Auckland

THE central STORY

WORDS: CAITLIN SYKES • IMAGERY: AMANDA TRAYES

A tour of Auckland’s K’ Road with the Pua brothers weaves together tales of family and faith, tragedy and triumph, activism and social justice – all the while connecting the city’s Pacific urban history to the story of Aotearoa

“Growing up, I would hear everybody else’s stories, except ours,” says Sofi Ulugia-Pua. “I thought, ‘When am I going to hear my story?’”

It’s a painful reflection, but one that also served as a powerful motivator for the creator and founder of the Pasifika Urban Street History (PUSH) project. For almost 20 years, as part of the project, the urban historian, storyteller and poet has been running tours with his older brother, the Revd Mua Strickson-Pua, around central Auckland that give voice to the area’s Pacific urban history. The Pua brothers grew up in Grey Lynn, two of the six children of Vaitulu and Sofi Pua, who came to New Zealand from Samoa and met in Auckland in the 1950s. The tours weave their personal stories associated with central city locations seamlessly into a wider Pacific urban history and that of Aotearoa: the post-World War II urban migration waves, the establishment of Pasifika churches, the rise of the Polynesian Panthers, and the Dawn Raids and the formal apology for them decades later.

Called ‘Savali Le Talanoa’, or ‘Walk The Talk’, the tours initially began with Sofi and Mua talking with tour participants as they took in sites of significance around Karangahape Road (known as K’ Road), Ponsonby and Grey Lynn. In more recent years, their sister Vaitulu Pua has joined occasionally, as she does on the day Heritage New Zealand magazine takes the tour.

The tours have expanded over time to incorporate music, poetry and dance, sometimes performed live by family members and other artists (Sofi’s daughter is a Siva dancer, for example, and Mua’s son Feleti was a member of hip-hop/R&B group Nesian Mystik).

“Traditionally our stories are told through music,” explains Sofi, “and we also wanted to celebrate artists and how they tell our stories.”

It’s a bright, warm morning when we meet Sofi and Mua at Pigeon Park, at the corner of K’ Road and

1 Symonds Street Cemetery.

2 Revd Mua Strickson-Pua at the intersection of K’ Road and Queen Street.

3 Auckland Baptist Tabernacle.

4 St Kevins Arcade.

tikanga:

cultural protocol waiata: song Symonds Street, where they kick off the tour with a warm welcome.

“This is an opportunity to tell our stories, honour our old people, and honour your people,” Mua tells us.

“We hope this experience leaves you with a sense of hope and a better understanding of our community and of us,” echoes Sofi, before sharing the tour’s opening waiata – Maisey Rika singing the national anthem in te reo Māori and English, recorded in 2019 at the National Remembrance Service in Christchurch to honour the victims of the 15 March mosque attacks.

Sofi and Mua highlight sites with layers of significance, not only over time but to a diversity of people, and our first stop exemplifies their approach.

A trained social worker who continues to work with former gang members, Mua leads us into the Symonds Street Cemetery and under Grafton Bridge (both the cemetery and the bridge are Category 1 historic places), where many homeless people gather over summer. When we emerge on the bridge’s opposite side, we pause at the grave of William Hobson.

“There’s such an irony to this site,” notes Mua, “that here you have New Zealand’s first governor, who signed the Treaty of Waitangi, and just over there we’re reminded of the continuing social cost to our society of those who didn’t make the transition. We’re standing in this one place, in the presence of our ancestors, yet there are many different stories.”

Referencing the bridge above, they acknowledge it as a key pathway for the ‘mamas’ of their parents’ generation, who would walk en masse along K’ Road and across the bridge to work as cleaners at Auckland City Hospital.

“They were on low wages, so they walked everywhere to save the money for their children,” says Mua, before the voice of Pauly Fuemana of music group OMC punctuates the scene, capturing the sincerity of the hope embodied by new arrivals to Aotearoa.

And my father used to say And we came to this land of plenty And we came to this land of hope And we came to this land of good times And we came to this land of love

– OMC, ‘LAND OF PLENTY’ (EXCERPT)

Social activism is a strong thread drawn through the brothers’ lives, and back at Pigeon Park Sofi highlights it as a meeting place for weekly protests in 1981 against the Springbok Tour, which he joined aged 15.

“It was an eye-opener that sport could split a nation. We had family and church members who were part of the Police and it was really hard to turn up to protests when they were right in the front lines opposite us.”

At the top of Queen Street, our next stop is the Category 1 Auckland Baptist Tabernacle, where Mua shares a story of their friend, musician and activist Tigilau Ness. This was Tigi’s childhood church, he explains, until the church could no longer afford the buses that ferried the congregation’s working-class children to and from Ponsonby.

