For those who’ve come across the seas,
We’ve boundless plains to share.
Or so it may seem. Australia is a land known for its multiculturalism. Immigration is welcomed, embraced. This a place where people drive Japanese cars to Indian restaurants and drink Belgian beers with Thai curry. But is this as far as it goes? You’re welcome into our country if you can provide us with cheap food and entertainment? For many immigrants the answer to that question is yes and the only way to express their feelings of oppression is through poetry.
There are numerous ways with which Australia has been presented in poetry. An example of this is the poem My Country. Dorothea MacKellar originally wrote this poem to express her love for Australia and its land
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He endured a lot hardship and racism as a youth from Greek lineage in Brisbane. He explained in an interview,
“I had to find a way to get around that and survive it and not turn as angry and hateful as the people who were directing their hate towards me.”
Loewald’s poem ‘Be good, little migrants’ deals with themes of migration, acceptance and generalisations which are also very important themes presented in Luka Lesson’s poem. Loewald’s poem is pointing out the flawed attitudes to immigration that are present in society in a heavily sarcastic manner. It is showing that society thinks that immigrants should assimilate to their culture but also know their place; doing menial jobs that are not fit for ‘regular society’ to do.
Give us your faithful service sweep factories, clean
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While Loewald’s poem is spoken in the voice of society and explains the role of a model minority to the ‘little migrants’; Lesson’s poem is almost an answer to the speaker. He does not state what the ideal immigrant must do to please society but how society’s misconceptions of them will make them stronger. It is about survival and its main purpose is to empower those who have been constantly knocked down by the society they live in but are not a part of. The language that is used in this poem depicts the speaker as invincible. Not only is he an unexplainable, unreliable maniac but he is also too great to overcome. The usage of these powerful terms goes into play with the overall message of this poem;what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.
Insurmountable- (too great too overcome) unaccountable (unable to be explained) I’m an undeniable (unable to be denied or disputed) unreliable (not able to be relied upon) Maniacal (affected with or suggestive of madness) liability (not able to be relied upon)
This poem is filled with raw passion, power and determination.
This is enforced by the steady rhythm which then hastens as the poem progressed:
Steady: Please resist me
Colonise me, compromise me and conflict
The modern world is full of social issues and people use all different kinds of way to express the way that they feel and how they see things. Bruce Dawe uses his poem ‘War Without End’ and Christopher Mann with his poem ‘Country Matters’ to convey important messages.
The marginalised Australian experience traps groups and individuals based on one or many aspects of their life. Both the poem ‘capital letters’ by Omar Musa and Craig Silvey’s novel ‘Jasper Jones’ explore the Australian Experience of marginalisation. They share many aspects of marginalisation including racism, injustice, resilience, consequences and life on the margin. Marginalisation can have negative psychological and emotional responses, however in capital letters and jasper jones, the consequences of overcoming marginalisation and the build-up of resilience are emphasised. Omar Musa’s poem capital letters looks into his own life and experiences growing up on the margin in Queanbeyan, Australia. The poem displays both the harsh consequence, as well as the
One of the many factors that have contributed to the success of Australian poetry both locally and internationally is the insightful commentary or depiction of issues uniquely Australian or strongly applicable to Australia. Many Australian poets have been and are fascinated by the issues relevant to Australia. Many in fact nearly all of these poets have been influenced or have experienced the subject matter they are discussing. These poets range from Oodgeroo Noonuccal Aboriginal and women’s rights activist to Banjo Patterson describing life in the bush. Bruce Dawe is also one of these poets. His insightful representation of the dreary, depressing life of many stay at home mothers in “Up the Wall” is a brilliant example of a poem strongly relevant to Australia.
Maestro by Peter Goldsworthy provides an insight into 1960s/70s Australia and helps reinforce common conceptions about Australian culture. One common conception Goldsworthy reinforces in this text is Australia’s increasing acceptance of multiculturalism. Maestro, set in the 1960s to 1970s, shows Australians growing more accepting and tolerant of other cultures. This shift in perspective was occurring near the end of the White Australia/Assimilation Policy, which was phased out in the late 1970s/early 1980s. An example of this shifted perspective in Maestro is Paul’s father’s opinion about living in Darwin:
The world today can sometimes be a hard place to live, or at least live in comfort. Whether it be through the fault of bullies, or an even more wide spread problem such as racism, it is nearly impossible to live a day in the world today and feel like it was only full of happiness and good times. Due to this widespread problem of racism, often times we tend to see authors go with the grain and ignore it, continuously writing as if nothing bad happens in the world. Fortunately, Claudia Rankine, is not one of these authors. Rankine manages to paint a vivid picture of a life of hardships in her lyric Citizen: An American Lyric. In this lyric Claudia Rankine shows that she truly has a very interesting and not commonly used approach to some literary
We live in a country that was established by the European immigrants in the 18th century. In that time period they were not seen as immigrants but as pioneers who established the United States. Now in the present, the word immigrant has a negative connotation and are not welcomed in the United States. In the book, The Short Sweet Dream of Eduardo Gutierrez, by Jimmy Breslin, we follow a young Mexican immigrant on his journey to the United States and see what he had to face with American society and labor. We travel with him from a small village named San Matίas in Mexico until his death in Williamsburg, New York. Not only did he suffer a brutal death, falling into cement, but also had to face discrimination in his neighborhood, by other Hispanic communities, and injustices at work. Immigrants do not only face exploitation in New York, but it has also been demonstrated that in the Midwest, Mexican immigrants face similar discrimination and labor abuse in the meat packing industry.
