Growing Up Asian in Australia Essay

As one of the most ethnically diverse countries today, Australia is home to people from over two hundred countries, with different backgrounds, stories, cultures and religions. Multiculturalism has had vast impacts on Australia, as reflected in the country's mainstream diet, lifestyle and cultural practices that has shaped the Australian identity. However, Australia's diversity has also caused social and cultural tensions as well as racism and isolation, as clearly shown in both Aditi Gouvernel's "Wei-Lei and Me" and Shalini Akhil's "Destiny", two memoirs revealing different perspectives on growing up Australian through different experiences in their childhood years. Gouvernel was a victim of racism at her primary school, and as a result, experienced isolation and bullying from her peers. However, Akhil's memoir shows the positive outcome that multiculturalism can have when one culture is strengthened

A lack of belonging can destroy a sense of placement in society. This statement is thoroughly explored in the poem, ‘Migrant Hostel’ by Peter Skrzynecki, investigating the concepts of alienation and dislocation through the migrant’s lack of acceptance by the Australian citizens. The migrants are also unable to find a fixed home, and therefore feel no sense of stability or permanence. This transitory nature is best identified in the simile, ‘We lived like birds of a passage/Always sensing a change/In the weather’, where the comparison to birds emphasises the absence of a home. It is clear that the migrants feel unable to adapt to Australian society, constantly moving and never settling. The migrant’s exclusion is further highlighted in the lines,

Most migrants that came to Australia to grab a share of the gold rush, left behind family and home. In traditional Chinese culture this was particularly difficult for them to come from a parent’s heavy focused family system, to an alien country to live.

After WW2, the Labour Prime Minister, Ben Chifley, launched Australia’s largest immigration program ever. Along with the program, the catchphrase ‘Populate or Perish’ was widely used to imply that more immigrants, preferably white, were necessary to fight of the steady stream of Asian immigration. As part of Immigration policy, these immigrants were expected to assimilate – meaning that they had to give up their preceding culture and embody Australian customs. This was simple for those who come from Britain but was very much a difficult task for those few immigrants who were not of British descent.

The ‘White Australia policy’ is a term commonly used to refer to the collection of Federal, State and Territory immigration policies for excluding non-white people from immigrating to Australia from the late 1880s through to the 1970s. The White Australia policy was applied progressively less strictly following the Second World War. The number of non-European settler arrivals, for example, nearly quadrupled between 1966 and 1971. The White Australia policy was finally dismantled by the Whitlam Government in 1973. Multiculturalism emerged at this time as a means of responding both to this new form of culturally diverse migration and to the phenomenon of post-war mass migration in general. During the 1940s and 50s in Australia, ‘assimilation’ was the dominant approach to newly arrived migrants, followed, in the 1960s, by ‘integration’. During the assimilation period it was thought that newly arrived migrants ought to attempt to blend into mainstream society as much and as quickly as possible, removing the traces of their former identities to become like other Australians. Integration policies, which were developed with a greater awareness of the lived realities of migration, saw the maintenance by migrants of links to their past cultures and nationalities as less threatening and not incompatible with the aims of integration. ‘Multiculturalism’ supplanted both of these terms during the 1970s, carrying with it an emphasis on the virtues of tolerance and respect for other cultures and the value and necessity of recognizing difference and diversity (Australian collaboration,

Post World War II immigrants from northern European society have resulted in many different nationalities moving to Australia. The northern European migrants faced many different challenges before coming to Australia and moving to Australia, let alone the challenge of adapting to the Australian lifestyle. However, they have largely contributed in the nation’s multiculturalism, which still lasts today. This essay will outline how the northern European migrants contributed in Australia’s industrial progress, the causes and effects for these immigrants migrating to Australia and the impact they have made on Australian society. Between 1945 and 1965 more than two million settlers migrated to Australia. All of the different people from all over the world have made Australia their home and shaped it to be the country it is today.

Both Khaled Hosseini's novel ‘The Kite Runner’ and the short stories "Are You Different?" by Mia Francis and "Chinese Lessons" by Ivy Tseng in the anthology "Growing Up Asian In Australia" by various authors discuss the notion of being displaced. In the texts, the role of being an outsider extends from being excluded in one's own family to a large-scale extermination of the ethnic minorities. In both ‘The Kite Runner’ and ‘Growing Up Asian in Australia’, it is inferred that the idea of being the outsider causes individuals to experience pain, because the way that they perceive themselves and by the people around them as different leads them to feel voiceless, discriminated, and conflicted in a place where they should feel like they belong.

