I Have in My Arms Both Ways - Migrant Women Talk about their Lives

Bridget Williams Books, 2015.

Reprinted several times since it was first released in 1990, this 2015 new edition features an updated format and Preface by Adrienne Jansen.

I have in my arms both ways. I can see my Tokelau way, it?s good. I can see the papalagi way, it?s good. I don?t want to put one down, and life the other one up, or put the other one down and lift that one up. I can carry them both. Novena Petelo, Tokelau Islands

Immigrant women bring to New Zealand rich experiences of lives spent in other cultures. But their stories are rarely told. In this book ten women, who have come to New Zealand through three decades from the 1960s, speak in depth about growing up in their first countries, and their lives in New Zealand.

They talk about childhood, marriage, discrimination, language, their aspirations for their children, and the role of women in their first culture and in New Zealand. They also, often poignantly, point to what they cannot speak about.

The ten women come from India, the Philippines, Tonga, Tokelau Islands, Chile, Iran, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Vietnam and Laos.

With portraits by Gil Hanly.