Australia is truly story country with our rich cultural diversity. I recently had the privilege of listening to some Year Fours, Fives and Sixes own stories of their family heritage. The scope was wide ranging and many stories were passed down through grandparents.
Lily is an Australian with Vietnamese heritage. Letty, her mother is adopted by the Pinkington family and so happy is Letty she is reluctant to find her birth mother.
But Lily’s heritage makes her look different to her father’s family the Dunnings with their British Australian heritage.
And so Lily finds herself wistfully looking at a blonde Lily and her grandmother’s former youthful self and feeling a strange disconnect. Her sisters Zinnia and Fern feel it as well;
Last Christmas I heard my sisters talking about it too. Fern said she looks Vietnamese but feels ridiculous because she doesn’t know a word of the language, and Zinnia said she was sick of her new Spanish friends asking her to whip a bowl of pho and being surprised when she bakes perfect pumpkin scones.
How readily we stereotype on physical attributes!
When I created Lily she was always going to be of Vietnamese descent and I couldn’t work out why. Sometimes the subconscious is a powerful and mysterious place and mine pulled me by my very thin pony tail straight back into 1977.
I was attending a small school that had a great number of Vietnamese refugees. In my class there were two brothers who spent a lot of time upstairs with the ESL teachers. They were well liked and quiet.
I always dreaded news day (see Anxiety) but it was not my turn to recount my life. I had never been able to top the day I got a baby sister and had only come close with the day the cat had his ears chopped off for health reasons. So I could relax and enjoy the best that Year Two had to offer in entertainment and lifestyle.
It was the Vietnamese brothers turn to tell their news . They talked about their journey across the seas in a small boat accompanied by their families. I couldn’t understand every word and I was drifting off into a Lily-like-self-involved stupor when I was bought back to earth by the eldest brother reenacting a gun to his mother’s head. BANG BANG he shouted with his fingers cocked and armed at his own head. His face became tense and his voice became strong and his words flowed. His smaller brother’s face crumpled at the memory and he sobbed and sobbed. The older brother stopped and cried too. At this moment the ESL teacher wrapped her arms around the brothers and pulled them close and hugged hard. This was the second surprise of the day as I truly thought she disliked children.
The family had set out from Vietnam in 1976 and their small fishing boat had been seized by pirates. I know they all survived but for a few hours they were at the mercy of predators. Thankfully they were picked up and rescued by a friendly vessel. News time was brought to an abrupt conclusion. But within minutes the boys were smiling again, probably with joyful relief they had escaped being pressed into the teacher’s ample knitted bosom. But I was scared, really scared. That moment in our classroom was my first introduction to the big picture of the world, war, survival, death and that we lived in the lucky country we should share.
Day after day I remember watching an elderly Vietnamese man walk his grandchildren to school. With a smile on his face he wore thongs and rather dashing striped pjamas as he meandered down the street. Once I giggled to my mother, how odd to wear your flannettes about town. But I was silenced by the comment he has been through it, he can do what he wants.’ Later I attempted to find the earless cat in the garden without appropriate foot wear and was hauled back inside.
Years later I read Anh Do’s novel The Happiest Refugee and picture book The Little Refugee and his family account of fleeing Vietnam and their own experience with pirates. I really recommend reading both books. Coincidently years ago when in Melbourne I visited a comedy club which was introducing a young comic named Anh Do. Amazing really seeing as I rarely go to such places. (see Anxiety) Check out Anh at http://www.anhdo.com.au/author.html
Many many tens of thousands of political refugees arrived in Australia after the fall of Saigon. Many didn’t make it and were killed or lost at sea. The Whitlam government removed the White Australia Policy that had seen only the movement of Europeans to Australia. Even dear stuck in ’47 Other Lily is a bit of a time warp bigot when she shouts out, ‘Who are you, Chinese child? Do you speak English?‘ … Lily fumes this is ‘very rude and bordering on being racist’. Later Other Lily apologises and clarifies Lily is an Australia with Vietnamese heritage and it is a shame Letty her mother has decided not to look for her birth family.
The Other Christy Oliver is a fantastic book that features a Cambodian family’s transition to Australia. It is written with heart felt humour and empathy. Check Oliver Phommavanh’s website at http://www.oliverwriter.com
Perhaps Letty’s family were not so lucky to make it to Australia leaving her alone and I really want to explore her story in the next Lily adventure!
Many refugees came from Vietnam when I was growing up … which countries need our our support in starting a new life in Australia now?
