Samoan New Zealanders


Samoan New Zealanders are Samoan immigrants in New Zealand, their descendants, and New Zealanders of Samoan ethnic descent. They constitute one of New Zealand's most sizeable ethnic minorities. In the 2023 census, 213,069 New Zealanders identified themselves as being of Samoan ethnicity with 55,512 stating that they were born in Samoa, and 861 stating that they were born in American Samoa.

History

Overview

The country of Samoa has a unique historical relationship with New Zealand, having been administered by New Zealand from 1914 to 1962.
Notable levels of Samoan migration to New Zealand began in the 1950s. In the 1970s, Samoan illegal immigrants were the targets of notorious "dawn raids" by the police, which led to accusations of ethnic bias in tackling illicit immigration. That same decade, some Samoan New Zealanders joined the newborn Polynesian Panthers, an organisation dedicated to supporting Pasifika New Zealanders, for example by providing information on their legal rights. The number of Samoan-born residents in New Zealand doubled to over 24,000 during the 1970s. In Auckland, Samoan communities developed in inner city suburbs, such as Ponsonby, Freemans Bay and Grey Lynn. By the mid-1970s, gentrification caused Samoan communities to relocate to more distant suburbs, such as Māngere and Massey. Grey Lynn continued to have a large Samoan population until the mid-1980s.
In 1982, a number of Samoan-born residents were granted citizenship with the Citizenship Act. Samoan immigration in New Zealand has subsequently been regulated by quotas. Since 2002, 1,100 Samoans are granted entry each year.
In the 1980s, figures from the Samoan community became nationally recognised New Zealand celebrities, such as rugby union player Michael Jones, who grew up in Te Atatū South. In 1993, Samoan-born Taito Phillip Field became the first Pasifika member of parliament, when he was won the Otara electorate seat for Labour.
In 2024, the Citizenship Amendment Act gave Samoans born in Samoa between 1924 and 1948, whose New Zealand citizenship was stripped in 1982 under the Citizenship Act, a pathway to New Zealand citizenship. The measure was expected to affect up to 3,500 people.
Samoan New Zealanders, compared to other groups such as Dutch New Zealanders who immigrated to New Zealand at the same time, retain a large number of Samoan language speakers.

Demographics

The 1874 census recorded 6 Samoans in New Zealand. Numbers have increased steadily ever since, to 279 in 1936, 1,336 in 1951, 19,711 in 1976, 24,141 in 1981, and 47,118 in 2001.
There were 182,721 people identifying as being part of the Samoan ethnic group at the 2018 New Zealand census, making up 3.9% of New Zealand's population. This is an increase of 38,583 people since the 2013 census, and an increase of 51,618 people since the 2006 census. Some of the increase between the 2013 and 2018 census was due to Statistics New Zealand adding ethnicity data from other sources to the 2018 census data to reduce the number of non-responses.
There were 91,443 males and 91,275 females, giving a sex ratio of 1.002 males per female. The median age was 22.8 years, compared to 37.4 years for New Zealand as a whole; 62,688 people were aged under 15 years, 50,229 were 15 to 29, 59,859 were 30 to 64, and 9,942 were 65 or older.
In terms of population distribution, 64.9% of Samoan New Zealanders live in the Auckland region, 27.0% live in the North Island outside the Auckland region, and 8.1% live in the South Island. The Māngere-Ōtāhuhu local board area of Auckland has the highest concentration of Samoan people at 26.8%, followed by the Ōtara-Papatoetoe local board area and the Manurewa local board area. Porirua City has the highest concentration of Samoan peoples outside of Auckland at 16.1%. The Kaikōura District had the lowest concentration of Samoan people at 0.2%, followed by the Gore, Queenstown-Lakes, Southland and Waimate districts, all at 0.3%.
A majority of New Zealanders of Samoan ethnicity today are New Zealand-born. At the 2013 census, 62.7 percent of Samoan New Zealanders were born in New Zealand. Of the overseas-born population, 84 percent had been living in New Zealand for at least five years, and 48 percent had been living in New Zealand for at least 20 years.
At the 2013 census, 63.8 percent of Samoan New Zealanders were in the labour force, of which 15.3 percent were unemployed. The large employment industries of Samoans were manufacturing, health care and social assistance, and retail trade.

Culture

In 2013, 56% of ethnic Samoan New Zealanders were able to speak the Samoan language. As of 2018, Samoan is the third most-spoken language in New Zealand, behind English and Māori.
Samoan cultural values, the "Samoan way of life", are reportedly retained particularly by elderly members of the community, and include respect and mutual help within the extended family, as well as fa‘alavelave, and attendance at a Christian church. In 2013, 83.4 percent of Samoans affiliated with at least one religion, compared with 55.0 percent for all New Zealanders.
Traditional tattooing is embraced by some Samoan New Zealanders, both men and women, as an expression of cultural identity.
Samoans have contributed significantly to New Zealand culture in the fields of art, music, literature and sport.

Notable Samoan New Zealanders

Arts

Sports

All Blacks (past & present)

General

Politics