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The United States and Australia, like
most western countries, benefit from immigration, but the United
States in particular can't see beyond its own intolerance to
understand this. It does so at its peril.
After World War II Australia began to rapidly increase its immigrant
population. It's growing industries needed laborers. For some
reason Australians seem to think they are located somewhere close
to the European continent rather than in the Pacific Ocean and
within a few miles of the highly populated Asia. So, Australia
appealed to European laborers and many were paid for their relocation.
Italians, Yugoslavs, Turks, Portuguese, Scots, Greeks and others
"officially" made their way into the coal mines, steel
mills and other Australian laboring jobs. While I was in Australia
in the late 60's and early 70's these migrants were transforming
Australian culture.
Of course Australia, like other British Commonwealth countries,
has a history of excessive racism. Those of us of European descent,
regardless of where we might live, are usually arrogantly obsessed
with ourselves. The official "white Australia policy"
allowed Caucasians "only" to migrate to Australia.
Robert Tierney writes in Class and Class Conflict in Australia
(1996) "Ours is a traditionally racist society. The second
half of the 19th century witnessed intense conflicts between
European workers and non-white immigrants, particularly the Chinese
and Kanaka." Anti-Chinese legislation in Australia started
appearing in the 1850s and 1880s. In 1893 New South Wales Premier
Dibbs introduced a Bill which extended the provisions of Chinese
exclusion to 'all the colored persons on earth'. In 1901 the
first Federal Government of Australia promulgated the Immigration
Restriction Act, also known as the White Australia Policy."
Tierney says that the White Australia Policy was supported by
"political parties, the media, the church, the official
union movement and the employers, with the exception of those
who exploited immigrants as cheap labor in the 1800s".Non-whites,"
says Tierney, "were commonly regarded as 'immoral' and 'inferior'."
These attitudes are parallel to the United States now and in
the past to be sure.
The White Australia Policy remained in place until the early
1970's when the Labor Party's Gough Whitlam government introduced
a "non-discriminatory" immigration policy. Unlike previous
Australian Prime Ministers, Whitlam was not blind to the fact
that Australia's neighbors were, in fact, Asian. As a result,
thousands of Southeast Asians and others have since flocked to
the Australian shores.
However, from 1901 to the end of World War II, most migrants
to Australia were British and Irish, and the next largest groups
were Italians and Greeks. After the Second World War and up to
the early 1970's and beyond, vast numbers of southern European
immigrants arrived 'down under.' Some thought they were coming
to "Austria", only to find themselves half-way around
the world in Australia.
It's important to realize that for generations, most Australians
had been isolated from on-going exposure to different cultures.
Australian men had been in the world wars, but beyond that the
worldview of most Australians was severely constricted. Anyone
or anything different was viewed with suspicion. Not unlike the
southern United States in most of its history, Australia was
a closed society.
In the late 1960's and in the 1970's I lived in Melbourne and
Wollongong, Australia. It was a period of intense introspection
on the part of Australians. Much of the debate in the media focused
on Australian identity. The questions posed were "who are
we and what are we as Australians? Are we European? Are we Asian?
" I don't suppose these questions have ever been adequately
resolved.
I do know, however, that with the vast numbers of southern Europeans
migrating to Australia, there was a transformation taking place.
The "Aussies" were engaging in their usual name-calling
and finger pointing at the migrants and complaining at their
lack of "assimilation" and "integration"
into Australian society, as well as their strange languages and
customs. Simultaneously, however, many Australians were climbing
out of their shell. These migrants were introducing Australians
to a whole new and exciting world.
To describe what was happening at the time is difficult. In some
ways it was almost non-tangible, yet expressed daily in practical
ways. Melbourne was experiencing an excitement and experimentation
with newly discovered Italian and Greek herbs and spices, new
sauces, and all kinds of pasta. An interest in an abundance and
variety of wines was taking hold. Eating fresh salads was introduced
along with a vast array of different vegetables, peppers and
fruits. New Italian restaurants in downtown Melbourne were the
talk of the town. The Women's Weekly was filled with recipes
introducing herbs and spices never before thought of by Australian
women. Anyone not familiar with typical English or Australian
cuisine needs to realize that this was an incredible departure
from the diet of fish & chips, beer, lamb chops & mint
sauce, potatoes, pumpkin and meat pies.
"Wollongong" is an aboriginal term meaning "where
land meets water." Indeed, Wollongong is 50 miles south
of Sydney on the Pacific coast with lovely beaches, an abundance
of fish, prawns, and hills filled with coal. A city of 250,000
at the time, it was a paradise with vast resources. The Aborigines
were nowhere to be seen. As with European invaders to North America,
the English trespassers of Australia had blood on their hands.
