The document provides an overview of migration experiences in Australia from the post-World War 2 period to present day. It discusses the major waves of immigration, including displaced persons from Europe after World War 2, Italian and Greek immigrants for postwar reconstruction, and refugees from conflicts like the Vietnam War. It also outlines the shift from the White Australia policy and assimilation model to a multicultural approach recognizing Australia's diversity. Key themes covered include the impact on population demographics, government policies around immigration, and the contributions of various immigrant groups to Australia's changing identity.
2. The University of Western Australia
OVERVIEW & AIMS
1. to introduce Year 10 Australian Curriculum – History
– Curriculum focus
– depth studies — 3. migration
2. to provide an understanding of Migration Experiences
– Land of Immigrants
– Post war Immigration
– Assimilation to Multiculturalism
3. The University of Western Australia
Year 10 Curriculum focus: Australia and world history
1. Historical understanding through range of disciplinary
concepts
i. Evidence – use of sources, analysis, interpretation
ii. continuity and change
iii. cause and effect
iv. significance
v. empathy
vi. perspectives and contestability
2. opportunity to engage students through contexts and
through debates, past and present
4. The University of Western Australia
Year 10 Depth Studies
1. WWII (1939-45)
2. Rights and freedoms (1945- present)
3. Globalising world — social and cultural influences
• Popular Culture
• Migration experiences (1945 – present)
• Environment movement (1960s – present)
5. The University of Western Australia
Year 10 Depth Study 3
Impact on the Australian way of life of MIGRATION
waves of post-World War II migration to Australia, including the influence
of significant world events
impact of changing government policies on Australia’s migration
patterns, including abolition of the White Australia Policy, ‘Populate or
Perish’
impact of at least ONE world event or development and its significance
for Australia, such as the Vietnam War and Indochinese refugees
contribution of migration to Australia’s changing identity as a nation and
to its international relationships
6. The University of Western Australia
MIGRATION EXPERIENCES - OVERVIEW
1. LAND OF IMMIGRANTS
Migration exercise 1 (who do you think you are?)
2. POST WAR IMMIGRATION
Migration exercise 2 (SS MISR Controversy)
Migration exercise 3 (camp)
3. ASSIMILATION TO MULTI-CULTURALISM
Migration exercise 4 (definitions)
Migration exercise 5 (cultural changes)
7. The University of Western Australia
1. LAND OF IMMIGRANTS
British Group Settlers
Kentdale WA 1924
8. The University of Western Australia
Where Australians have come from
Countries of birth 2006
10. The University of Western Australia
Migration Exercise 1
Who do you think you are? (10 mins)
Where were your parents and grandparents born?
Did they or any of your ancestors come to Australia from another
country?
When did they come?
Why did they come?
How did they get here?
Where did they live when they first arrived?
What did they bring with them?
11. The University of Western Australia
2. POST WAR IMMIGRATION
White Australia Policy 1901–72
‘Populate or Perish’
Post WWII – Displaced persons (DPs) and refugees
• Migration Exercise 2 (SS MISR)
Migrant camps
• Migration Exercise 3 (Camp life)
Post war reconstruction
Immigration agreements with UK/Europe
Ten Pound Poms 1945-72
Assisted passages Italy, Greece, Netherlands, Germany
Changing composition of population 1933 & 1966
• Migration Exercise 4 (Food)
12. The University of Western Australia
White Australia Policy 1901-72
1901 Immigration Restriction Act (White Australia Policy)
exclusion of non-European people via dictation test
50-word dictation test in any European language
1902-03 administered 805 times – 46 people passed
1904-09 — 554 times – 6 people passed.
People who failed were refused entry or deported.
13. The University of Western Australia
Post WWII - Displaced people and refugees
Bavaria 1945
Berlin 1945
Refugees Danzig 1945
14. The University of Western Australia
Populate or Perish
Context WWII
• Suspicion of Asia
• Post war reconstruction
1947 Arthur Caldwell, 1st Minister for Immigration
• ‘We must populate or we will perish. We must fill this country or
we will lose it. We need to protect ourselves against the yellow
peril from the north. Our current population of 7,391,000 (about
one person per square mile) leave a land as vast as Australia
under-protected.’
• Mass immigration
15. The University of Western Australia
Migration Exercise 2
MS Misr Controversy (15 mins)
Caldwell meeting migrants on MS Misr 1947
683 passengers
27 different nationalities
Complaints
Conditions on ship
Nationality of passengers
Govt report
Who wrote documents?
