Saturday, May 14, 2011

Multiculturalism

This is about multiculturalism from my perspective only. There is a public debate at the moment about it, in light of the view of the regular arrival, by boat, of asylum seekers and the divide between religious factions. I make no attempt to come up with solutions to these, merely tell what it was like for me as I grew up. If anyone findsit racist, so be it.
I grew up in a south eastern neighborhood of Melbourne in the 70s. It was a typical middle class area, complete with cricket or tennis being played on the road on the weekend and kids hooning around on their bikes. It was also heavily populated by Greeks and Italians, as well as white Australians. Typically we went to school with bruno's as well as glenn's.
The fresh food market at nearby Oakleigh was where mum dragged us every Saturday morning.she knew a fair few of them due to being a regular, but all the signs were in Greek, gaarh. Personally, I hated that market, the signs I couldn't understand, the yelling, thhe smell of fish. The irony is, I'd probably love it now.
Here's the names of some girls I knew at school: soula ,toula, koula, voula, mena, nina,Lena, zena,rose, rosina, Rosetta, Rosemarie, Sophie, Sophia, sofi. I think most of those lived within a few blocks of me.
Our neighbors used to grow their own fruit and veg and kill pigs in spring. We used to get bags of fruit from them and their figs and grapes used to fall off on our side of the fence. I've always loved figs since then. In return, I used to play with their younger daughter, who used to get passed over the fence.
In the late 70s, asylum seekers were coming over, by boat, from mainly Vietnam. There was also an outcry about them. A lot of them settled in spring vale, where my nan lived. W were no strangers to Asians in our family, as my auntie had married a Chinese man who had lived in Malaysia. We had Eurasian cousins as a result. I do remember when the shops in spring vale started to sport signs written in Vietnamese. Ironically, one of the best Greek restaurants I've ever been to, complete with plate smashing, was in spring vale. Ohh, the garlic ridden hangovers I've had from that place.
We also lived near Monash uni, so there were always a lot of multicultural students living in the neighborhood.
In the 80s, I started to meet more people from different backgrounds. Firstly, I was friends with a polish girl at high school. One of the first times I visited, I was given borscht. I had never seen pink soup before. Thanks to mums strict manners training I ate it. To this day I love borscht. At the local high school I went to for years 10 & 11 (or parts there of), we "skips" were definitely in a minority. It really didn't bother me. I got to learn how to swear in several languages. I also got to see how so many Italians covered their furniture with plastic and put plastic runners down their hallways. Yes, I've seen pictures of people sitting on donkeys and yes, I knew the Oakleigh wogs, as they called themselves. They were a very small band of criminal types that terrorized the area.
At some time, in the late 80s, we started to get more Indians migrating and they too, moved into the area.my oldest child was babysat by an Indian lady. Her house was always spotless. We knew a couple around then, through my husbands work, the wife was Indian, the husband white. They were a lovely couple. One day we went over their place and her and her sister (one of the 7) were in the kitchen with the biggest pile of garlic and ginger I've ever seen, cooking and preserving it for the rest of the year. I couldn't stay in there for long, the heat and smell were oppressive. I don't know how she did it.
As I grew up, I started to meet aboriginal Australians for the first time. By then, I'd come across nearly the globe (with the notable exceptions of south America and Africa), yet had never met any aboriginal Australians. Bit sad that. One of my friends was called deaf John. Guess why??? He was always glad that I could do the alphabet in sign (couldn't do auslan though). I learned a bit about land rights from him. Y the time I met John, who was living with white parents with another aboriginal boy (they'd adopted them), I knew about the 67 referendum. One day I brought him home with me. After he'd gone, we had an arguement because one of our neighbours commented on it. I was quite aggravated, understandably and it ended with me heatedly asking my parents how they voted in the referendum. I'm able to report that they voted yes, but for the first time ever, I was aware of others attitudes towards people different from them.
We were relatively open, but we had an uncle that came back from WW2 with a hatred towards the Japanese. He'd been in changi as a pow you see.
I first met the children of those that fled Lebannon when I worked in the city. I guess it was a cultural thing, but I found that no didn't actually mean no to those young men. I think it meant, we'll nag until you say yes.make no mistake, some of the guys I met were lovely, but I did get slapped on the face by one of them after yet another no. We all knew that white Australian girls were considered fair game at the time, as in "have fun with them, but marry one of ours". To be fair, the Turkish and Lebanese boys were not the only ones, told that. I've had Greek and Italian friends whose parents were enormously disappointed when they announced that they would marry an Australian.just as it's changed slowly, for them, hopefully that attitude will change for others
I know this is just a snapshot and that I'm leaving myself open to criticism, but so what. This is through my eyes and no one else's. It would take forever to write about what growing up in a multicultural city has added to my life. I think we all stagnate just a little, if we're all too similar, but having said that it's better for all of us to be a bit more inclusive.

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