Indigenous Pad

 Kia ora everyone, The weather has been pretty good over the last week. It’s weird – some days, it is relatively warm, but the snow randomly starts falling on other days. The reality of New England weather during this time of the year. I have two weeks left in Boston before I head to Amherst for a month. I'm going to miss this place a lot when I leave in early March.  The entrance of the student centre at UMASS Boston My first experience was as a guest lecturer in the paper Indigenous Film and Critical Visual Studies at UMASS Boston. It was a diverse class with around 30 students. It was a level 3 paper. We looked at the themes of the movie, Whale Rider, directed by Nikki Caro. This movie is one of my top 3 Aotearoa New Zealand movies. It came out while I was a student in high school, and I remember watching it at the cinema. This was the first I had heard of the legend of Paikea beforehand. I remember, at the time, it was different seeing Māori as the main characters in a mov...

 Kia ora koutou, Arizona State University Entrance I had a great time in Arizona for the American Indian Studies Conference, which was held at Arizona State University. It’s about a five-hour flight from Boston, so I arrived around midnight. Let me tell you, it was bliss leaving sub-zero temperatures in Boston for sunshine weather, often over 20 degrees. It was the first time that I could feel the warmth of the sun during my time here in the USA.  An eating area at Arizona State University Arizona State University is based in Tempe, which is very close to Phoenix. The campus is really spread out and beautiful. I loved the earth-coloured buildings and the nice feeling of seeing so many people enjoying the year's spring semester.  The conference was the first indigenous conference that I attended in the USA. There were about 100 people at the conference. The presentations were terrific. They covered a range of themes, including critical race theory, solidarity between indig...