Our Place: finding whakapapa as a M?ori adoptee

Welcome to Our Place, an article series exploring identity in Aotearoa. This article explores M?ori adoptee identity, the legislation reform, and the importance of whakapapa and tikanga M?ori.

Adoption can look different for everyone, and this article does not represent everybody’s story. Instead, it focuses on two individual perspectives, told through the lens of M?ori adoptee Dr Annabel Ahuriri-Driscoll, and daughter of a M?ori adoptee, Dr Erica Newman.

The European idea of adoption has been legally practiced in New Zealand for over 67 years. But wh?ngai, a M?ori kinship practice, has been practiced since before colonisation. Wh?ngai is where tamariki M?ori are brought up by wh?nau, instead of their birth parents. Many knew who their birth parents were and kept in contact, but they grew up in a different family member’s home.

Adoption grew in Aotearoa from the 1950s, and in 1955 The Adoption Act changed the way in which children were adopted. Adoptions would be closed, a clean break – there would be no legal obligation for birth parents to stay in contact with their child. Single mothers who adopted their child out were thought, through a closed practice, to be given a second chance.

M?ori, who had not been allowed to legally adopt non-M?ori children since 1909, were now treated the same as P?keh?. Iwi affiliations were hardly recorded. This meant that many M?ori adoptees grew up without knowledge of their whakapapa and were disconnected from tikanga M?ori.

University of Canterbury senior lecturer Dr Annabel Ahuriri-Driscoll was one of many tamariki adopted this way.

“My story is that I’m a product of a M?ori father and P?keh? mother who were too young to raise me. I do think that [adoption] was a good decision that was made there. I mean, I understand the reason for that decision.”

Adopted in the late 1970s, Annabel says she was adopted by a loving P?keh? family at four months of age. Her adoptive parents later adopted a girl with Tongan ancestry too, giving her a sister.

“We got used to being part of this family that looks like they don’t belong together. But [we were] very much loved.”

Growing up without knowing her whakapapa was very difficult. Often assumed to be P?keh? by her appearance, Annabel was often questioned about whether she should place importance on pursuing her whakapapa. At fifteen, she had an identity crisis, “as everyone does”. At nineteen, she eventually met her birth parents, and had many of her questions about who she was answered.

“All of a sudden, I could see, ‘wow, I look like these people’. Not only do I look like them and resemble them physically, but I am like them as a person. And I’m not this freak that doesn’t fit,” she says.

Although her birth parents had not raised her, Annabel admits there is a sense of connection and affinity. But she says you can’t make up for the time that was lost.

Dr Erica Newman, a lecturer and Indigenous Development Programme co-ordinator at University of Otago, is the daughter of a M?ori adoptee. It took 74 years of her mother’s life to find the answers she was searching for.

Erica’s mother, Beverly, eventually found her birth mother – but her birth mother had passed away by the time she had found her name.

Born to a P?keh? divorcee, Beverly was her only M?ori child. Her father was a ‘half caste M?ori’, born in a time where the blood quantum was rife.

In 1997 and at 48, Beverly began to request access for information. She received her birth certificate and contact details for siblings. Because her father was recorded as ‘half caste’, the legal definition of M?ori at the time, Beverly was recorded as P?keh?.

It wasn’t until this year that Erica found out her and her mother’s whakapapa.

She says most of the answers, and a bout of further questions, came from a DNA test. From there, Erica says her mother found out exactly who her birth parents were.

Now, the two are focusing on whakawhanaungatanga, building relationships and making connections.

Oranga Tamariki – the Ministry for Children says for tamariki M?ori, you cannot consider their identity without considering whakapapa, wh?nau, hap?, and iwi.

“For tamariki M?ori connections to cultural identity are important. Knowing where you come from, having a sense of belonging and understanding your place in te ao M?ori helps to ensure mana tamaiti...tamariki M?ori are seen to be the future for hap? and iwi”

Although both Annabel and Erica have been able to trace their ancestry, they both talk about the difficulty in rejoining te ao M?ori.

Annabel says the act of adoption can’t be undone.

“You can reconnect to your wh?nau but reconnecting to te ao M?ori is another thing altogether. It can be really fraught.”

Annabel’s thesis and research (including a recent article titled ‘A ‘Forgotten’ Whakapapa’) has helped answer a lot of burning questions she had around identity and adoption. She found her whakapapa through a letter from her birth father. Now, she and her sons are connected to Ng?ti Porou ki Waitaha.

Annabel explains the importance of t?rangawaewae, the idea of going home.

“Wherever your ancestors come from, that’s kind of your true place of belonging…through your whakapapa, that’s the place that you have, [where] you can stand with authority, with some mana.”

Erica adds that in te ao M?ori, whakapapa is the backbone of your identity.

