The Pasifika Problem & The Tech Gambit

The Why Behind Why I Push Tech for Pasifika

Talofa reader,

This last week, I haven't read anything super interesting. My newsletter and RSS feeds provided the usual tech industry topics, such as systems design, big data, and more ChatGPT. However, the most interesting topic that stood out this week for me was from the Pasifika Tech Network Discord, and it wasn't me asking the questions this time!

One of our members asked a simple question: "What is your why? And what are you passionate about?"

I thought on it for a bit - I have different why's for different things - but the “why” I chose to respond to was “why I use my free time to help Pasifika learn more about and see themselves in Big Tech”?

Note: this week’s edition is a lot less “reading astutely” and more shooting from the hip 😂.

Why Help?

This sounds like a dumb question - and probably would be better framed "what are the specific reasons you have for choosing to help?"

There have been times in the past few years when I've been stretched thin across a full-time career, a sporadic professional music career on the side while also trying to be nationally competitive in a sport and then trying to run a small charity teaching Pasifika kids computers & technology after school.

Some friends would say, “you don’t have to do it” or “it doesn’t have to be you”. And they're right. We all have the power to choose to do or not do something based on what we want and/or believe.

But that's not how my mum raised me. She'd say if you see you're able to help someone, you should help them - tautua, "service" - and then she'd say "Be a blessing!" - so there’s that.

I choose to help because I'm a living testament to what a tech career can do for the life of a Pasifika person, and I almost feel like it wouldn't be right to say, 'Thanks, I'll be off then!' and not do what I can to help given the state of things in the Pasifika community.

What do I mean by the “state of things”? Let’s have a quick look at that shall we?

The State of Pasifika in NZ.

The “Pacific housing: People, place, and wellbeing in Aotearoa New Zealand” report was a trippy one to read.

It’s data sources are from the 2018 Census and other surveys.

Imagine all the anecdotal data you have from friends and family's passing comments and conversations, and then bits and pieces of news articles alluding to the state of the Pasifika community. Now put it into a report with some official numbers, a lot of graphs, and diagrams showing the median line tracking just above the middle of the diagram, and then the Pasifika line lagging underneath it. On almost every diagram.

That’s pretty much how this report reads - just an official publication describing, in detail, exactly how not-going-so-well your community is doing. Anyway, this isn't stuff we don't already know, or have known about for a little while now, so to call out some of the main points from the report:

In 1986, around half of Pasifika lived in an owner-occupied house, meaning someone in that household owned the house they were living in. By 2018, that fell to "just over one-third." Obviously, home ownership is linked to inter-generational wealth, so that's on the decline.

What else? Well, the report goes on to tell us that Pasifika are likely to live in large households, and those households, on average, have a lower income than the rest of the population. Great. Now it's important, the report says, to take into consideration that the Pacific population is a lot younger than the national median (23 years old vs. 37 years for the rest of the population), which means these youthful workers won't have the same earning potential as the older generation. Fair enough.

What kinds of jobs do Pasifika have, though? According to the report, mostly manual labor that was hard "physically" and "dangerous" compared to the total population. Awesome.

Luckily, figures showed that owner-occupied homes rise sharply with income, i.e., income goes up, chances of owning own home goes up! This is good news.

So how are Pasifika doing on incomes?

"Half of Pacific peoples earn between $0 – 25,000 in income. Only 5.3 per cent earn between $70,000 and $100,000 a year. Less than 5% earn more than $100,000".

• and then the Pandemic hit

• and then the housing crisis worsened

• and then the cost of living went up

• and then the flooding came

• and then the cyclone landed...

You get the picture.

Obviously having a career in tech doesn't solve all of life’s and society's problems but something pretty useful happens when the economics change for a group of people.

Why Tech?

The classic career that a Pasifika parent wants their child to pursue is usually a doctor, lawyer, or accountant. I know these careers also make a lot of economic sense. I also think the status of the profession is a draw card but I don't know much about those other careers to comment; I just know it's a lot of hard work and studying, and then the work-life is pretty hectic if any of the medical TV shows are anything to go by.

But everything in life worth having is “hard work and studying” anyway… so why tech?

Economics & Accessibility

Nothing radical or out of the box here - tech jobs pay relatively well.