Who published?
Why?
What were their sources?
Are sources identified?
What does the controversy
reveal about
immigration and
attitudes to
immigration?
16. The University of Western Australia
Australian Government poster displayed
in migrant reception centres
overseas and in Australia 1949-51
17. The University of Western Australia
German, 1952
Dutch, 1954
Latvian, Fairsea 1949
Blond blue-eyed
push–pull factors
19. The University of Western Australia
Migration Exercise 3
Northam Camp 1950
20. The University of Western Australia
Adult education class
Northam camp 1950
21. The University of Western Australia
Post war reconstruction
migration fuelled expansion of manufacturing
Drove down unskilled and semi-skilled wages
eg 1950s motor vehicle companies used mass recruitment
of southern European labour to prevent increase in rates for
production line workers.
22. The University of Western Australia
Snowy Mountains Hydro-electricity
Scheme 1958
Ford Motor Plant
Geelong 1956
Bob Csillag, later a psychiatrist in the Dept of Psychiatry at UWA,
came to Australia as displaced person in 1950. The war prevented
him from completing his medical training at the University of Vienna.
He spoke no English and was required to undertake hard physical
work felling timber for the Forestry Commission for two years
23. The University of Western Australia
Ten Pound Poms
Archie (my husband) and I applied
to Australia House in 1948. We
were living in a small flat with our
four children. Housing was very
tight because of the bombing
during the war…So we went to
Australia House to explain it was
our living conditions that made us
want to migrate. They told us how
much better off we would be in
WA. The Government would pay
our fares and give my husband a
job for two years. We would stay
in Point Walter Camp for two
days, then have a state flat for six
months, and finally a state house.
So we decided to come.
SS Orontes, March 1958
24. The University of Western Australia
We were allotted one room with
three beds in it, one each for my
husband and myself, which we
pushed together, and one for
Brian, our six year old son. This
left little room for the baby we
were expecting. The bed bases
were criss-crossed wire, the
mattresses thin army issue
palliasses… I remember lying
back in the bed, watching the
insects coming up through the
floorboards, thinking, ‘What the
hell have we done’.
Nissan huts Graylands Hostel
25. The University of Western Australia
Italian immigration
WWII – Italians interned as enemy aliens
Post war – Italian govt – safety valve
Mainly Southern Italians
Chain migration
Male migrants – sponsored families
‘It was hard because there were lots of people
[in Italy] and no work, no space. There was
just that bit of work in the countryside. You
worked the land but at the end of the year you
earned nothing… So I thought, “It’s better I go
to Australia where there is gold in the streets.”
That’s what they said in those days.’
26. The University of Western Australia
Greek immigration
From Epiros to Sydney
Melbourne – largest
Greek city outside Greece
27. The University of Western Australia
German and Dutch Immigrants
Johan van Oldenbarnevelt poster, 1950
Intergovernmental Agreements
28. The University of Western Australia
Changing composition of population
29. The University of Western Australia
3. ASSIMILATION TO MULTICULTURALISM
Assimilation
Integration
Abolition White Australia Policy 1966–72
Racial Discrimination Act 1975
Multiculturalism
Vietnamese Refugees
Cultural changes
30. The University of Western Australia
Vietnamese Refugees
MECA HO: I can remember when I was on a boat, Mum was carrying me. And
my grandma was holding my hand and she was crying as the boat started
quietly moving, slowly drifting away. I see a lot of people on the boat. But they’re
always cramped in just one boat and underneath of the boat.
Darwin 1977
Vietnam War 1962–72
31. The University of Western Australia
Migration Exercise 4
Definitions
Asylum seeker
Refugee
Illegal immigrant
32. The University of Western Australia
Migration exercise 5
Cultural changes
• List the food you have eaten this week
– Breakfast, lunch, dinner
• What is the origin of these foods/recipes?
• How did they come to Australia?
