Pule’s heroes and Wendt’s heroes share an ability to move successfully within both the New Zealand culture and the culture of the Island home. In addition, they share a feeling of not quite belonging, of not being fully accepted. However, unlike in Pule’s novels, in Sons for the Return Home little use is made of the myths and legends of the protagonist’s homeland. Although the protagonist shows contempt for a particular Samoan who behaves as though he would deny his culture (151-152), he is nevertheless severely critical of certain aspects of that culture, particularly those stemming from Christianity and other colonial introductions. There is a distinct ambivalence in the protagonist’s attitude towards Samoan culture; however, the novel ends with his conscious choice to return to New Zealand. He decides that it is there that he can shape the future he wants. At the same time, though, he asserts his Samoan-ness, something that is older and purer than the corrupted traditions he has encountered in the modern, colonised Samoa.

    In Ola there is the same distaste for the effects of colonialism on Samoa, and for those who blindly accept the values that have grown from it.  It is not so strongly voiced as in Sons for the Return Home. Regret is expressed for the passing of the old religion, for instance (215), but Christianity is acknowledged to have been a positive influence in some respects. Once again, though, there is the strong sense that particular traditions or habits are of much less significance than an innate and immutable sense of Samoan-ness carried within the protagonist.

    In Black Rainbow, cultural difference becomes a matter of even less importance, and the characters are either colonisers or indigenes according to their innate personal make-up -- an essentialist argument that is the novel’s dominant theme. The Tribunal is a futuristic colonising force, and the rallying cries against its system of control sound much like the protests against colonialism that are found in Wendt’s earlier works. The Tribunal is seen as the single cause of the woes that afflict the Tangata Moni. Whereas in earlier works Wendt presents characters blamed--in conjunction with colonisation--for the degradation of traditional values, here all the blame is placed squarely on the depersonalised Tribunal. In its efforts to complete the colonising process, the Tribunal has a policy of "dehistorying" (33) and "reordinarination" (27) in order to turn the Tagata Moni into "otherworlders".

    The Tangata Moni are depicted as falling into one of two groups: those who have been unable to resist the Tribunal, and those who continue to live outside the boundaries of the world created by the Tribunal. It may be that the Tangata Moni rebels are a deliberate part of the Tribunal’s game (Black Rainbow 238-239); regardless, the rebels do possess an inherent defiant quality. They are "descendants of ancient Maori rebels and urbanised Polynesians from the islands, and rebel Pakeha. A mongrel brew" and "[n]o degree of reordinarination worked with them" (223).  In this claim that defiance is a racial trait linked to Polynesians, not only are the Tangata Moni cast as warriors for the greater good, they are also puppets, unable to do anything other than what they are programmed to do: to fight the system. At the same time, because the Tribunal and its followers are shown to have created a completely superficial society, those who are the "True People", who have roots in the land, are more 'real' and more 'natural'.

    In the works of Wendt, then, there is a claim of innate belonging in the new land, a connection that is far stronger than that claimed by either Kightley or Pule. This difference in approach is reinforced by the expressed attitude of the various characters to the two main ethnic groups that the Islanders confront in New Zealand:  Maori and Pakeha.  In contrast, while both Maori and Pakeha people are described in the works of Pule, no great distinction is made between them in terms of socio-economic standing, nor between them and the islanders. Poverty is shown to affect them all. The non-Niueans are distinguished only (and importantly) by the fact that they are not Niuean.

    In Kightley’s Dawn Raids, race's importance is highlighted, but the racism that is implicit in the decision to conduct the dawn raids is attributed not to any particular ethnic group, but to the "government". All resentment is reserved for this nebulous institution or for undefined "others". "I’m not talking about you lot," Hugh says to his Samoan friends, "you guys are part of this country now, you’re all Kiwis now, nah I’m talking about the others" (27).  Comments such as To'aga's statement that "we are all oppressed indigenous peoples," (Dawn Raids 12) suggest an ongoing battle between coloniser and colonised. In Wendt, however, the racial politics take on a much more serious tone.

    In Sons for the Return Home, Pakeha New Zealand life is contrasted unfavourably with the life of Samoans both in Samoa and in New Zealand. Reference is also made to Maori, with the protagonist’s attitude moving from disdain towards a feeling of understanding and empathy. In the later Ola, the hero is shown to empathise with not only Maori but all oppressed peoples, and Pakeha are shown as being largely on the side of the oppressors. Finally, in Black Rainbow, the division between Maori/Pacific Islanders and the white colonising force is very clearly defined.

    Juniper Ellis argues that Wendt’s work, in particular Black Rainbow, promotes the idea that "there is no cultural purity or isolation, but instead collisions of admittedly asymmetric cultures that modify one another in unpredictable ways" (108) [i]. However, what is depicted in Black Rainbow is one culture trying to eliminate, rather than modify, other cultures.  In opposition to the Tribunal are the Tangata Moni, comprised essentially of one racial group (though an amalgamation of similar cultures), that is said to share an ineradicable trait of rebelliousness. The lines here seem to be very clearly drawn.