He knew his father had been meeting with church leaders, discussing how to approach the government about the inhumane treatment of Pacific people. Sio, aged 14, had heard murmurings at school about the dawn raids targeting illegal overstayers.
When Sio’s parents answered the door their faces were lit up with torches and an officer with a police dog marched into the house. Ōtara is one of the places they made their own, but with the new mix of cultures came painful mistakes.Īupito William Sio remembers the night police banged on the door and his cousins took off, chased by dogs across a creek.
The face of Auckland changed with the arrival of thousands of Pacific migrants, invited to New Zealand to fill a labour shortage.
