Susanna Ounei
Susanna Ounei was born in 1945 in Ouvéa in the Loyalty Islands Province of New Caledonia.
Her official birthdate was 15 August 1945, although later in life she found that this date may have been incorrect.
She grew up in Poindimié on the east coast of New Caledonia.
Under French colonial rule the Kanak population fell from about 70,000 in the pre-colonial era to about 26,000 in the 1980s.
The Kanaks were segregated from whites and were subject to many restrictions and impositions.
Ounei wrote that "We grew up seeing how our parents were humiliated."
Serious Kanak resistance began to develop in the 1960s and 1970s.
In response, the French government encouraged massive migration to New Caledonia to reduce the Kanaks to a powerless minority.
Languages of New Zealand
An Eastern Polynesian language, Māori is closely related to Tahitian and Cook Islands Māori. After the Second World War, Māori were discouraged from speaking their language in schools and workplaces and it existed as a community language only in a few remote areas. Since the 1970s, the language has undergone a process of revitalisation and is spoken by a larger number of people. Of the 148,395 people (or 3.7 percent of the total New Zealand population) who claimed they could hold a conversation in Māori in 2013, 84.5 percent identified as Māori. No adult Māori alive in New Zealand today does not also speak English.