1 www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016 UPBEAT MUSIC Henderson Valley lies between the big, busy suburb of Henderson, west of Auckland, and the foothills of the Waitakere ranges. Although the urban sprawl is encroaching, the further up Henderson Valley Rd you drive, the more you realise that there's a little slice of rural NZ right on your doorstep. I moved to NZ with my family when I was 8 years old. That's made me a blend of the fast-paced urban culture of South Korea mixed in with a little NZ chill. I've spent the last five years working as a dancer in Los Angeles, which has made me realise just how beautiful Henderson Valley is. Moving here, I have become part of a diverse and vibrant community that has been welcoming newcomers for generations. In this episode of Neighbourhood, we'll share memories of one of the valley's winegrowing dynasties. Dad was very vine proud. He actually thought that when it came to the vines, that only the family could prune the vines, cos other people would make a mess of it. We meet a woman who encourages kids to explore their identity through art. Naturally, they're quite creative, and that makes them open to other types of learning. A man from the US tells us what's inspired his tireless work for those less privileged. The generation I was in kind of said, 'Hey, no, enough. Let's stop. Let's explore this a bit deeper.' I just was able to step right up to it and, um` and join in and be part of that whole movement. And we enjoy Thanksgiving with a woman who is grateful for the gifts her heritage has given her. As an immigrant, and as all immigrants do, they do try to bring some tradition ` something that reminds them of home ` and for me, Thanksgiving was a really big part of my life. I'm Rina Chae, and this is my neighbourhood. SENTIMENTAL MUSIC My parents are what you would call celebrity doctors. They had their own hospital. There was a typical Asian expectation that I'll follow in their footsteps. Well, my two sisters did. My heart just lay in a different direction, though. I wanted to become a dancer. As a teenager, I remember telling my parents, 'I'm hanging out with some friends,' and then sneaking off to dance classes. My parents wanted me to get a proper job, and if I had been in Korea I would have. But we were in NZ, where there is a culture that encourages young kids to explore their creativity, and I'll forever be grateful for that. One of the paintings I did when she was a baby, she loved that painting. She would stare and stare at that painting. And I think she always associated that, um, painting with being home. So, um` And that was another painting that was inspired by a tivaivai, so I think there's a connection there for her, but she might not be able to verbalise that, but I think she` those shapes, she recognizes those shapes in some way. And just nice soft strokes in there. Just take your time. OK? You wanna control that brush and how much paint's going on. Both Havanna and myself love art. We love, um, doing that together, and that's been quite lovely, um, cos typically painting can be quite a solitary experience, so its really nice to have her sit alongside me and` and we do something together. As a child I was very aware of my Cook Island heritage, particularly as most of my family ` my father's family ` were living here in Auckland as well, so we had a lot of contact with my dad's family. The art, I think, has been my connection with my Cook Island heritage, and lots of my painting is, um, based on tivaivai and, sort of, natural, uh, motifs that you would see in Cook Island art. But I find now that also my creativity, I think, being a mother and being a teacher, the` I think the focus is less on myself and more on` about creating opportunities for children, which is one of the reasons I like to do a lot of art at school. Henderson Valley, um, is a semi-rural school, so it's, um, sort of, situated at the` at the base of the Waitakere Ranges. My grandfather was a` a teacher in the Cook Islands, um, and he later became the Minister of Education, so education has always been important in my family. So who is this` who is this, sort of, central figure here? Mokoroa, he's our school guardian. He's a` Yeah, that's right. He is. So Lucy's done the` the colours for the artwork, and once the colours are on, um, we've also looked at, um, symbols of, um, different cultures within the school. So we want this` this artwork to, kind of, reflect the different cultures in the school. I think art is a very important tool. It gives children an opportunity to express themselves in, um, a multitude of ways. I think naturally they're quite creative, and that makes them, I think, more open, um, to other types of learning. When I was at school, I think NZ was less diverse at that time; I think it was` it was quite monocultural. And I think too that people felt, um, that they had to assimilate and` and really adopt the new` the culture, if they were an immigrant. Maybe there was an expectation about, um, becoming a NZer and being in a cer` that meant being a certain way. Whereas I think now people are more open to celebrating difference and accepting difference and seeing the` the positives in that. (LAUGHS) So, Nellie's like the runt, which is sad, but... Was that that little one there? Yeah. And then Joanie, she gave us the