Directed by Asim Mukhtar Janjua, This is what our future looks like: Punjabi views from New Zealand, presents a 13-minute Punjabi language documentary film with English subtitles capturing the views of three Punjabi Sikhs living in Auckland; Harjeet, a radio broadcaster, Gurmeet, a small business owner, and Ajit, a community elder.

Asim puts pressing questions to them, considering that Punjabis are one of the fastest growing ethnic and linguistic groups in New Zealand. Firstly, the situation of temporary visa holders who were locked out of New Zealand on 19 March, when the border closed off under Covid-19 travel restrictions. Secondly, the future sustainability of Punjabi language, culture, and identity among younger generations of Punjabis born and raised in New Zealand.

As the film unfolds, the conversations highlight how intricately tied these matters are; impassable borders stopping temporary workers and international students from moving, and the cultural responsibility of keeping up relationships to Punjab, the motherland, and Punjabi language, the mother tongue. The lynchpin is migrants where the logic of the interviews forms a twofold argument. New Zealand’s demographic profile is an aging population, and migration from the Indian subcontinent of young skilled professionals upholds the quality of present and future workforces. Subsequent to this, is the assertion that temporary visa holders must be allowed to re-enter New Zealand on humanitarian grounds of the right to work and maintain their livelihoods.

In between the Punjabi Sikhs is the story of a Punjabi Muslim couple, Asad and Somia who are stranded on temporary visas with their children in Lahore, Pakistan. Their personal predicament of feeling uncertain for their future, and not knowing when the New Zealand government will allow them to resume their working and schooling lives in Christchurch gives the film an authentic insider voice.

Asim, a PhD candidate at Auckland University of Technology, will screen his documentary film to the Aotearoa Migration Research Network Symposium on Friday, September 4. This is a one-day forum for New Zealand university researchers of migration studies hosted by the University of Waikato.

– by Dr Teena Brown Pulu, Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Maori and Indigenous Development at Auckland University of Technology, email: teena.brown.pulu@aut.ac.nz