Identity of Migrants Presented in Historic and Modern Texts

Writers can make or change ideas about certain topics though songs, articles and poems. Today I will
show you how modern views have changed (or not) since historic times, though the art of words. I will
specifically be looking at migrants and their representations in the following texts.

Wide Lies Australia The first text I would like to share with you is a
historic one written shortly after federation by
Wide lies Australia! The seas that surround her Henry Lawson. This particular poem is about the
Flow for her unity – all states in one. amazing feats of the English in their discovery of
Never has Custom nor Tyranny bound her –
Never was conquest so peacefully won. this great land, Australia. Lawson uses phrases
Fair lies Australia! with all things within her such as, “Free to the White Man to woo and win
Meet for a Nation, the greatest to be: her,” (notice the capitalisation of “White Man”)
Free to the White Man to woo and to win her: and, “Free to be brothers”. However, he goes on
Those who'd be happy and those who'd be free. to say things like, “To keep for the White World
Free to live fully and free to live cleanly, the Balance of Power, welcoming all, be they
Free to give learning to daughter and son; British or German.” In this phrase, people from
Free to act nobly but not to act meanly, around the world have been invited to join the
Free to forget what the old lands had done. English in making Australia a country of freedom,
Free to be Brothers! Our hymn and our sermon as long as they are “White” (with a capital).
To keep for the White World the balance of Power,
Welcoming all, be they British or German, In the last verse it says, “…Went the brave
All come to help us – we'll wait for the hour. English…Fearlessly facing the unknown.” This
really says that the English are superior because
Out in the West where the flood-water gathers – they are fearless and white. But Aborigines had
Out in the drought on the sand desert lone – been “braving” it for a long time before the
Went the brave English and brave foreign fathers
Fearlessly facing the fearful unknown. English found Australia, so what made the
Gemmed with their names lies the great past behind us. English think that they‟d done so much more?
Dark lie the storm clouds before us today,
Let us so live the future shall find us For my first contemporary text, I would like to
Facing the danger as dauntless as they. show you a poem written by an immigrant, who
Henry Lawson (1867-1922)
rejects her own rejection by Australia. Ania
Walwicz demonstrates a definite lack of English
language skill, however, through her use of strong adjectives and short repetitive sentences she comes
across with a very powerful message. She uses words like silly, dead at night, dumb and drunk to
describe the people. Similarly, she uses words like empty, scorched, big; and phrases like “idiot
centre” and “too far” to describe the land. This woman obviously doesn‟t like the way Australians live,
and has not felt welcome, so she‟s rejecting the Australian lifestyle through her poem.

In another contemporary text, titled A White Australia by David Keig, the White Australia Policy is
brought into question. Keig enlightens us about what the „White Australia Policy‟, was in a negative
light. He wrote, “If your face was white you fitted, if not then sent away.” A White Australia is not the
only poem David Keig has written on this topic, although he obviously wrote it before the Cronulla
Riots if he included such a phrase as “It‟s rarely talked about these days, it‟s seen as immature”. He
wrote another poem called There’s a new sign in Australia, which is about how Australia has a new
“species” of “pure white dumb Aussies”, which refers to the Cronulla Riots.
Keig closes his poem, “A White Australia” with the phrase, “This side of Australia is something I
implore everyone around the world not just to ignore.”

