Manchi Bhikha, who came from Gujarat to join her husband in Wellington in 1950, encountered difficulties in adapting to a foreign and sometimes hostile culture. In the 1990s she recalled shopping for children’s clothing soon after she arrived: ‘All the English I really knew – that my husband had taught me – was, “How much?”. And then I wouldn’t understand the currency and the amounts, so I’d just hand over some money in good faith, and there was change given back. After a while of doing that sort of thing, I started to develop a bit of an understanding of the value of things.’
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Department of Internal Affairs
Reference:
Megan Hutching, New Zealanders by choice. Wellington: Identity Services, Department of Internal Affairs, 1998, p. 15.
Photograph by Annelies van der Poel
This item has been provided for private study purposes (such as school projects, family and local history research) and any published reproduction (print or electronic) may infringe copyright law. It is the responsibility of the user of any material to obtain clearance from the copyright holder. Crown Copyright - Department of Internal Affairs.
Tāpiritia te tākupu hou