These are selected quotes of members of the Ukrainian diasporic community in Aotearoa/NZ.
Probably I will connected to... to kids. Yeah. 'Cause, we are Ukrainian we are, our home where's our family. It's like yeah. So I will build my small Ukraine here. Hatka-mazanka. I care what happened there. So my home there, I'm in my big home, so, I'm from there. So I still keep, building the place here for myself place I'm comfortable there and I'm happy here.
- Natalia S.
Mmm, I don't think I will be going back, maybe, like for visit. But for many years I said no, that's one way ticket. I don't wanna go anywhere I wanna set up and, just, have my roots, somewhere deeper... There is something really, when you changing, as an adult and you changing country, that it's difficult so... there is, say, maybe some people can be transferred from place to place many times and have their root, back to ground. Um, I don't feel this way you know.
- Tetiana
- Tetiana
I guess with me it's a little bit hard because I came quite... young? Like I was twenty, so you kind of you don't understand this is your values as Ukrainian, this is your values as just a person or is it... it's New Zealand values like you don't, um, okay... don't know I can't really say that there's some like specific Ukrainian, value that we're bringing we do try to... well my first language is Russian so, we do try to speak Russian and we do try to explain, um, things to him in Russian? He refuses at the moment, he doesn't want to stand out so he's one of those kids? So we slowly kind of introduce him into it but we don't impose on him so very gentle around er how we, impose the culture? Values- just thinking of values... I guess just normal human things like just being kind, nice to each other and just you know love your family, be a good person. Just help, help people too, don't be mean?
- Hannah L.
And a cup of... couple of days... after arriving to New Zealand, I knew that that's a... top top most I wanna stay, and it's... it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy so, I didn't expect much I knew at school, but in a couple of days I realised like, oh I wanna... maybe couple of days as in next couple of weeks and the next couple of months, oh I wanna stay so badly, it's so, my place? That next ten years I never questioned even for a second, to make any career move or money or lifestyle, it was just all to stay in New Zealand? Get a citizenship and stay, forever. That's it. That way so, it was er, I didn't made, any much research, research... before like some immigrants you know like research for years, and then, it's freaking for them oh they got approval from New Zealand embassy and they come to New Zealand, however they could have got approval from Canada, and they would have come to Canada. For me, it was, I wasn't immigrant at all, I was following my passion.
- Anton O.
- Anton O.
I will say that I came from Ukraine? And I will say it very proudly, sometimes I will say I came from the one, of the most beautiful countries in the world. Or I'd say that... something else the very huh, very, good country or, yeah I... I will always say proudly that I came from Ukraine? Um... Because I think it's important... I... throughout this period of time I have experienced discrimination here in New Zealand and... and I think that, the best way to... to send a message to anyone who meets you it's just, uh, it's probably like a psychological thing I probably without, like moving the... your... chess or playing chess but it's probably, I already say that I am Ukrainian. And... I am prepared to defend my country in case if you were... have something against it. It's probably because of this experience of my, experience of being discriminated here in New Zealand as Ukrainian so, I have this attitude, and... And at the same time... I just have a feeling that it's just my country so it's not just because of that but it's also, yeah so it's both reasons probably.
- Tanya S.
But I guess the ho... home is something we are searching, all our life to find. And now when I think... Especially when it gets difficult sometimes it get difficult because you're not local and some things you just, you have to tell yourself, I still try to remember, okay but... my, ancestors they survived there, and came back. So probably, they carry something and they have to fight. You know? So... that's the... and I think why it was so difficult there, for Ukrainian. Because the same thing... For me was difficult here, for very long time, when I was thinking that home it's, house, and cosy place. I came here actually with this, dream that, we finally, will have again our home, and maybe finally we will decide we want kids, maybe finally, maybe because we were like, postponing many things. And... Now when I think, yeah. I found home inside. That's something... Just many things changing and if you don't have it you just, cannot, deal with it. There are so many... things in, world, like, even, I don't know, earthquake. But you can lose home if that's what you believe home is.