They had savagely killed and marginalized the indigenous Aborigines
and forced the remaining ones into desolate areas of Australia.
Wollongong had its university, but the primary employer was Australian
Iron & Steel and, of course, the coal mines. The steel mill
was filled with migrant laborers. Many of the steel mill migrants
worked excessively long hours often two shifts in one day.
Accidents at the mill were commonplace. The work was dangerous
to put it mildly.
While in Wollongong, I was fortunate to assist in researching
the migratory patterns of laboring steel workers for the Australian
National University in Canberra Australia's capitol city.
It was fascinating work. I would go from house to house and spend
hours talking with Yugoslavs, Italians, Greeks, Portuguese, Scots
and others about their work and families. More than the research
itself, I was fortunate to learn about and spend time with these
workers and their families. Many migrant communities had their
own cultural enclaves and held wedding celebrations and parties
with smoked hogs in pits, dance and live music. Many of them,
of course, also made their own wonderful sherries and wines.
The migrants were forever altering the Australian landscape and
staking their claims on culture, worldview and the importance
of family and community.
For scores of these migrants, the long hours worked was to make
a living for their families and to send as much money home as
possible to their parents and other family members. This was
a priority. Like the so-called "illegals" in the United
States and other migrants today, family values and assisting
family members back home, as well as their own nuclear family,
took precedence over virtually anything else. While changing,
this is still the responsibility of male children in most societies.
I recall how my father in the 1950's would send money from Atlanta
in the U.S. to his mother, my grandmother, in western Canada
to help her with rent and general living expenses. Some in Georgia
would now penalize my father and others for doing this.
A similar transformation to what I witnessed in Australia is
now taking place in the southern United States and opportunities
are opening up across the region. The South and Central Americans,
Asian and African communities in the southeast are providing
enormous opportunities and markets for tens of thousands. People
in the southeast are now eating and cooking in ways they would
never dreamed of just 15 years ago.
On the market and production side, both black and white, as well
as small to large, farmers in the south are finding labor a major
problem, and our neighbors from across the border are helping
considerably to resolve this. Some farmers are now learning Spanish
to help not only to converse with laborers, but to access new
markets that are increasingly available. Goat, for example, is
eaten by South and Central Americans, Africans and Asians. The
meat goat market is expanding exponentially in the Southeast.
Farmers in Texas are growing corn to meet the taco and other
demands for local Mexican consumer markets. Fresh herbs are being
grown by women and male farmers in the region to appeal to all
these new and growing additions to the southern palate. Farmers
are now growing snow peas, varieties of chili peppers and other
new vegetables to access the expanding migrant population. All
of these are exciting new and productive markets.
The market opportunities and creativity resulting from this most
recent influx of migrants south of the border seems endless.
In spite of all these benefits, Australians or Americans are,
unfortunately, far from resolving the problem of "white
supremacy" that hampers local market growth. As Greg Burns
of "Rights Australia" wrote in December 2005, "Despite
the fact that one in four Australians today were born overseas,
this is a nation where intolerance and xenophobia often lurks
just beneath the surface." Intolerance and xenophobia are
also great hallmarks of the United States and is often expressed
openly as we are now witnessing with recent anti-immigrant debates
in Congress and throughout the country. The targeted migrants
Congress and others are complaining about, after all, are people
of color.
We also need to realize that for the most part the concerns and
well-being of family are motivational for the majority of workers
in the world. It is also likely that all waves of migrants to
the U.S. from the English, when they first arrived, to the Irish,
to the Germans, to the Mexicans, Italians, Asians and others
were the same. They did every conceivable thing to help their
families here and abroad. All of us in the world benefit from
this goodwill. It is an important investment in the future socially,
economically and diplomatically.
The selfish disdain expressed
toward the present wave of Mexican and other South American migrants
to the U.S. by politicians and others in the United States is
not only immoral, it's not practical. Rather than exploring ways
of embracing migrants, they want to build walls and pass draconian
laws to punish and isolate our migrant communities and thousands
of us that work with them. U.S. politicians are shooting themselves
in the foot and they might never recover if this continues. Next
they might build a wall across the Canadian border, which the
Canadians would likely appreciate. Finally, they will have a
way of keeping these arrogant and selfish Americans out of Canada.
Heather Gray is the producer of "Just Peace"
on WRFG-Atlanta 89.3 FM covering local, regional, national and
international news. She lives in Atlanta, Georgia and can be
reached at hmcgray@earthlink.net
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