"My biggest regret of course is that it wasn't available to me at school. That's why I'm so deeply involved in Te Reo Maori Society and the movement to create a bilingual school system. I was totally deceived at school into believing that we were one people, that Maoris were just brown skinned Pakehas. I believed that the Maori language was no longer spoken and of course at that stage it wasn't an issue, it was before the rising of Tamatoa and Te Reo Maori. That was the major difficulty I had, to bring about a psychological shift. It's not hard to learn Maori, in fact it's easy because it's a living language and can be used in and around the home and around university, it can be used every day." - John McCaffery
This originally appeared in Salient in 1973.
Te Whanganui-a-Tara | Wellington | Wellington City | 1970-79 | Te Reo Māori Society (1970-79) | Education
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