In each of the works considered, a colonising force--or at least a dominant culture--is a constant presence. Sometimes, as in the case of Pule’s novels, it is in the background, but it still influences the characters’ actions and thoughts. In Wendt’s works, the imperial past and its legacy is always the major issue. The devastating effect of this past on the indigenous populations and the attempts of the various characters to come to terms with it are the central struggles portrayed. Significantly, in Wendt’s works, Maori and Pacific Islanders are melded with New Zealand indigenes. Their experiences are those of the colonised, of being "othered", and the racially-defined essentialist approach suggests that the future will see the same pattern of white colonisers struggling to impose their will on the innately rebellious colonised peoples.

    Closely associated with this sense of being perpetually "other" is the Island identity. Each of the characters in the works considered is highly conscious of being an Islander, or, in the case of Wendt’s Black Rainbow, of belonging to a group whose collective origins are made obvious by the colour of their skin. In the works of Pule and Kightley, New Zealand and its people--both Maori and Pakeha--remain separate, and the Islanders retain their own identities. Most exist in a limited and limiting middle space, affected by the dominant culture but not under serious threat of being absorbed by it, nor in constant conflict with it.

    Of all the characters in all the works studied, it is Vili from Kightley’s A Frigate Bird Sings who comes closest to defining a new space not confined by close association with either the host culture nor the "othered" Island culture. By the play’s end he is neither female nor male, neither a tradition-bound Samoan nor a sell-out to the host culture;  he is simply what he is. Although this points to a new way of being, a new space, the audience is not told exactly what this might entail. For Pule’s protagonists, the key to finding their place in New Zealand lies in their rediscovery, acceptance and understanding of the island heritage, without slavish adherence to it. Wendt’s characters reject Samoan culture simultaneous while adopting a personalised Samoa of the mind and a nascent feeling of affinity with Maori culture.  Indeed, in Black Rainbow, he presents a unity of race, history and purpose amongst all Pacific Islanders and Maori in New Zealand who have become members of an indigenous race which must remain forever in conflict with Pakeha in a sort of perpetual struggle of coloniser against colonised (in Black Rainbow).

     Thus, the various texts here discussed address whether the Pacific Island migrants to New Zealand depicted in the works perceive themselves to be colonisers or colonised.  These works do not, however, point to any consistent conclusion. In Kightley’s works, the message seems to be that no such blanket conclusion is possible and that each individual will have his/her own unique response. Much the same message is conveyed by Pule’s characters, though they seem to draw more consistently on their Island traditions to give them the confidence to provide a space for themselves in the new land. In Wendt’s works, the message seems much bleaker: identity is racially defined, the Islanders are seen as limited indigenes, and the pursuit of a proper place in the new land is seen as a competitive struggle against the white interlopers, the colonisers.