Acculturation as a concept is a relatively new theory in the fields of sociology and anthropology, even more so in the world of psychology. In recent years, it has been throuroghly investigated and analysed as the immigration rates increase in Australia and worldwide since world war two. Acculturation has become an ever increasingly relevant concept in today’s eclectic blend of cultures. Immigrants are usually caught in limbo between two different cultures of their own and the host country, with little idea as to how to successfully assimilate. They are confronted with being separated with their culture, unfamiliar aspects of life and uncertainty. Many researchers have studied the assimilation process regarding the best approach and causal factors that may interfere in doing so. Although the literature presents acculturation in a variety of contexts, this literature review’s primarily focus will be on suggested approaches for immigrant assimilation and associated implications with a strong focus on the work of John Berry.

Australia’s success is largely due to the cultural diversity of our migrants. Australia a nation known for its multiculturalism and diversity didn’t always accept migrants, in fact Australia did not accept all people until they dismantled the White Australia Policy a policy that had been in place since 1901 the policy was in place with the sole purpose of excluding people who were not “desirable” and only abolished shortly after the events of World War II, Past events have helped create and shape Australia’s unique identity of today. The idea of migration in the past is nowhere near the same as it is now, during the first half of the 19th century Australia experienced high rates of migration which was the beginning of Australia’s cultural diversity.

The attitudes and values of Australia from 1901 to the end of the 20th century have had easily identifiable changes involving the acceptance and the attitude toward people of differing ethnic backgrounds. Especially the discrimination towards those

Robertson contends that differences are marked between these migrants, when some decide to be identified as sojourners and others attempt to be identified as serious migrants. According to the writer, to be considered the latter, student and tourist workers must reject their temporal status and adopt Western culture. This often requires a segregation within the temporal migrant worker category. To support this claim, Robertson uses both expert opinion and the personal accounts of these two types of temporary migrants. These types of evidence, in combination, help to validate Robertson’s opinion. In making this claim, Robertson is assuming that this assimilation and identity performance requires conscious effort and that it is an act to receive serious employment. Thus, Robertson is failing to consider that this process could actually occur naturally and/or be relished by migrants, for other means. Robertson also relies on the assumption that migrants are only truly valued if they show commitment to the culture and lifestyle of the country they have migrated to. This adds strength to her claim and argument as migrancy tends to be characterised by a sense of displacement and a need to fit in. Though, perhaps, without revealing claims by all Australian employers, there is a struggle to definitively determine

It is universally known that Australia is an immigrant country, in which immigrants always play an important role in the country’s history. According to Gallagher (1989), from 1947s to 1951s, Australian governments totally accepted 170000 European refugees. It means that the solid fact facilitates Australia to change from single model into different racial culture. Besides, on the basis of McDougall (2015), Abbott government agreed to accept and resettle about 12000 Syrian refugees in Australia. Now the current Australia government also helped the country to absorb foreign people and further promoted the development of ethnic diversity in Australia because this change for social structure, to some extent, eliminated prejudice and discrimination.

Australia is known as free country and focuses on becoming the multicultural country. Due to this, there are many different ethnicities seen, but who deserves to be in Australia. Both Samir and I have different stories but who has more of a right to live in Australia.

Despite the evidence that Australia’s multicultural policy has supported social cohesion, Forrest and Kevin Dunn (2006) state that parts of Australia still embraces a heritage of Anglo advantage and cultural supremacy. This is further supported in the interview with Cooper who claims that it’s difficult to position all Australians in the same boat, and there are a range of extreme opinions regarding new migrants ranging from tolerance to rejection (457321G, 2017). The Human Rights Commission (2016) claims Australia is, and has been, a highly cohesive society by any objective standard; though, the measure of this success is debatable. The measurement of social cohesion includes factors such as the degree of social integrity and equity, acceptance and sense of self-worth (Scanlon Foundation, 2015). This is contested in the interview with Fang (457321G, 2017) who claimed that she has had experience of discrimination and infrequently receives comments such as “go back to your country”. This can be a justification as to why different cultural groups remain in their individual communities. The findings from the Scanlon Foundation (2015) can be linked to data

Statistics prove that Australia is a widely diverse country, in fact Lawrence, Brooker and Goodnow state that, “44% of Australians were born in other countries or are the children of parents from other countries” (2012). Although this statistic establishes Australia as being multicultural, the main society here still persists to degrade the ethnically different community and also push those people to conform to the traditional Australian ways (Lawrence et al., 2012). Furthermore, Siraj-Blatchford and Clarke (2004) express that the environment in which we grow up in hugely influences our opinions on other cultures, creating a venomous cycle of denying those who are different. Sadly, in early primary school settings students from diverse backgrounds still get rejected and labeled before even having the chance to communicate (Siraj-Blatchford & Clarke, 2004). Students such as Abedi would then fight to understand a sense of worth and belonging, and feel as if they have to gain acceptance by giving in to the dominant ways in which Australian’s live (Brown, 2008). The student’s opinions of themselves can be greatly harmed as the cultural demands to reform to our ways can cause severe anxiety (Brown, 2008). Changing their behaviours and beliefs from the home setting to a school environment can send a child into a downward spiral as they begin to live in a two sided world