salt and pepper. (LAUGHS) How come they're not coming forward? Cos they're the shy ones. Yeah. I think the setting appeals to me, and I feel really, kind of, comfortable in this setting, and, um, it's just such` there's such an emphasis on, like, the environment at the school, and, um, you know, it features in their artwork and in` yeah, in so many things that they do. Other schools are looking at Henderson Valley as, kind of, a model. Yep. This is a mural that we did last year, and the theme of this mural is, um, Pasifika. So, um, initially we looked at, um, traditional motifs that you would see in Pacific Island art. For example the, um` the shark's tooth. So what were some of the special things that we, um` that we decided were special about Henderson Valley School? Um, our birdlife. Our birdlife, yeah. Cool. What else do you recall? And, um, Mokoroa. Mokoroa. What is he, specifically? A guardian. He's a guardian. So he's a taniwha. My perception of culture, um` I think it's more than just your heritage. I think it's also your surroundings. Uh, for instance, um, at school we have a culture, we have an identity, and, um, I think that gives children a sense of belonging within that environment. So I think culture is many` happens on many levels. DANCE MUSIC After studying dance at Auckland University, I moved to Los Angeles. There I danced with artists such as Chris Brown, Justin Bieber and Neo. But my career highlight was with Beyonce at the MTV Awards in 2014. After five years, the lure of family brought me home, back to NZ. These days, I run a dance company called Street Candee. I also run a mentorship programme for young dancers. Some students seek me out because they are still trying to find their own identity as young Asian NZers, trying to balance the expectations of their parents while still chasing their creative dreams. No matter how much we may want to leave certain aspects of our culture behind, there's usually something from our upbringing that we decide to keep with us, no matter where in the world we live. TRANQUIL MUSIC The reason I moved into this area of Henderson Valley in the Waitakeres is I have this need to be close to a city but far enough away to be in the wilderness, and that's what Marin County, California was all about. My name is Steve Tolestra, and I was born in Hollywood, California. As a child I did experience real poverty. Why? There was no alimony. There was` When my father left, he gave no money at all, and, in fact, I had to face the indignity of being kicked out of a house and` and having to stay with friends and crummy apartments. So I certainly` it gave me an empathetic, kind of, heart towards, you know` especially child poverty. You know, when I was about 12, 13, my mother remarried ` a man who was very focused on issues of social justice. He was one of America's ` at the time ` leading exponents against the death penalty. And his daytime job was as a prison psychologist working with all kinds of inmates, including death row inmates. And he was strongly committed and well read on the civil rights movement. I mean, there were a lot of other things going on around me at the time, you know? We had the Vietnam war, there was the student movement. I mean, the generation I was in, around the San Francisco Bay Area, kind of said, 'Hey, no! Enough. 'Let's stop. Let's explore this a bit deeper.' I mean, I was a sitter for it, you know? I` I just was able to step right up to it and, um` and join in and be part of that whole movement. GENTLE ACOUSTIC GUITAR MUSIC I'd been in NZ for about six months when` I arrived in April; the land march began in August. And I was 28, and this is a photograph of the march just south of Te Hapua in the Far North. And there I am with long hair. I mean, I had plenty of it in those days. The land march of 1975 was a collective protest by multiple iwi to bring to attention to the Labour Government, uh, the` the need to halt land acquisition. Whina had one catch cry ` and she was a powerful woman, Whina Cooper. She was gentle, but she was` she was also fierce. And I can remember her standing with her scarf on her head and her stick and then raising it up and saying, 'Not one more acre!' This is a` a St Christopher that, um, Whina gave` gave us at the beginning of the march up at Te Hapua Marae. She gave it to those of us at the start of the march. And St Christopher is the patron saint of travellers, and he carries the infant Jesus on his shoulder when he crosses a stream. And Whina, being a very devout Catholic, wanted us to have the protection of St Christopher, so she gave us each one of these medallions to wear and to, uh` with us on the march. And it's a treasure. It-It-It shows I was there, you know, but there's a nice kind of alignment that we too were, in a sense, being` being bearers of Christ as we walked down to Wellington. I mean, that's certainly how I felt about it, anyway. Yeah. Whina in` certainly in my estimation, and in many others', is` is a figure not unlike Nelson Mandela or Martin Luther King. Um, she really did raise awareness of a injustice in this country. SENTIMENTAL MUSIC The St Christopher is, in a sense, somewhat prophetic, because my life really has been about social justice. It has been a walk and a calling, from land march to working with Tear Fund to peace and reconciliation work, to