If I'm Pasifika, statistically earning something between $0 and $25,000 NZD a year, working a physically taxing and probably dangerous job, then a Level 1 Service Desk tech job in Auckland - according to Hays Salary Guide 2023 - is paying an average of $55,000 NZD p/a. Then sitting on my ass, answering phones, and troubleshooting technical problems ("have you tried turning it off and on again?") is going to be a step up both in pay and physical well-being (if it doesn't go too far the other way, and now we're doing the statistically diabetic Pacific Islander thing).

One thing I loved about the tech industry was the fact I was able to go online and download the software that companies were running, such as Apache web servers, LAMP stacks, WordPress, etc., and run it at home. I taught myself how to use it from people online, and then I went and got a job with that skill. Sure, I'm oversimplifying it, and people's mileage may vary, but if I wanted to be a web developer, I would teach myself a tech stack, build some things on GitHub, get familiar with some software architecture and systems designs online, and then go convince a hiring manager that the thing they do on the inside of the company is what I'm also doing at home in my spare time, which is practically the same thing - and that they should give me the role.

All that to say, tech building, doing, learning, and help were readily available online.

So you can make decent money with skills you can obtain online, and yes, a big call-out here is this glaring fact: Pasifika communities are in need of devices and internet connections. All the great online content means nothing if you can’t get to it in the first place.

Just remember, this is just me laying out my reasoning for my "why" in tech. All related problems will be dealt with in due course.

What else stood out for me when looking at the tech opportunity?

No Gatekeepers

I remember "back in the day" one of my brothers, who is an actor, wasn't getting many parts (there weren't many parts for Pasifika back then either, but that's a story for another time), and I saw YouTube as a way to basically have your own TV station and write, shoot, and produce your own shows. He ended up shooting a successful web series with his actor buddies, and producing other content for other YouTube channels.

My other brother and his friends would make music with software they had "obtained online" and produced tracks that would go on to land them record deals as producers and working in the NZ music industry. Then SoundCloud became a thing, and anyone and everyone was able to just put their stuff out there in "the market" and not go the record deal and debt way.

And then there’s me in geek world - when I wanted to learn an operating system that runs web servers and hosts files for companies, I would download that, install it, learn how to configure it, and build things on top of it. Something something something... I'm working at Amazon Web Services today.

Look, I know I say this bit a lot, i.e., the "I'm not naive enough to think," but I'm not naive enough to think gatekeepers don't exist anymore, and I'm definitely not saying a couple of JavaScript tutorials will have you working for Google. I'm just saying tech has these angles that you can work to still get in the game and thrive, even if you don't go via the "traditional" route.

Why a Gambit?

I’ll be honest, I just wanted to use the word Gambit because he’s my favourite character from X-Men.

But let’s make it work: if a gambit is a move where a player risks something in order to gain an advantage, then Pasifika making the move into tech is the gambit. It's a sacrifice of being the minority in unfamiliar, possibly hostile territory to gain that economic advantage that could change your, your family's, and your community's lives.

Works.

Conclusion

My Pasifika community, first of all, is awesome and not defined by the statistics in some report.

No, the data is not great, and I'm not the one to ask what the answer is.

I can't help anyone with the systemic racism and unconscious bias that affects us at school, work, or in the judicial system. But if a higher income leads to home ownership and inter-generational wealth, higher quality of health and living, because the house isn't damp and the workers in the house are straining their brains and not their muscles in a dangerous work environment, working fewer hours, possibly with little to no commute, so they can spend more time with their families raising them in a home that's not poverty-stressed...

then I may have some answers for that.

Thanks for reading. I'll see you in the next episode.

Learning

Things I’m actively studying or learning this week…

• Studying for the ‘AWS Certified Security - Speciality’ certificate - I’m up to AWS Identity Center!

Building

Things I’m building or working on this week…

• Work through a few Well-Architected Labs — I did not do this last week.

• I’m creating a Cyber Security CTF for a High School after school programme that my charity ‘Pasifika Tech Education Charity ‘ runs during the school term.

Interesting Reads

Articles or other writing that stood out to me this week…

• ‘RSE: Not an easy conversation’ by e-tangata

Community

Other projects in community I’m working on…

• Pasifika Tech Education Charity - Providing Tech Learning Opportunities for the Pasifika Community.

• Pasifika Tech Network - A Network for Pasifika Tech Professionals & Learners.