Learning te reo Māori has forever been an uphill battle for me and my whānau. My koro (grandpa) grew up on a farm in Pukehina in the Bay of Plenty where he spoke fluent reo.
At the time, te reo Māori was suppressed in schools and teachers forbade pupils from speaking the language. If my koro ever spoke te reo in class, the teacher would slap his hand with a ruler. Because of this, my koro lost his reo.
He came from a big family and had 10 siblings. Each sibling was given a Māori name at birth, but the nurses put Pākehā names such as Barry, Chris and Greg on their birth certificates.
Even though they had no Pākehā in their family tree, they felt privileged that a Pākehā had given them these names. They now understand it was a part of the colonisation process and have since transitioned to their Māori names.
His siblings who left the farm for jobs or to join the navy, also ended up losing the reo, while those who stayed continued to speak te reo and retained a grasp of the language.
When my koro returned to his Pukehina marae, it pained him to hear his whānau converse in te reo and not being able to join in or understand.
His son - my uncle - was determined to learn te reo growing up and went out of his way to study and teach himself the language.
Koro was always so proud of him and felt a sense of relief that he had someone who could represent us and our reo. He died last year, which left a huge hole in my whānau.
Without him here to represent us, it created a sense of urgency for us to learn te reo.
As for my tāua (grandmother), she grew up in Ōtepoti, where the language had long been lost.
She could only think of a handful of whānau who spoke te reo back then.
Growing up, you live with what you have. It is once you become an adult that you realise you have missed a big part of your identity.
For my mum, while she understood her culture, she learned about it through a "foreign" language - a language that limits our culture.
The bitterness that some have towards the survival of te reo is illogical and unjust. We must do what we can to protect and embrace the language, because once a language is lost, so are its people.
