up.
2019 was the first year of my uni journey
and that was when my mum was diagnosed with endometrial cancer.
Anyone that's met my mum knows that she's a fighter, she's got such a strong spirit.
Yeah, that's just kind of what I do as her daughter as well
and just continuing to support her
and just be the strength that she needs during her journey
when she can't find it in herself sometimes.
You know how it's now Ponsonby Central?
This used to be a whole factory. - This whole thing?
Yeah. Used to be just factories along all here.
There's not a part of K Road that you can walk to that doesn't have construction.
- Yeah.
On Thursdays, used to be late night in K Road and all the Polynesians used to go there
because that was the only place that they sold the taros and green bananas, Pacific food.
It was buzzing back then.
But now for us in Ponsonby or Grey Lynn, we have to go out to south side, west side to Avondale
because that's where the majority now of Polynesians live.
If we go to Countdown or anything like that, they don't sell green bananas or taros.
When I look around now, it's absolutely ugly.
It was beautiful when I was growing up.
It was beautiful, colourful.
It's just different. It's still vibrant, just in a different way.
You're just from a different generation.
- Yeah, I am from a different generation.
No matter how much the Ponsonby area does change
I'll still always consider it home.
I don't think that's a fact that will ever change,
regardless of how much it turns into something that I don't really recognise anymore.
I think for a lot of my generation that still live in the area
and why it's so important just to still remain in the area,
I think it's just all about maintaining your roots.
I mean, if you're born in the area and you were just raised in here,
it's kind of like, why would you want to leave?
A lot of Pacific families started leaving.
It was getting too expensive to live in Auckland Central.
There was also that racism. Nobody likes to talk about it, but it is still there.
They could see back then that my people couldn't afford it
and they would lift their costs even more.
It just pushed my people out more.
Real estate agents and investors would prey on a lot of Māori and Pasifika families,
and bribe them with big money and the false promise of a better life if they just say yes.
Eventually forcing those families out
and then turning the area that they used to live in
to very expensive and affluent communities.
One by one, I would see them sell.
It just broke my heart.
There was that prejudice.
You don't want to say, "Oh, we don't have that in New Zealand" but I'm sorry, we still do.
We still do.
Mum's doing her loko at home right now.
So I'm going to go just get her a coffee from up the road
but usually she'll be going to the eleven o’clock service
but just because Mum is quite vulnerable,
my sister and I aren't really comfortable with her going to church services right now.
We know that it's hard for Mum because that's her happy place
and it's not only good for her emotional health but like her mental health as well
but I think the way that her health is and because she is a lot more vulnerable,
those are just like necessary sacrifices that we have to make,
just so that we know that she's being protected.
Here you go. - Thank you dear.
That's alright.
And here is our beautiful church.
I do miss going inside, but due to my immune system, I have to protect myself.
My girls, they look after me well. But that's the thing.
It's like at times, the roles have reversed
and they've become the mother, and I've become the child.
We got to do what's right.
PIC Newton as a church has always been quite an integral part of my life.
Not only because my grandparents went there and a lot of my family are still there.
A lot of important moments of my life have been rooted at that church.
Usually, a lot of the times when you come here from the islands, the first thing you do is find a church
because the perspective is like finding a spiritual home.
This was where Reverend Challis and Reverend Sio
helped a lot of our people when they first emigrated from the islands.
Not only was he like, our reverend,
he was also playing an immigration officer, job seeker and things like that.
And that's how we learned our culture at the same time.
But unfortunately now the numbers have dwindled.
A lot of our elders, our parents who helped start that church, have all passed away.
Some of their children or grandchildren still go to that church but a lot have gone.
My relationship to the church has changed quite a lot over the years.
As I've gotten older and then life happens, you just get exposed to so many different things.
Sometimes you don't always have time
to be as committed and faithful as you once used to be.
I mean, I've discussed it a lot with Mum and I think I'm just at a point and also at an age
where I'm like just trying to expand, I guess, my perspective
and also just come to terms with certain things in my own time.
Oh Selu, your hands are so slow. So slow.
Even though we live in Ponsonby, the values I teach my kids are still Samoan.
The beauty about being Samoan is, you have that culture,
that's your identity and it makes you who you are.
Fa'a Samoa is a lot more than just speaking the language, which is great.
But I think the way we view it is that it's a lot of
guiding principles just for how we carry ourselves.
And I think it was something that I needed.
Especially with the suburb that I was growing in
where there weren't a lot of young brown girls that looked like me
or there weren't a lot of brown families anymore.
There's kind of that underlying thought,
is there a possibility that we might be branching out as well?
And how long will it take for there to be,
just us left?
Our grandparents' dream was to always make this a generational home.
It'll become our house and then hopefully our children's house and so on, so on.
So it's kind of like they had the foresight for it,
they knew that they wanted this to become a family home
and just to have a place that was ours.
I'm one of the original people of this street
and that's where I intend to stay forever and ever.
Until God decides to call me home.
Right, Selu?
Can I have an amen?