A participant’s perspective: Marcia Rangimarie Perret — a senior Pacific Islands Studies major at BYU-Hawaii from Hamilton, New Zealand, and a student worker in the PCC’s Aotearoa (New Zealand) Islands — will perform her traditional Maori songs and dances for the fourth and final time during this year’s seventh annual Whakataetae Festival.
Perret, who will graduate in June and plans to go on to a master’s degree in Maori studies or anthropology back home, came to Laie on an International Work Experience Scholarship, a unique program fully funded by the PCC and jointly sponsored by BYU-Hawaii. “My family has eight children, and my parents wouldn’t have been able to afford to support me for any kind of university studies, but they knew I could work here on the IWES program,” she said.
“When I graduate, I’ll have no debt at all. Compared to some of my other friends who stayed in New Zealand and studied there, they’ve got student loans that will keep them in debt for ten-to-twenty years.”
“I’ve enjoyed the work part. The majority of my time here has been in the New Zealand village. I’ve also worked in Museum Stores and danced in the evening show, but those two jobs didn’t really compare to my experience in the village,” said Perret, who is the oldest child in her family. Her sister, Nataria, also recently started studying at BYU-Hawaii.
“This feels like home. I’ve been able to meet a lot of people from New Zealand who know a lot more about the culture than I do, who approve of the program and what we’re trying to do here at PCC. That makes me feel a lot better about what I do, especially since we’re so far away. My knowledge of tikanga Maori [customs and traditions] and my appreciation for it has grown a lot.” “For example, ever since I got here I’ve been participating in Whakataetae, and for the last two years I’ve been under the direction of Seamus Fitzgerald in the group Te Hokioi. This year, because I’m graduating, I’ve been able to incorporate some of it into my senior project. Part of it is to compose a waiata ringa [action song] and whakawatea [group exit], and to instruct the group. I’m working with Seamus, who’s supervising my senior project and helping me.”
“The waiata ringa talks about the waka taua [canoe] here in the village and the journey it went through traveling to the maunga tapu or ’sacred mountains’ back in New Zealand, and all the sacred canoes that the people descend from. At the end, the canoe is living in Hawaii and is recognized as having an important purpose for the Maoris here; but on a deeper level it’s talking about us as vehicles for our Maori culture in Hawaii.”
“Because I’m going home soon, the whakawatea is also about my experience here and thanking the Hawaiian people, the Polynesian Cultural Center and BYU-Hawaii for all the opportunities. There are a lot of us who are graduating, and this will be our last performance.”
“I’m absolutely grateful for the PCC for many reasons,” Perret continued. “One, of course, is for allowing me to come and obtain an education that I wouldn’t have been able to get otherwise. It also provided me a home away from home. I work with aunties from back in New Zealand who have the same accent as me. I also appreciate my Maori culture more, which has allowed me to be closer to the Maori side of my family in New Zealand, and all of the differences that make us Maori.”
