From the start of colonization, Māori became subject to imposed and racialized identity categories based on Eurocentric assessments of ‘authentic’ Māori identity. While there continues to be a recognition of whakapapa (genealogical ties) as central to Māori identity, other markers of identity are also perceived as important to claiming Māori identity. I describe how these markers can often form ‘the box’, requiring people to perform culture in a specific manner, by analyzing a data poem crafted from qualitative interviews with 22 Māori youth. I begin by highlighting how ‘the box’ of Māori culture creates a hierarchy of Māori identity and the ways in which young people enact lateral violence through the term ‘plastic’ Māori to describe those who do not meet the expected markers of culture. I then link this effect to the wider settler colonial context, where such restrictions on cultural expression enable the elimination of Indigenous peoples from settler nations. From this foundation, I then consider the discourse of cultural reconnection and the various issues with an uncritical notion of reconnection to culture. I finally provide an alternative imagining for cultural engagement, drawing on how Māori youth enact Māori culture in (k)new ways to craft their identities.