Walking through the throngs on K’ Road and St Kevins Arcade, we stop at the Myers Park historic area, where the brothers reflect on the alternate realities they were exposed to growing up.

“In the ’70s, K’ Road was our multicultural hub. On Thursday nights all the families were here shopping at George Courts and Rendells, and at the fruit shops for coconuts and taro,” recalls Sofi.

However, Mua recalls a time in 1980 when he was a young social worker appointed to work with the King Cobras, and a 13-year-old girl known as Cookie was raped and murdered in Myers Park. Mua subsequently accompanied a busload of young gang members to the tangi in Northland, and he recalls guiding the young men through the tikanga of the tangi – a heartbreaking process recounted in his poem ‘Tangi’.

2

Ask those young people What it means to be at the bottom Of bargain bin New Zealand, Where ethnic working-class People are consumed, Assimilated and even integrated We know because we live the reality Of your lies, New Zealand

– REVD MUA STRICKSON-PUA, ‘TANGI’ (EXCERPT)

2

The presence of Sofi and Mua’s parents, and particularly their father Sofi, a prominent member of the Samoan community, looms large over the tour and we hear more of his story on Beresford Street at Maota Samoa/Samoa House.

Opened in 1978 as a space for the Samoan community and the Samoan Embassy, it was the first formal Samoan meeting house to be built outside Samoa. As Samoan Advisory Council chair, Sofi was a driving force in its creation.

Sofi was a teacher in Samoa, but when his qualifications weren’t recognised in New Zealand, he took up a Post Office job. However, his public stance against the Dawn Raids (he’s pictured with then prime minister Robert Muldoon at the Auckland Town Hall in debate on the issue), persistently stymied his promotion, notes Sofi (Jnr).

Across the road, Mua points to the Beresford Street Congregational Church, today known as Hopetoun Alpha (and listed as St James’ Presbyterian Church, a Category 1 historic place). He tells how a schism in that church in the 1940s, because services were only being offered in English, prompted the establishment in 1948 of the Pua family’s church, the Pacific Islanders’ Presbyterian Church (PIPC) in Newton.

PIPC Newton is still Vaitulu’s church, and standing on its steps she describes it as a place in New Zealand society where Pacific people feel fully welcome.

“Our parents’ generation left everything to come here, but what they did bring with them was a sense of faith,” she explains. “This was the mother of the Pacific churches, and we were raised within its walls.”

She recalls the times of the services held in different languages, the hundreds of children who lined Edinburgh Street for Sunday school, and the culture of leadership the church fostered.

3

1 Myers Park historic area.

2 Maota Samoa/ Samoa House.

3 The Whakaako Kia Whakaora/Educate to Liberate mural was completed last year in recognition of the

Polynesian Panthers’ 50th anniversary.

4 The VAANA peace mural.

5 Revd Mua Strickson-Pua,

Vaitulu Pua and Sofi

Ulugia-Pua on the steps of

PIPC Newton.

“Although it could be seen as a very traditional church, it was very innovative around youth,” she says. “In the islands, you would usually become a church elder in your forties or fifties, but my friend and I became elders here at 21. We used to joke that if you can survive in PIPC Newton, you can survive anywhere, and those experiences haven’t left us. If we look back at that first generation, the majority went on to various leadership roles.”

The church has also been immortalised on screen. A pivotal early scene in the hit movie Sione’s Wedding was shot on its steps; Mua, who served as spiritual and cultural advisor on the film and its sequel, features in the scene.

One of the last stops on the tour, near the intersection of Karangahape and Ponsonby Roads, is a more recent addition to the neighbourhood: the Whakaako Kia Whakaora/Educate to Liberate mural (pictured on pages 16–17), unveiled last year in recognition of the Polynesian Panthers’ 50th anniversary.

“The Polynesian Panthers – they were the senior kids of our Sunday school,” explains Sofi. “They were the first to go off to university and start challenging our leaders and our church. And they were family friends; I remember them protecting us as we walked along Ponsonby Road from the people who used to come into the area to chase and beat up kids.”

Also significant in 2021 was the formal apology for the Dawn Raids. When it was officially delivered at the Category 1 Auckland Town Hall, four generations of the Pua family were there to hear it.

After the Kingites song ‘Polynesian Panthers’ has echoed across the carpark beneath the mural, the tour winds to a close across the road at the site of another series of artworks – the iconic VAANA peace mural. It’s here that Mua reflects on the evolution of the PUSH project to this point and the power of personal storytelling to create universal connections.

“PUSH began as a means of honouring our parents, but then we realised it was allowing others to tell their stories and healing to take place,” he says.

“It begins with your story, but then it becomes our history.”

5