© Sarah Don, Australia, 2007

A White Australia
They had a clear policy
For letting people stay
If your face was white you fitted
If not then sent away.
They included on their census
Cattle, sheep and goats
They excluded Aborigines
As incidental folks.
It was a white Australia
An Australia so pure
It's rarely talked about these days
It's seen as immature.
But white Australia lives on
Think of all those refugees
For they are held behind barbed wire
As dangerous detainees.
This side of this Australia
Is something I implore
Everyone around the world
Not just to ignore.
David Keig (1951)
There’s a New Sign in Australia
There's a new sign in Australia
That's there for all to see
It informs the population
When a beach is riot-free
This land of snakes and spiders
With lethal poison in each bite
And massive sharks and jellyfish
To haunt your dreams at night
Has found a brand new species
A throw-back some would say
They're called the white supremacists
But have they ever been away?
It seems they stockpile weapons
Baseball bats and guns and knives
To do battle on the beaches
With the wog and lebo tribes
They're protecting their Australia
From foreign influence
They seem to want this great big land
Split up with some fence
That will keep the ethnics separate
Unless they all adopt our ways
It's called assimilation
And reflected in the phrase
That once described this country
And its migrant policies
They want a 'white Australia'
Full of pure white dumb Aussies.
David Keig (1951)
The book, Joan Makes History by Kate Grenville, is mostly
about migrants and how they are inferior to the English, and
other white people in general. Joan (the main character)
represents different kinds of people in different situations
throughout history. The purpose of this was for her to be able to
re-write history to include women, as there‟s such a lack of
feminine representation in historic texts. Each chapter alternates
between an ongoing story of a Transylvanian migrant girl, called
Joan, who grows up in Australia, and short separate stories from
points throughout time where Kate Grenville has written a
female character into that part of Australian history.
Particularly if you look at the 5th chapter, or 3rd chapter titled
Joan, she tells of her family‟s effort to try to be more Australian,
to try to fit in and to start a new life, but they find the Australians
make it difficult.
Joan says, “So they mocked me, all those classmates, taunting
me in the playground for the way my father was bald as well as
foreign, and the way my mother looked funny with a scarf on her
head. Was she bald as well, they wanted to know?” (pg.39) Joan
also says, “out on the streets, my mother began to be the victim
of scowls and things muttered behind hands. In the playground
the girls explained with satisfaction that they could not speak to
me anymore because I was a filthy Hun, and Australians were at
war with filthy Huns. The more I tried to explain, with my feeble
grasp of geography, that being from Transylvania was not the
same as being a filthy Hun, the more their faces closed against
me.” (pg.41)
Joan‟s father wanted his family to be Australians so badly that he
changed their names. On page 41 again, it reads, “Mother wept
one night: Father had come home pale, his baldness leaving his
face exposed under the blast of emotion, and spread out a piece
of paper on the table where the light rained down on it. With a
finger under the words, he read, To Whom All Persons Shall
Come. I could see Mother was already lost, but Father‟s moving
finger moved on: Am desirous of abandoning and renouncing
the use of the name Victor Radulescu. His finger shook, as his
voice did, as he caressed the sounds of his own name: I hereby
absolutely renounce and abandom the said name Victor
Radulescu. Then, paler than ever, with the points of his
cheekbones making the skin of his face tight, he used his thick-
nibbed fountain pen to cross out Joan Radulescu on all my books
and replace it with Joan Redman.” (pg.41)
These migrants wanted to fit in so badly, that they changed their
name – the one thing that tied them to their family, country and
history – just to be accepted by Australians. Never mind that
“white Australians” are all migrants anyway, because they came
from England and other northern European countries. Kate
Grenville closes the chapter with Joan saying, “I will be a great
writer, I told myself…or I will be Prime Minister, and I thought
© Sarah Don, Australia, 2007
with pleasure of how the girls would not sniff in that dismissive way then, but admire me at last.”
Few support citizenship test: MP
Mark Metherell
March 15, 2007

THE Federal Government has failed to prove there is strong public support for a tougher citizenship English test,
according to the Liberal MP Petro Georgiou.
The Government's own analysis of public responses to its discussion paper on changes to the citizenship test had failed
to show "overwhelming community support", he said.
The Government is proposing a more "formal" citizenship test, which is expected to give greater emphasis to English
and knowledge of Australia. A new book to guide citizenship applicants is being developed and legislation for the
change is expected before the federal election.
The Government's analysis of responses to its plan said 60 per cent were in favour of the test. But Mr. Georgiou said
that of 1600 responses only 116 were made public and 75 per cent of those opposed the new test. Respondents included
all state and territory governments and church, ethnic, and civil liberty groups.
None of the 1500 submissions from individuals were published on grounds of "privacy".
Addressing an Italian organisation in Melbourne last night, Mr. Georgiou called for a group of respected people to be
appointed to investigate the impediments to learning English and to effective integration and to recommend solutions.
Mr. Georgiou, who has said he will oppose legislation to introduce the tougher test, said it would "stop many
immigrants who are committed to Australia as their home from becoming citizens and thereby full members of our
community.
"The plain fact is that hundreds of thousands of native-born and immigrant Australians would not be able to pass the
test."
He said people were disturbed by the threat of terrorism and global change, but it was "a gargantuan leap" to assert they
felt their identity was under threat and that the new citizenship test would allay those concerns.

Few Support Citizenship Test, a newspaper article for The Sydney Morning Herald by Mark Metherell,
is the last text that I will be using to demonstrate how the way migrants are viewed now, compared to
little less than a hundred years ago, has changed.
In this article Metherell writes about how the government wanted a tougher citizenship test, so they
fudged the figures to make it look like there was more support for the tougher test than there really
was. A poll was conducted, and as it says, “The Government's analysis of responses to its plan said 60
per cent were in favour of the test…Respondents included all state and territory governments and
church, ethnic, and civil liberty groups...None of the 1500 submissions from individuals were
published on grounds of "privacy".”

The authorities still seem to want a „white Australia‟, so that hasn‟t changed. The only thing that has
changed is that it‟s not politically correct to say that one would prefer a „white Australia‟. And because
of freedom of speech, individuals in the community can reject this view, which is what people are
doing today.
Just like the British, who found Australia and claimed to have “braved the land”, we still have figures
of authority who believe that they made Australia so great. However, everybody except the aborigines
are migrants in a way, because of the first fleet – first British settlers. So for white people to say that
they own Australia and can control who is allowed in, is hypocrisy.
Texts construct selective representations of groups and ideas. As these views and ideas change over
time, writers reflect this in their compositions and educate us on how things have changed. In a way,
the issue of racism and the rejection of migrants is repeating itself.

© Sarah Don, Australia, 2007