In a unique co-incidence, Australia Day this year coincides with Lunar New Year, the largest festival celebrated by Chinese and Vietnamese.Already a few of my friends have asked what will I be celebrating on 26 January 2009.
Early in my first term on Fairfield Council, a constituent asked me something like “what do you identify with?”
I had no idea what she was asking.
She clarified “like, are you Vietnamese-Australian or Australian-Vietnamese?”
I think she might have been happy with Australian-Vietnamese because I would have put Australia first. But I knew, to get bonus points, the answer should have been simply just “Australian” - without any other allegiances.
Our family was one of the first Vietnamese refugees to arrive in Australia. And for most of my school life, I was just about the only Asian child in my school. Not that I saw myself as Asian, because my mates, the people I saw on TV, the music I listened to, were as Aussie as meat pie.
Like any child, I wanted to fit in. I would run away as far as possible from anything remotely Vietnamese. My dream was to wake up with anything but my coarse, jet black, hair.
Back then my answer would be: “I see myself as Australian”.
While at uni, I went back to Vietnam for the first time. I saw a resilient, proud, strong people, with a rich, complex history and who survived through so much adversity - war and poverty to name just two.
Through this experience I realised that I and others that have gone through the migrant/refugee experience are much more complex and it’s almost impossible to put us into any one box.
How do you describe someone who left everything they own to arrive empty handed to a new country where the culture is completely foreign?
How can I describe to you my first day at primary school when I could not speak a word of English?
What am I now, at 42 years old having lived more than three decades outside Vietnam and actually choosing to live and work in Australia?
Putting people in discrete boxes rarely do them justice.
During this coming Monday, I’ll probably be celebrating Australia Day sometimes, Lunar New Year at other times, and sometimes both.
I love and respect both cultures, so why can’t I celebrate both?
Oh, and my answer to the constituent?
“All of the above.’’
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