33. The University of Western Australia
Summary
Immigration patterns in Australia have changed
Pre WW II British immigrants dominated
Post war waves of immigrants
• displaced people from war torn Europe
• immigrants from Britain and Europe
• refugees from Indo-China and other parts of the world
• immigrants with skills needed in Australian economy
Policy issues
• White Australia policy
• ‘populate or perish’
• push pull factors
• Assimilation
• Multiculturalism
Australia now
• one of the most multicultural countries in the world
• many ethnicities contribute to national identity
• link the nation to global society
34. The University of Western Australia
Further information
Reginald Appleyard and John N Yiannakis, 'Greek Pioneers in Western
Australia, Crawley, UWA Press, 2003
Collins, Jock; Gibson, Katherine; Alcorso, Caroline; Castles, Stephen; and
Tait, David A., Shop Full of Dreams - Ethnic Small Business in Australia,
Sydney, Pluto Press Australia, 1995
James Hammerton and Alistair Thomson, Ten Pound Poms: Australia's
Invisible Migrants, Manchester, Manchester University Press, 2005
Susanna Iuliano, Vite Italiane: Italian Lives in Western Australia, Crawley,
UWA Publishing, 2010
James Jupp, The Australian People: an encyclopedia of the nation, its people
and their origins, Cambridge University Pess, 2001
James Jupp, The English in Australia, Cambridge University Press, 2004
Nonja Peters, Milk and Honey — but no Gold: Postwar Migration to Western
Australia 1945–1964, Crawley, UWA Press, 2001
35. The University of Western Australia
Glenda Sluga, Bonegilla: 'A Place of No Hope', Parkville, University of Melbourne,
1988
Anastasios Tamis, The Greeks in Australia, Cambridge University Press, 2005
Jürgen Tampke, The Germans in Australia, Cambridge University Press, 2007
Gwenda Tavan, The Long Slow Death of White Australia, Carlton, Scribe, 2005
http://museumvictoria.com.au/immigrationmuseum/
http://migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/somuchsky/
http://northamarmycamp.org.au/storylines/migrant/living/
http://migrationheritage.nsw.gov.au/exhibitions/goldandsilver/journey/
http://vietnam-war.commemoration.gov.au/aftermath/
http://www.yale.edu/cgp/
http://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/
http://www.multiculturalaustralia.edu.au
Northbridge History Project
36. The University of Western Australia
Scootle on line resources
Asylum seekers 1990s -2000s
13 digital curriculum resources focus on the arrival of asylum seekers in Australia
in the 1990s and early 2000s. It is organised into six categories - reasons for
seeking asylum; reaching Australia; Australian reactions; detention centres;
assessing refugee status; and living and working in the community. The
collection includes documentary and feature film footage, an audio interview,
cartoons and poetry.
Immigration: fill it or lose it, 1992
video clip looks at the political forces and propaganda campaigns that tried to fill
Australia with 'pure white' immigrants. 'Immigration: fill it or lose it' is an excerpt
from the documentary 'Admission impossible' (54 min), produced in 1992.
SS Orama pamphlet for Port Said, 1939
details information for passengers about the Orient Line ship SS Orama's arrival
in Port Said, Egypt, in June 1939 en route to Australia from Europe. It lists
everyday tasks
National treasures, 2004: Cuc Lam's suitcase
Fiona Chiu: Chinese family tree
Notes de l'éditeur
key plank of Federation in 1901
Set tone for immigration for most of 20th C
still informs many popular attitudes to immigration
Originally to prevent Chinese from entering Australia
fear of cultural difference (different language, different religious beliefs, different activites.
looking different – visible attributes – not ‘white’, wearing different clothes
economic success (goldfields) market gardens, restricted occupations (laundries)
Built on state laws of restriction
Dictation test often set in Gaelic
Chink in Australia’s armour
Displaced people and refugees from war torn Europe
Germans returning home from invaded countries
Homeless people in bombed cities
People escaping from countries taken over by Soviet Union
Army camp accommodation
Fair-haired blue-eyed Maira Kalnins with her parents and little brother on board the Fairsea in 1949. They had fled from Latvia during the Soviet occupation
Many Dutch were all too willing to emigrate. The war and the Nazi occupation, had left many cities devastated. Mass unemployment, industrial stagnation and fear of overpopulation followed the war and the Dutch Government encouraged its people to emigrate. The massive floods of 1953 were a further blow to the hope of a good future in their homeland.
Generally the Dutch and German came from a society with high standards of education, so that even unskilled workers could aspire to becoming self-employed in Australia. Many became taxi drivers, operated a milk round or became contract cleaners, ran small grocery stores, grew flowers or fruit or vegetables or ran dairy cattle.
had an easier time on arrival in Australia than had southern Europeans. Although they too met with a degree of prejudice, most northern Europeans were fair-skinned and were able to merge into white Australian society more easily than their olive-skinned neighbours from southern Europe.