- Tetiana
- Tetiana
Just, my home? Um... I probably really thought that was a home when, I went back, for the first time? I realised I have an accent I, gained an accent in four years? Um not heavy, like very, subtle but some people do pick it up? And I felt like I knew how the society works in Ukraine? But I didn't like it and I noticed that I held back a lot in conversations with people because some things you... you can't really... Eh it's Ukrainian thing as well, like people they like to... oh how is this working there, how is that working there, they try to compare? But um I realised... earlier it's two different worlds. And you should not kind of... you can't put one thing next to the other and say, well, this is good, this is not good. And I know, it's just- this is one world and that's the other world and, yeah so then, when I went back for the first time and I realised that I've changed so much and my mentality changed a lot, and then I... I stayed there for like six weeks? Or seven weeks? Quite a long time. And I remember that I was there, I started getting really frustrated and just wanted to go home and this is when I realised... oh this is where my home. When I arrived back to New Zealand I was like... ah I can breathe. I’m home. I’m safe.
- Hannah L.
In Ukraine I was always on a move... sooo, in Ukraine of course, my understanding of home was always my parents place. You go back home once you have a vacation or you are between contracts. You go back home. Because I never had any other home in Ukraine other than parents' home. It wasn't mine. If I would be... keep living in Ukraine and buy my own house somewhere near the Kyiv, I would probably of course call this... that place home. But now? We bought house here and this is, our home now. And... I feel like because that probably the most of active live has already happened here of New Zealand, this way I made all my career all my money and all and all and all? I would say it probably would stay the main home, for ever. And Ukraine is more like an, anchor. I mean this not a not a bad way but anchor, because I need to go there to see my... mum and all and all and all? But I would say if my mum move here or, you know, die later on... I probably wouldn't come back to Ukraine, not because I don't like it. I like it, but there're so many other place to visit once you have month, two or three? That's why I do all my contracts. I rejected a contract today. Just to be able to travel when... and be whenever I want, that's very important for me. But, whenever I'll go from now, New Zealand will be my home.
- Anton O.
- Anton O.
You know there is my, blood there. It's buried there. And I think I have to return there somehow... Um, I don't know in which way in which form, in which... condition, but I feel like that my home is there, not here. Even New Zealand... New Zealand was I... I have to say that New Zealand was very kind to me and... I've met very good New Zealanders who, help me a lot and, they were nice in... all sorts of thing... in... in all different ways. I do have to say that I have been lucky and I... I... I was looked after by many New Zealanders a lot here and New Zealand offered me a lot... and New Zealand... gave me my husband gave me my... children... education and I have more opportunities in New Zealand, but I still, it's not, it's not fulfilled, you know? That... my purpose there? So... uh, by doing things like the educational trust, being... participating in those events... I absolutely love to go to do uh festivals of cultures, it's just exhausting, it's just so, exhausting every time I think, oh festival, oh festival. But... huh you know it's weeks, weeks of preparation. But when I'm there, when I have, um, when... I... I have something in New Zealand that’s Ukrainian and I'm standing there I'm proud to present my country I'm... I'm so proud to be, Ukrainian... And it's just, those moments are important for me. And... it is... And a lot of that it's... it takes, uh, It's... an... and when you meet other Ukrainians or other descendants from Ukraine they come into your tent and they say... oh my father oh my mother was Ukrainian, I feel that I have been useful. I have been useful somehow for my country and that's what I feel, that uh my home is... by being here, I feel that, I still... feel that I still have to contribute somehow to my country.
- Tanya S.
Where I belong... That's a good question. And that's probably the one that I, will try to figure out for the rest of my life... because, I guess, it cha... it changes when you start having kids and you realise that, well, I had a place where I belonged when I was in Ukraine but I didn't feel that I belonged there because I always had kind of a weird thinking compared to others, maybe I thought so I don't know. And then, in here, you're not hundred per cent local and you will never be because you have an accent and it always differentiates you from other people, you always have a story to tell how you arrived, I guess after ten years you're kind of- oh don't want to tell it okay. So how you ended up in New Zealand... I kind of already done that everywhere I go. Yeah. Right, no I feel I belong in New Zealand, my... my mindset is of a... New Zealander mindset and, yeah. I just don't I don't think I will be able to function in Ukraine the way I can function in here.
- Hannah L.
- Hannah L.
New Zealand. Hundred per cent. I just knew that's the place wh... what I belong, but for some... for some, you know gods whatev... I know you know, like unexpected reason I was born in Ukraine... no I always knew I'm a Kiwi, I always knew that. And the longer I live the... here? the more I been... get proof? That I'm a Kiwi actually like er just Kiwi wh... which was born in Ukraine. And it's, happened all the time like every time I go anywhere in, New Zealand and go windsurfing, surfing, drink with locals and they're always like like... oh you are more tha... more Kiwi than most people we know. So every K- every like Kiwi pretty much st... say to me: oh you are Kiwi, like you are definitely.
- Anton O.