@details = Growing up Asian in Australia
Alice Pung, editor Growing up Asian in Australia and author of the fine autobiography, Unpolished Gem (2006) remarks in the foreword to this book, that she wished she had a book like this when she was growing up as the daughter of Cambodian migrants in Footscray. She speaks of a book that reflects many of the same feelings of alienation, of being stereotyped and discriminated against that many young people growing up as Asians in Australia often experience.
The collection that Pung has edited brings together works of fiction as well as personal stories, many of which were written purposely for this collection by a number of writers with family connections to Asia in some way. Established and new authors jostle for space in this very enjoyable and emotional roller-coaster of a book.
In many ways, Asian migration has only been a recent feature of Australia's history, and only since the late 1970s in significant numbers, as attested by the experiences remembered in this collection. Yet as this diverse collection will show, there have also been generations of Asians who have settled in Australia since the last century.
The racism in Australia against Asian migrants, in many different forms is brought out in very nuanced ways in this book. It doesn't polarise between Asians and the rest and does not assume that Asians automatically find solidarity with one another.
Many of the works speak of a different country altogether: of Vietnam, Sri Lanka, China <197> as countries that parents left behind and that sometimes still haunt them, as they change their names to "John" and "Mary" and struggle with bringing up children in different social and economic circumstances. The stories also speak of missed opportunities for the children, like missing out on learning about your family's origins, of learning a language, of intergenerational tensions, such as ignoring your grandparents speaking of the old times back home.
Disconnection happens for a myriad of reasons: because as young people, it is difficult to relate to the past, to another country, but also because of the pressure to conform to (Anglo) Australian society. Some young Asians have sought to eradicate their past, trying to forget a language they were born with, to wish they did not look they way they did, to resent the fact that no one wants to hang out with them.
A collection like this has to be careful of not reinforcing stereotypes about Asians. Several contributors tell of working in their family's restaurants, working hard so they can do well at school and being punished for bad marks. However, they do so to take the stories beyond just the restaurants and the good marks to point to a deeper underlying issue of Asians who are qualified professionals who cannot work in Australia or parents who have escaped poverty, but are despondent in Australia and hope for better things for their kids.
The part I felt worked least well is the "Tall Poppies" section. Writer Shaun Tan, comedian Anh Do and his brother, filmmaker Khoa Do stand out here amid other public figures like Melbourne Lord Mayor John So, but this desire to convince readers (and Asian kids) that Asian have "made it" is problematic in reinforcing the need to "have made it" in the first place. Asians certainly don't need more notions of "tall poppies" or whatever, that we have to aspire to. All in all, however, Pung has done an amazing job with editing this thought-provoking anthology.
[Vannessa Hearman is an Asian Australian who migrated from Indonesia in the early 1980s]<|>