How I Came To Realise The Stereotypical Image Of Australia Is Built On Dispossession

This week Junkee is publishing a series, produced by young Australian writers, called “This Is Why I Don’t Celebrate Australia Day”.

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I am a second generation Vietnamese Australian. I am a daughter of Vietnamese refugees. I have grown up and lived most of my life in Sydney’s inner west. Understanding what January 26 means to me has involved reconciling what I’ve been taught to believe what being Australian is, my experiences of exclusion, and listening to the voices of First Nations people.

I never had any overwhelming feelings about January 26. I have mostly treated it as a day off. In my teens, I am embarrassed to admit that I attended the Havaianas Thong Challenge at Bondi Beach not once, but twice. I cannot think of anything that represents the classic image of Australian culture more than thousands of people at the beach, floating in the ocean on giant green and gold inflatable thongs. I even had an Australian flag tattoo on my cheek. I had a square tan mark on my face for about a week.

Mostly I have met January 26 with ambivalence because celebrating being ‘Australian’ is fraught with tensions for me. Being Australian is hard to claim because during recess, the other kids in my kindergarten class would pull the corner of the eyes at me while yelling, ‘CHING CHONG’. Because when I was 12, as I was taking the bus home from school, adults sneered at me , ‘Asians never give up their seats on the bus’. The tourism ads and soaps like ‘Home and Away’ portrayed a vision of Australia that never represented my experiences growing up in a migrant family in Sydney.

Yet, Australia is the only home I know. While on exchange in Paris, January 26 marked being away in a foreign country for 7 months. In the deepest depths of European winter (it was not that cold, I just could not handle it), Australian orphans congregated in Belushi’s Bar to listen to the countdown of triple j’s Hottest 100. We paid way too much for a can of Fosters and a meat pie. My friend jumped around in a kangaroo onesie to the tunes of Jimmy Barnes and ACDC.

January 26 provided me comfort and familiarity after living in wonderful but strange Europe, and allowed me to indulge in my ‘Australianness’ in a way that I had never before. Away from home, I fiercely and proudly represented my Australian identity, educating one European at a time that I am, in fact, Australian. One Serbian passport official on the Bulgarian-Serbian border had a lot of trouble understanding that.

On January 26 2016, I marched for the first time in solidarity with First Nations people. I have never felt more moved about January 26 than when I stood in a crowd of thousands and all I could see above me were a sea of heads, blue sky and Aboriginal flags.

We marched from The Block in Redfern, a site of historical resistance and struggle of the Aboriginal community, to Australia Hall on Elizabeth St in Sydney CBD, where the first national Aboriginal civil rights gathering was held in 1938. We listened to impassioned speeches from Aboriginal community leaders and activists calling for justice.

“Stop all deaths in custody! Stop forced closures of Aboriginal communities! Stop forced removals of all children! Sovereignty! Treaty!”

We chanted “no pride in genocide’. We shouted, “always is, always will be Aboriginal land”.

For many years I read in textbooks, reports and media articles about the disproportionate levels of incarceration of Aboriginal people, the Stolen Generation, and other social issues that Aboriginal communities have faced. As I listened to more Indigenous voices and activists, it crystallised for me the fact that the stereotypical image of Australia, that I was taught to celebrate and integrate with, is built off stolen land and dispossession.

As I marched, I felt angry at the indignity and injustice of being expected to celebrate a system and culture that continues to oppress. I also realised that reading about these issues is not enough, and that I needed to take action and stand in solidarity with Indigenous communities.

So let January 26, so long as it remains Australia Day by mainstream Australian society, be a day for justice. While we talk about changing the date, let’s also agitate decision-makers to support having a Voice to Parliament. Let’s stand in solidarity with young Indigenous activists fighting for the respect of Aboriginal land rights in the face of mining interests. Let’s reflect on our own privilege and on how to be better allies. Let’s resolve to listen better and elevate more Indigenous voices.

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Thuy Linh Vivien Nguyen is a lawyer in training and a community organiser fighting for climate and gender justice for migrant communities.