“If you don’t have that whakapapa knowledge, then how do you know which iwi you belong to? And how can you connect with them? And, how can you be a valued member of that worldview?”

Erica says descendants, such as herself, often pick up the journey to finding their whakapapa for their parents. Once found, they can pass on the knowledge to future generations.

For M?ori adoptees, Annabel says there is more to their experiences than disconnection from whakapapa. There is also an additional lens.

“It’s complicated. It’s not just that you were adopted and experienced some losses, but it’s how it’s talked about. It’s how the legal fiction works to actually erase your identity, your birth identity, and then to tell you it’s not important. So actually, there’s a whole facet of the adoption experience that people deny,” she says.

“I think as people, that means we have a kind of insecurity of being at a very fundamental level. We’re misrecognized, and we’re not really seen for who we are.”

Erica says the process of seeking information comes with putting oneself in a vulnerable position, inviting the possibility of rejection. She says there are challenges to going on that journey, and that the adoptee becomes the negotiator between adoptive parents, government agencies, and birth family.

Erica is frustrated towards the restricted access to personal information. She says it’s unfair that you have to fight to ask to only be given a certain amount – an amount she says is sometimes redacted or censored in some way.

“They hold all this knowledge, they’ve read the file, they know more about you than you know about yourself.”

Admitting some information may be hard to hear, she says adoptees have a right to it, and it’s not for anyone else to decide on their capability to handle it.

The Adult Adoption Information Act 1985 gave adopted adults the right to access their original birth certificate, but Oranga Tamariki says for adoptions before 1986, the law entitles both parties to place a veto on the release of identifying information to the other party involved. The Ministry of Justice says there are about 200 vetoes in existence.

Adoptees are entitled to all personal information about them, but Oranga Tamariki says when the information relates to more than one person, it must preserve the privacy of other people.

Oranga Tamariki says the assessment process for adoption today embeds a rights-based approach, influenced by te Tiriti o Waitangi and drawing on the te ao M?ori principles of oranga.

Social workers first work closely with the wh?nau involved, and if the parents decide to place their child with an adoptive family, they can choose from a variety of ministry-assessed and approved applicants. Oranga Tamariki says they will then discuss the importance of open adoption, supporting birth and adoptive parents to establish a contact agreement. When M?ori applicants apply to the Court, the court requires a M?ori court report that addresses the cultural needs of the child concerned.

67 years later, the original Adoption Act of 1955 is facing a reform.

The Ministry of Justice says Aotearoa New Zealand’s main adoption law no longer meets the needs of our society or reflects modern adoption best practice. The second round of public engagement on the topic concluded in August.

It outlines the options the government is considering on the Ministry of Justice website. These include a child-centered purpose for adoption, legal connections and meaningful participation between birth parents and adoptive family, automatic access to original birth records, and support for the adoptee to be connected to their birth culture.

Annabel and Erica have been a part of the discussion, also attending a wh?ngai w?nanga in Te Whanganui-?-Tara Wellington. Wh?ngai is not legally recognized in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Erica describes the current Adoption Act as “antiquated”.

“I mean, there aren’t that many legal adoptions put through today as there used to be, especially between the 1960s right through to the 1970s. But there are still some closed stranger adoptions go through, and I think that’s the big issue – the severing of relationships, the severing of the connection between the birth parents and birth child.”

She says it’s not just M?ori that have identity issues regarding adoption. It affects everybody.

“Adoption stories are personal and unique to each individual adoptee. Some have great experiences…and others have bad experiences. You can’t generalise adoption narratives.”

Annabel says adoptees are a unique M?ori identity that we have not paid much attention too.

“There’s something about [adoption]. It touches on some taboos. And I think a number of us are trying to understand that. Why is there silence around it?” she questions. “Is it just a stigma or is it something else?”

“I think a lot of people want to believe in those adoption myths: that adoption is only beneficial, that it doesn’t cause harm…or if it does, it’s relatively minor. So the adoptee hasn’t been heard, M?ori adoptee voices haven’t really been heard, or when they are, they’re kind of reduced and simplified.”

Erica hopes that the reform will ensure all information is readily available for those who have been adopted. That any information they want, they are just given.

Identity, for Annabel, is always relevant – “we can’t get away from it”.

“A concept I really like that I think many of my [research] participants talked about, is paradoxical essentialism. There are these essential elements of who we are. There are the things that are maybe innate, inherent. But there are also the things that we grow into. It’s how we feel we identify, as well as how others see us,” she says.

“When I think about my boys, identity potentially gives us strength to who we are in the world. But it’s not the answer to everything.”

She says there is a whole world of variables and factors that contribute to a healthy and supportive identity that we should focus on. But what is most important, is giving children and adults the best environments to thrive in, and that must include supporting them in all that they are.