working with Palestinians and Sri Lankans, Sudanese. I think going right from my childhood, I've got this ingrained, deep sense of empathy for others, and I can only put it down to what I'd call a calling, starting early years of life and something I con` I continue today. And long may I continue, I hope, to work with people and to serve community, to serve other people. It's what I enjoy doing. GENTLE MUSIC One of the biggest issues facing migrants is a language barrier. It is huge. Korean people are brought up to be polite and obedient too, and I remember as a teenager, when I felt that other people were steamrolling over me, it eats your confidence. It's no wonder some minorities huddle up in their comfortable cliques instead of wanting to mix and mingle, which actually is the best way to be part of a community. There's nothing like getting together with a group of like-minded people to start feeling at home in a new country. Being in the west is quite different. I grew up on concrete fences, military bases ` um, places that were not quite as lush and green. So a lot of urban dwelling and opportunities to go out into the country but very flat farmland, and this, to me, is just a playground for your eyes. There's so many different things to take photos of and hear the sounds of nature and be creative with dried leaves and different things that are readily available here that aren't available in other places. My name is J Hitomi Shimazu, and I was born in a very tiny town outside of Sacramento in California. My mother is from Japan ` she's from Tokyo ` and my father is American of Mexican and Irish descent, half American, half Japanese, really. My father was in the military. He was in the Marine Corps for 23 years. And because of his type of work, we moved around a lot. So we lived in several different countries before we settled back into the United States. Celebrating Thanksgiving here in NZ is important for me because, as an immigrant, and as all immigrants do, they do try to bring some tradition, something that reminds them of home. And for me, Thanksgiving was a really big part of my life, and with the new family that I have here in NZ, I like to share that with them, and also, they may never get a chance to go to America and celebrate a Thanksgiving, so why not have one here? It's about community and being with people and sharing foods. Today we are in the Scout Hall, and it's quite a big space, and we have quite a few people coming, so it is a community event, and this is part of our community, so we've decided to do it all in one shot. Today I'm making a cornbread stuffing ` something traditional that we have at home that also goes in par with what the Indians may have brought to the first Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims. When I was a child we had cornbread, kind of, all year round, so if you made chilli beans, or if you had Southern fried chicken or whatever home-style dish, you always had cornbread. I choose to make it in a traditional cast-iron pot, because that's what I like to cook in is the cast-iron, and it gives me a feel of what the pioneers might have had to use, as well. For Thanksgiving, the history is that the Wampanoag Indians met up with the Pilgrims, who were Puritans that came from England wanting to practise their religion freely. And they met, I think, unexpectedly, because the Mayflower ship was thrown off course during a storm, and because it was winter they had a really hard time making shelters and trying to survive. And a chief had travelled two days to come and meet these Pilgrims, and they were, uh` they welcomed him and asked him and his wife and his entourage of about 90 people to come and have a dinner with them. And so this is where, we're told, this was the first, kind of, community, the gathering of two different people, sharing under one roof or at one table. Turkey was the type of fowl that the Wampanoag Indians used to hunt, and they actually showed the Puritan pilgrims how to, uh, catch the birds, and that's, traditionally, what they may have brought to the first Thanksgiving. So it's very symbolic for us, and every year the President of the United States pardons one turkey at a turkey farm. So he gets to live to see another year, while the rest of them go off and become our dinner. PLAYFUL MUSIC My aunt was fabulous at baking pies ` all kinds of different pies ` for the holidays. My mother would bring Japanese dishes, and instead of having traditional American dishes at Christmas, we might have Japanese dishes like sukiyaki with` with the, uh, broth and the meat and the noodles and the vegetables boiled up in a pot in the middle of the table. Thanksgiving would have been traditional turkey and mashed potatoes and stuffing, but since those two holidays are so close, I think my mother tried to give us a variety. Hi! Hello. Happy Thanksgiving! NZ's full of different cultures, and` new cultures, old cultures, and Thanksgiving really is about community and coming together. I mean, I've realised that Kiwis don't need a reason to barbecue or have a party, and so we've just joined in the culture, and we've brought a little bit of ours with it. GUESTS CHEER Happy Thanksgiving! This year for Thanksgiving, I wish that everybody goes away with a full belly, that everybody is healthy as we come into the New Year and that we