Kura kaupapa Maori provide a unique primary school education system that immerses children in Maori language and culture. Interviews with founding members from the first Auckland kura give a critical sense of the aspirations that guided them in their struggle to set up the kura kaupapa Maori initiative. The desire to provide suitable schooling for their children, educated in a pre-school Maori immersion environment, led to a political and legal battle to provide an education validating traditional Maori knowledge. The narratives inform of the hardship endured in the setting up of kura kaupapa Maori without government assistance, and clarify the political strategies employed to establish kura. The restructuring of New Zealand's Education Department opened a space for the development of kura kaupapa Maori, leading to legislation in 1989 and formal recognition in 1999 of the Te Aho Matua document, the guiding philosophy for the majority of kura today.