Q: What is your favourite book, or author? Mila’s Books makes history again

By Frank Neill

Wainuiomata resident Dahlia Malaeulu’s publishing firm Mila’s Books has made history again.

It’s new book “A New Dawn” has been announced as a New Zealand Children’s and Young Adult Book Awards Finalist.

This is the first time in the awards history that a book produced by an all Pasifika publishing team has been a finalist.

“A New Dawn”by Emeli Sione and illustrated by Darcy Solia is one of five finalists in the Elsie Locke Award for Non-Fiction.

Released on the one-year anniversary of the New Zealand government apology for the dawn raids, the book shares Emeli’s dawn raid story of the real impact of this dark time in our history.

Emili’s work “provides us with hope on our journeys of equality, justice and healing as Pasifika in Aotearoa,” Dahlia says.

“We are also proud of the amazing Petone-based author, Emeli Sione and herfamily for showing the world what is possible through the sharing of our stories and experiences asPasifika here in Aotearoa.”

“Like many other immigrant families, my parents started their new lives here feeling hopeful and thinking God had truly blessed them,” Emeli says.

“We lived with my grandparents, and Mum worked in a laundromat and looked after us kids while Dad worked in a hotel in town.

“We didn’t have much money but they believed in the promise of the land of milk and honey.

“But after our family was raided and my grandparents were sent back to Tonga, that dream was shattered. Our family felt broken and lost.

“‘A New Dawn’talks about what happened to my family.

“I was only five when it happened, but I remember the police banging on the door and my parents telling my grandparents and me to hide in the wardrobe in their room.

“I remember crying and trying my best to keep quiet. It was so hard and I was so scared.

“And I remember the wardrobe door opening, and my grandparents being handcuffed and led out by the police. I didn’t see them again for years.

“I wonder if people can imagine how it feels to be treated like that – how humiliated and degraded you feel; how it affects your sense of worth and belonging.

“That experience changed our family. It scarred us.

“Grandpa was the head of our household and the glue in our family.

“He was a minister, and he was kind and loving but also stern. He kept everything in our family in order. He and Dad were really close.

“And, as the eldest of my parent’s children, I was also raised by them.

“After my grandparents were deported, Dad really struggled.

“He became an angry man, and my parents ended up separating when I was 10 and then divorcing.

“It took years for me to understand the full impact of that night — and of the dawn raids on Pacific families like ours,” Emeli says.

Eventually her grandparent’s returned to New Zealand.

“After being sent back to Tonga, they went to live in Niue. My grandmother’s father was Niuean, so she and Grandpa gained New Zealand citizenship while they were in Niue.

“Bringing‘A New Dawn’together has been about understanding my family’s story and our place in New Zealand.