Through numerous poetic techniques Paterson has shown that the Australian diversity is as diverse as the country itself. The Australian identity concerns the way Australia is viewed by other people. There are a variety of different aspects that contribute to this identity of Australia which include historical icons. Paterson recognizes how lucky we are to live on a land notorious for its diverse landscape. He is signaling that we are missing out and we need to cherish the great land we were given.
Racism is an umbrella term to describe how people of colour are systematically disadvantaged in society; socially, politically, and economically. Racism is also the central theme of Ernest Gaines’ A Lesson Before Dying. Gaines uses setting to illustrate how racism and the memories of slavery haunt Grant and other black characters in the novel. Setting is used to visualize how racism in the small town of Bayonne, Alabama was evident on all levels. The door they were subject to use at Henry Pichot’s house admonished them of their social status, the crime scene and execution that was predetermined by Jim Crow law and the plantation fields that they lived on, the lurking shadow of their economic prejudice.
...derstand what they are and are going through. If the reader belongs to another minority or is a new emigrant to Australia will identify itself with the anger and frustration other readers might feel guilty just because they thing they belong to a privileged group. I felt the injustice of inequality that emerges form this poem collection and the uselessness. There were no suggestions how repair what was done . The author shows in the poem that the hurt and anger are part of the aboriginal identity.
Throughout the book, one can see the constant wish to become better from all of the migrants that
Throughout both ‘Rainbow’s End’ and ‘The Rabbits’, the audience discovers the plights that the Aboriginal Australians faced, due to discrimination and assimilation, in intensely confronting, yet intensely meaningful ways. We see how the discrimination and forced assimilation of cultures was common in the lead up to modern times because of composers like Harrison, Marsden and Tan reminding us of these events, allowing us to discover and rediscover our past wrongs through their works, in order to pave the way for a brighter, harmonious future. Without these documentations and retellings of events such as these, history would repeat itself, conflicts would be more apparent and we as a species would not be able to thrive and prosper due to our prejudices and superiority complexes.
Sydney began as a community of strangers with wildly varying backgrounds and skills, brought together through adverse circumstances. With a third of the city’s community being foreign-born and many more second-generation migrants, contemporary life in Sydney reflects this diversity of experiences and cultures. While most evident in its multiculturalism, this can be seen in other areas of the city’s life as well, including its role as a gay and lesbian
The symbolism of being lost is a universal immigrant theme that occurs throughout many immigrant literatures, particularly in Henry Roth’s Call it Sleep. Language, or lack of understanding it, has a profound contribution to the process of being lost. This contribution is shown earlier in the book, in a passage where David is lost trying to find his way home (Passage 1) and is mirrored later on in the book, when David and Aunt Bertha are lost in a museum (Passage 2). The restriction of the usage of language in both passages portrays to us the inevitable and ubiquitous immigrant dilemma: I talk, eat, and live like this new country with the intention of assimilation, but my lack of freedom with the language parallels my lack of freedom and acceptance in this new country – how can I overcome it? The similarities, differences, and dramatic ironic symbolism in these two passages will attempt to answer that question.
Britain is and always has been a mixed race society. Gradually over the years, millions of people all over the world arrive either through past invasion or come as an immigrant to escape their own country’s famine, persecution and seeking for better economic opportunities in the UK (Zafra, 2007). The history of immigration and invasion has produced today’s diverse community. However, for the past few years, there has been a dispute concerning whether multiculturalism has obstruct the goal of attaining a peaceful community and instead causing extremism in the UK. According to Michelle Wilkinson (2011), this is resulted by the notion that multiculturalism promotes segregation and different groups having different beliefs leading to heavy tension and radicalization. On the other hand, multiculturalism has also been praised for advancing equality and social recognition (Caroline Howarth & Eleni Andreouli, 2013). In the light of this controversial issue, both aspect of the pro and cons of Multiculturalism to the society will be covered in this essay, exploring as a whole whether the ideology of Multiculturalism in enforcing equality has worked in Britain or not.
It is relatively easy to see the repression of blacks by whites in the way in which the little black boy speaks and conveys his thoughts. These racial thoughts almost immediately begin the poem, with the little black boy expressing that he is black as if bereaved of light, and the little English child is as white as an angel. The wonderful part of these verses is the fact that the little black boy knows that his soul is white, illustrating that he knows about God and His love.