O Tamaiti

The powerful short film ‘O Tamaiti’, by Sima Urale shows that children are seen and not heard in Pacific families. Since they are little, their opinions aren’t valued as much, because of the perception that they are still too young. Children, like any other normal adult, have emotions, too. The problem is that different people, child or adult, have a different way of saying what they want to say. In the film’s case, the children are not heard, literally and figuratively. The audience does not hear them speak, apart from their cries, which is quite significant because children tend to cry when they can’t get what they desire, and they will only stop once they do get that desire, whether it is a mere toy or something more abstract, like the affection of their parents.

This is a film that conveys strong emotions and makes people think that, yes, there are families here in New Zealand that are struggling as much as this family, if not more. Settling into a different country can be somewhat frustrating because there are a lot of things that should be taken into consideration.

First and foremost, you do not have your extended family as a kind of “back up”, for when things get rough, like when you need someone to look after your children. In the film, it is Tino who becomes the responsible guardians when his parents are away. In a way, Tino is being deprived of his childhood because he is expected to mature at a faster rate than any other children.

Secondly, language can either be a bridge or a barrier when you first move into a country. In the film, there is no indication of how long the family has been in New Zealand, however the whole film speaks for itself that they’ve just started to settle in, because of the struggle to cope. When language is a barrier, it can be difficult for people, especially the children to create his/her community of friends, because he/she will most likely feel an outcast. I can speak from experience, because, I, too, am a migrant and English has never been mother tongue. It, therefore, created a barrier against other children, since I started school halfway through the year, which means that the other children have already built their groups, and there I was trying to fit into one those “groups”.

Thirdly, moving to another country doesn’t always guarantee that the grass is going to be greener, because each country will have its positive and negative aspects. Sometimes, being in a new country brings its own trials and challenges. As seen in the film, the biggest struggle of Tino’s family is time and finance. The parents work opposite shifts and the children has to cope with these changes, especially Tino who has to step up into the world of adulthood and responsibilities.

I think the representation of Pacific families in this short film, or in any other form of media, has always been negative. For instance, news always seem to impact on this negative view, because mainly crimes are being reported about Pacific Islanders. I don’t believe that this is always the case, but because the media is such a powerful force, people perceive this to be the reality amongst Pacific Islander households. People face the media on a day to day basis, without even noticing it, from the smart phones that we always cling on to the simple posters that we see at the bus stop.