NZ Asians at risk of exploitation - study

Last week in New Zealand a report was released by the Families Commission that focused on how families from different ethnicities were faring.

It is worth mentioning here that The Family Commission's director of research is an Indian woman named Vasantha Krishnan and the principle advisor for the report is called Bev Hong.

The report found that Asian families with younger children appear to be more vulnerable to exploitation in terms of money, housing and hours of work and pay.

This is interesting, as minorities often employ their own people- which is likely where the exploitation is coming from- indicating that this is unlikely a problem in the environment at large. 

The report also found that Asians in New Zealand are more  likey to have identity issues. On July 22nd Radio New Zealand posted an article about the report that included quotes from Xiaoying Fu who moved to New Zealand from China 20 years ago and is standing for a local Board in this year's local election.

"I've been here for nearly 20 years and in my heart I felt I am a New Zealander right? But based on my face people always say, you know, 'you are Chinese' so that is why I didn't even bother to give myself an English name".

It is unlikely that a single European has ever lived in China for 20 years and then proclaimed that in their heart they are Chinese, and if there ever has been I'm sure the locals would have laughed in their face.

"Some people probably try to mingle with the mainstream and probably sometimes [they're] really confused... 'who I am', you know, 'what's the culture I should take?'"

Asians are notorious for forming their own communities within the broader one, with whole suburbs and areas of commerce becoming dominated by them. There doesn't appear to be too much confusion amongst them with respect to their identities.

The report's principal advisor Bev Hong was quoted saying:

"We are becoming one of the most super diverse countries there is in the world and so we've got a lot of opportunities to both learn, adapt and grow."

That's fine, though I think that China should be the next country for diversification, so that lots of learning, adapting and growing can happen there too.

The report found that Maori families were faring relatively well and European families with young children, meanwhile, were generally faring well.

In 2013 New Zealand's Asian population sat at 12% and is expected to grow by 10% in the next 20 years.