In the immediate post war years Calwell had declared that he hoped that for every ‘foreign migrant’ there would be ten migrants from Britain. It remained the source of about 50 per cent of migrants.
Over one million British migrants were assisted to come to Australia between 1945 and 1972. They were known as ‘Ten Pound Poms’ and adult migrants had to pay only £10 each to travel to Australia. Children travelled free. They needed to be in good health, under the age of 45 years, and were required to stay in Australia for two years or refund their passage if they returned to Britain. People from other parts of the Commonwealth were also eligible, although under the ‘White Australia’ policy people from mixed race backgrounds found it very difficult to take advantage of the scheme. There were initially no skill restrictions, though mainly tradesmen and semi-skilled labour was sought from Britain.
Those who arrived before 1951 had to be sponsored
Julia Gillard emigrated with her family from Wales, as a Ten Pound Pom, in 1966 when she was four years old, after her parents were advised that her health would improve if they lived in a warmer climate.
They’re a Weird Mob
The lives of Italian immigrants were sent up by John O’Grady in his best-selling novel, They’re a Weird Mob (1957) later made into a popular film. O’Grady wrote under the pseudonym, Nino Culotta, the narrator of the book. Nino is a journalist who immigrates to Australia from Italy and gets a job as a brickie’s labourer in Sydney. He is portrayed as a naïve but lovable Italian immigrant who has learnt English from a textbook and struggles to understand colloquial English, slang, as spoken by workers of the 1950s and ‘60s. He soon learns that a ‘schooner’ is not a sailing ship and a ‘shout’ is not a yell. His triumph is to be able to roar in a near perfect Aussie accent, "Howyergoinmateorright?"
The book encouraged Australians to laugh at themselves, but at the expense of New Australians, and it pushed the assimilation line for the tens of thousands of New Australians who were arriving. It promoted assimilation with the ideal migrant merging and becoming indistinguishable from the host community.
Toni Fini migrated to Australia in 1951, working in labouring jobs, digging potatoes and laying concrete, until he got a job in the building industry as a plasterer and bricklayer. In 1956, he started his own business, Fini Homes. It became a large construction and property development company and he became a multi-millionaire. Not all Italian immigrants fared so well, but his story typifies the archetypal rags to riches post-war success story.
After World War II, large numbers of Greeks were displaced as a result of enemy occupation and civil war and in 1952 they too became eligible for assisted passages to Australia. Those sponsored by relatives had arrived in small but increasing numbers since the late 1940s. Over 160,000 Greeks immigrated to Australia in the postwar years, mostly to Victoria, where many found work in factories and farms.
Ken Michael
Intergovernmental agreements
Germans fled
Dutch encouraged to immigrate
Cities devastated, Mass unemployment, industrial stagnation, fear of overpopulation, floods
Fair skinned, merged more easily into Anglo-Saxon community
Tradesmen sought after
By the late 1960s attitudes towards non-British immigrants were slowly beginning to change. British, Irish and New Zealanders still made up the largest groups of ‘New Australians’, as the government called the immigrant communities. But there was a slow intermingling of cultures and ‘old’ Australians were becoming accustomed to the millions of post-war immigrants that were part of Australian society.
Despite this many people still thought that immigrants should try harder to become assimilated into the Australian way of life. Name-calling was still common and many Australians were still suspicious of newcomers. Public opinion surveys, like those undertaken in Melbourne in 1971, suggested that up to 90 per cent of Australians were opposed to multicultural ideas.
The war cost the lives of 500 Australian soldiers and wounded 3000. But millions of Vietnamese had lost their lives and millions more were made refugees.
1975 first main group of Vietnamese refugees, mostly well-to-do Vietnamese, Chinese Businessmen and Catholics who faced reprisals from the new government.
1976–78 and comprised a gradually increasing flow of refugees from camps outside Viet Nam.
1978, mainly owners of private businesses that had been closed by the Viet Nam Government and other businessmen, especially Chinese, who had been expelled by the government.
so-called ‘economic refugees’, mainly small traders, urban and rural workers and unemployed, who had made their way to refugee camps in Indonesia and Hong Kong and were seeking a permanent home.
