Becoming Pākehā - Book Review & Giveaway

Rev. Tim McKenzie reviews Becoming Pākehā by John Bluck. Enter your email here for a chance to win a copy of the book.

Read the full review on Anglican Taonga

Becoming Pākehā: A Journey Between Two Cultures
Auckland: Harper Collins, 2022 
By John Bluck

This book is a good thing.

In it, Bluck does the important and courageous work of calling Pākehā to the vital, though uncomfortable, task of learning to belong properly in this land, as people of Te Tiriti; people with their own identity, but an identity inextricably bound to their relationship with Māori.  As ever, this presents ongoing challenges for our Church, though as Bluck’s experience shows, the Church also has gifts to contribute to the national conversation.

In method, 'Becoming Pākehā' is more like an impressionist painting than a grand manifesto. It’s built up in layers, a dabbed reminiscence here, a splash of historical information there.  In the process, Bluck leads cautious Pākehā gently but irresistibly to the conclusion that a Treaty-honouring future can only be good for everyone in Aotearoa New Zealand.

The book’s first layer is autobiographical, as Bluck sketches his life story along an arc of increasing racial and Treaty awareness. He begins with his childhood on the East Coast, followed by academic and professional experience here and overseas, before concluding with musings on the once and future Aotearoa from the vantage point of retirement in the North. 

This first layer is the book’s most engaging, as Bluck’s own privilege dawns on him, leading him to develop tools of advocacy and critical awareness, and then applying them in his vocation as clergyman-journalist-activist.

Subsequent layers are built up through dabs of opinion, quotation and historical reference, all illustrating various issues in the complex bi-cultural history of our country.  Ever the columnist, Bluck approaches these allusively and anecdotally, gesturing us towards a more just future. 

We get quickfire discussions on a wide range of topics:
– the place of the Treaty in national life;
– the difficulties of cross-cultural communication;
– finding a better term than “Pākehā” for the non-Maori citizens of our country;
– the inflammatory nature of social media discourse on race;
– the centrality of the arts to emerging national identity;
– the sad history of assimilationist policies; and
– the need for Pākehā to develop more consciously our own tikanga in this land.  

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