can all get together again next year to celebrate Thanksgiving. I always try to remember to be thankful for what I have ` for what you have now. You may want and have desires, but in the moment right now is what I'm thankful for. Even though we had our differences when it came to my choice of career, there's nobody I respect more than my mum and dad. This is my mum, Rosa, and this is my dad, William. After years of working as Western doctors, my mum now runs a Chinese medical clinic in the North Shore, and my dad works as a pastor in Remuera. Their lifelong desire to help others and family-first principles have inspired me to put 100% into my work and to keep family connections strong. That's a terrific legacy to pass down the generations. GENTLE PIANO MUSIC I grew up here on Babich Rd. The family home was here at the winery, and I spent my youth here. And when I got married, I shifted 250m up the road and built the house on the property, and I've been here ever since. Father was born in Umlioni in, uh, Croatia. It was then actually Dalmatia. Dalmatia became Yugoslavia, and then it was split up and became Croatia. He was the youngest of the five brothers, and he was 14 years old, so actually he went out on to the gum fields, and he was really given the job as the cook and the roustabout. So, he didn't actually like gumdigging at all ` in fact, the opposite really is putting it mildly. He hated it and, um, planted some vines, which is what he knew. It was part of his culture. And he planted some vines, and, um, from those vines in 1916, he produced his first wine. You know, as children, we used to help Dad fill bottles, and so we would have to wash the bottles and put them in a line and siphon wine out of the barrel and fill them up individually. Get a glue brush, glue on a label. And we did that as kids at school. There were two boys in our family. Peter, the oldest, and me. I'm eight years younger. And, uh, so Peter started here straight after he left school and was working here, uh, with Fa` my father after the war. And, um, when I left school in, um` and started work in 1958, I joined the two of them. Well, in the first photo here, that's the five brothers that came to NZ. On the top left is my father, Josip, he was the youngest. Then next to him is Stipan. They came` They were the two that came out in 1910. They were all young ` very young. He wasn't quite 15 years old. He was 14. He was 14, not quite 15 years old. It would be terrible. My wife and I went up to where our parents were born in this little rock, uh, house, and just imagine the mother, cuddling these kids when they're 14 and 16, never to see them again And pushing them out in the world. 'You can do better than this.' So if you take that back, the fact that he was only 14 years old and then almost 15, he was actually planting grapes at 15 years old. Now, can you imagine a young 15-year-old these days doing that? And he bought himself a camera. (LAUGHS) I think he was quietly ambitious. I think both Babich brothers are quite humble actually. Peter` Peter talking about, you know, his era. I can tell you that he would have given ` well, Peter and Joe ` would have given two days a week to the wine industry every week for a long time. For a long, long time. Our involvement with the industry and other matters of Waitakere City and school boards and rugby boards and the` these sort of things was all driven that` Dad used to say, 'This country has treated us well. Put some back!' GENTLE MUSIC It's quite opened up, that stump. Yeah, well, that's` lemon tree borer's causing that. But the young vines here, these young replants, sort of, doing quite well. Yeah. Yeah. Dad was very, uh, vine proud, and, uh, he wouldn't let anybody prune his vines and all this sort of thing. He actually thought that when it came to the vines, that only the family could prune the vines, because other people would make a mess of it. And, uh, that was one thing we changed a bit. (LAUGHS) It's been a way of life for us. It's not just a job. It's a total way of life. It's our family way of life, really. And, um, the interest to me is to leave it to the next generation. I retired at 64 and lasted two hours! That wasn't for me. And we` we still get a kick out of doing this. We've been here for 99 years going on for 100, so I suppose I would have to say that there's a success in that. If Dad was alive today, he'd be, uh, gobsmacked about what's happened with the industry, because he was in at the grass-roots time of the industry. 1910, 1920, 1930 ` these were all tough years for the wine industry. And to go through all that hardship that they went through to finish up doing what we're doing now, he would be pretty pleased with himself. FUNKY MUSIC It wasn't until I was about 25 years old that I started questioning my sense of identity. Who am I and where do I belong? Cos by then NZ was definitely my home, but there was no denying that I was, blood and bones, a Korean woman. I felt like discovering me was not an easy journey, especially when you add on those influential years in LA, but now I am happier than ever with my unique cultural identity. And Henderson Valley is as multicultural as I am. It's a perfect fit. Captions by Philip McKibbin. Edited by Tracey Dawson. www.able.co.nz Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. Copyright Able 2016