Story: Samoans

Samoans have been notably successful in the academic world. New Zealand’s first Pacific Island Rhodes Scholar was Damon Salesa, son of an East Tāmaki factory worker, who spent three years at the University of Oxford. In 2012 he published a history of the relationship between New Zealand and the Pacific, Tangata o le moana: New Zealand and the people of the Pacific, with Sean Mallon and Kolokesa Māhina-Tuai. In 2021 he was appointed vice-chancellor of Auckland University of Technology, becoming the first Pacific person to hold such a role.