Invisible

Migration and racism in Aotearoa New Zealand

Despite our mythology of benign race relations, Aotearoa New Zealand has a long history of underlying prejudice and racism. The experiences of Indian migrants and their descendants, either historically or today, are still poorly documented and most writing has focused on celebration and integration.

Invisible speaks of survival and the real impacts racism has on the lives of Indian New Zealanders. It uncovers a story of exclusion that has rendered Kiwi-Indians invisible in the historical narratives of the nation.

To look inside, click here.

‘. . . timely, passionate, highly readable and deeply challenging.’ — Jane Buckingham, New Zealand Journal of History

‘With extraordinary archival research, Leckie has brought to life those eras and some of their lingering echoes right here in New Zealand, reminding us that such entrenched discrimination isn’t just to be associated with the White Australia policy or apartheid South Africa or the old American South, then comfortably dismissed. But she has also made sure to record numerous stories of individual, and collective, resistance and protest, thereby emphasising the links between the rights, legal protections, and the levels of freedom and mutual respect in everyday life that people of all backgrounds rightly take as a given in present-day Aotearoa, and the invisible heroes who fought for them.’ — Rajorshi Chakraborti, Newsroom

‘Leckie‘s book is a fine example of the sort of history we need to know in order to understand our present.’ — North & South