On Saturday, I was invited to meet some of my work colleagues at a local breakfast spot which is a combination nursery and café, what a lovely idea! The restaurant was a small wooden structure with a patio that sat in the middle, surrounded by the beautiful plants and flowers of the nursery. I had a picture-worthy breakfast. It was called a Vegie Stack (their spelling). It was a piece of thick sourdough toast, topped with grilled tomato halves, grilled mushrooms, sautéed spinach, two poached eggs, and a dollop of pesto.
The breakfast conversation was very interesting. The two people that sat across from me described themselves as “first fleet, 7th generation Australian, and second fleet 9th generation Australian”. I asked more and learned that the fleets they referred to were the convict boats that came from England. The first fleet descendant’s ancestor had attempted to kill his boss, and the second fleet’s descendant’s ancestor was a woman who was sent but I cannot for the life of me remember her crime. She was telling me that there weren’t a lot of women in Australia so I bet their stories were particularly interesting. She also said that obviously, by the number of generations for a second fleet family, they had procreated quickly! They said that while the records are fairly good, sometimes it is difficult to trace the convict ancestry because if the convict got out of prison, they would often change their names. They said that it used to be taboo to discuss criminal ancestors, but now it is no big deal. I will have to learn more about this.
Very fitting, after our conversation at breakfast, some of us continued on to the Immigration Museum, which told the other story, the people who chose to move to Australia for a number of reasons. It was extremely informative, not only describing from 1850 to present the types of ethnic groups that immigrated, but also the changes since that time in immigration policy, which was shaped quite a bit by Australia’s ties to Great Britain. I had no idea that up until about 40 years ago, there were many programs to recruit people to come and live in Australia. They wanted to attract women to the area, and also skilled labor.
The museum didn’t shy away from the tough topics. Throughout there were comments made about the treatment of aboriginal people and also non-English speaking people who wanted to immigrate. Years ago the government would use a dictation test to keep non-English speakers from immigrating by saying that the dictation test to immigrate to Australia could be given in ANY European language. So if you were a political activist from Spain and they didn’t want you, they might pick German as the language to conduct the dictation test. There was also a display that showed some examples of products that customs has banned over the years from entering Australia, things like opium products, and of all things U.S. crime and horror comic books. The comic books were banned in the 1950s because there was a belief that they would corrupt the young of Australia.
As we were standing in a display in the museum that recreated what a 1950’s ship apartment was like if you had sailed to Australia, one of our party told us that in 1970 her English parents took part in a program offered by the government that offered passage on one of these boats to Australia for £10 per person. The trip was a grueling six weeks long and if you took the government up on their offer, you had to stay in Australia for two years. So she was particularly interested in seeing what the cabin was like that they had travelled in. After the two years were up, they went back to England because they were homesick but they migrated again years later.
Currently, it is not as easy to migrate to Australia. In fact, they had a multimedia presentation where various immigrants (actors) stated their case for immigration and then the narrator would explain whether or not under the current laws they would be allowed to stay in the country.
After the museum, my colleague and I walked through some beautiful parks and just enjoyed walking around in the sun of Melbourne.
The breakfast conversation was very interesting. The two people that sat across from me described themselves as “first fleet, 7th generation Australian, and second fleet 9th generation Australian”. I asked more and learned that the fleets they referred to were the convict boats that came from England. The first fleet descendant’s ancestor had attempted to kill his boss, and the second fleet’s descendant’s ancestor was a woman who was sent but I cannot for the life of me remember her crime. She was telling me that there weren’t a lot of women in Australia so I bet their stories were particularly interesting. She also said that obviously, by the number of generations for a second fleet family, they had procreated quickly! They said that while the records are fairly good, sometimes it is difficult to trace the convict ancestry because if the convict got out of prison, they would often change their names. They said that it used to be taboo to discuss criminal ancestors, but now it is no big deal. I will have to learn more about this.
Very fitting, after our conversation at breakfast, some of us continued on to the Immigration Museum, which told the other story, the people who chose to move to Australia for a number of reasons. It was extremely informative, not only describing from 1850 to present the types of ethnic groups that immigrated, but also the changes since that time in immigration policy, which was shaped quite a bit by Australia’s ties to Great Britain. I had no idea that up until about 40 years ago, there were many programs to recruit people to come and live in Australia. They wanted to attract women to the area, and also skilled labor.
The museum didn’t shy away from the tough topics. Throughout there were comments made about the treatment of aboriginal people and also non-English speaking people who wanted to immigrate. Years ago the government would use a dictation test to keep non-English speakers from immigrating by saying that the dictation test to immigrate to Australia could be given in ANY European language. So if you were a political activist from Spain and they didn’t want you, they might pick German as the language to conduct the dictation test. There was also a display that showed some examples of products that customs has banned over the years from entering Australia, things like opium products, and of all things U.S. crime and horror comic books. The comic books were banned in the 1950s because there was a belief that they would corrupt the young of Australia.
As we were standing in a display in the museum that recreated what a 1950’s ship apartment was like if you had sailed to Australia, one of our party told us that in 1970 her English parents took part in a program offered by the government that offered passage on one of these boats to Australia for £10 per person. The trip was a grueling six weeks long and if you took the government up on their offer, you had to stay in Australia for two years. So she was particularly interested in seeing what the cabin was like that they had travelled in. After the two years were up, they went back to England because they were homesick but they migrated again years later.
Currently, it is not as easy to migrate to Australia. In fact, they had a multimedia presentation where various immigrants (actors) stated their case for immigration and then the narrator would explain whether or not under the current laws they would be allowed to stay in the country.
After the museum, my colleague and I walked through some beautiful parks and just enjoyed walking around in the sun of Melbourne.
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