Portrait of Mia Utsumi-Potaka

This is a portrait photograph of Mia Utsumi-Potaka. Mia, whose mother is Japanese and father is Māori, grew up in Tokyo where she attended an international kindergarten and school. In 2001, Mia, then aged 8, moved to Aotearoa New Zealand with her family and settled in Wellington. She found the adjustment relatively easy as her English was already very good on her arrival. As a child, Mia remembers that while all her friends were out playing in the park or swimming, her mother had her play piano and study Japanese, including kanji.

Although she hated studying Japanese at the time, she is now grateful her mum pushed her to learn – she ended up studying the language at university and eventually passed Level 3 of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test. Over the years, Mia has had many opportunities to use her skills in Japan – during university summer holidays, she used to work at a ski resort in Hokkaido; following graduation she also taught English in Kobe for six months.

This photograph is part of a set of 24 photographs featuring twelve people who are either Japanese immigrants to New Zealand, their children, or descendants of Japanese New Zealanders. The images were carefully staged for an exhibition in 2016 which was, in turn, the outcome of a project sponsored by the Japan Society of Wellington and organized by Japan Society member Susan Zou and Noriko Murakami in 2016.

*Text based on interview summaries by Susan Zou and Noriko Murakami for the ‘Japanese Immigrants' experiences in New Zealand’ photographic exhibition, 2016.