The Dragon and the Taniwha : Mori and Chinese in New Zealand

How have two very different marginalised groups in New Zealand society - Maori and Chinese - interacted over the last 150 years?

This important book, the result of a major grant from the Marsden Fund, looks at the relationship between the tangata whenua and the country's earliest and largest non-European immigrant group for the first time.

Do Maori resent Chinese immigrants? Do Chinese New Zealanders understand the role of the tangata whenua?

Have Maori and Chinese formed alliances based on common values and history?

Contributors tackle such question from many angles. They analyse how Maori newspapers portrayed Chinese and how the Chinese media portray Maori; they examine the changing demography of the Chinese and Maori populations; they look at Maori-Chinese marriages and the ancient migration of both groups.

The result is a rich portrait of the past and present of relationships between two important immigrant groups.

Race relations in New Zealand have usually been examined in terms of Maori and Pakeha.

By looking at Maori-Chinese relations, the Indigenous and the immigrant portrays a much richer and more complex social fabric.