Day 97: 7/4/13
I had a lazy morning this morning. I hadn't slept much last night for some reason, but the clock went back an hour giving me an extra hours rest, so that was good!
I met Laura in the afternoon and we went to the Immigration museum. I was there before her and spent some time going through books in the gift shop. There was a book about Irish in the Anzac's. There was a chapter about the Easter rising which I found strange so I read some of it. It seems that some o the Anzac soldiers as well as some Canadians and South Africans, all fighting under the British army in World War 1 were on leave in Ireland when te rising broke out. They were sent to guard Trinity and ended up fighting the Irish. That was interesting!!
There were lots of books about all the Irish that settled over here but I couldn't buy them or read enough of them in the space of time I was in the shop!!
The museum was fairly good. People from all different nationalities have been coming to Australia for a long time. Convict ships started coming in 1788, so there were obviously some British here before that. The big wave of immigration started in the 1830's and in particular from the 1850's as there was a gold rush. That coincided with the Irish famine so the biggest population of immigrants before World War I was British and then Irish. Because of its location lots of Asians immigrate to Australia, particularly the Chinese and in the last 100 years people from all over the world have been coming. There are strong British, Irish, German, Italian, Dutch, Greek, Chinese, Japanese and Vietnamese communities among many others.
In the early days though the British people here governed who could immigrate here and there was a strong White only policy, which was ridiculous considering the colour of the native people here! They put a tax on the Chinese coming first and then banned them altogether. They had a dictation test put in place and if you couldn't pass that you weren't allowed in. You could play an example of the test and it was really difficult. It was in a very strong proper Engish accent and the sentence was really long- about 50 words. Every time you thought it might be finished thy started off again with an and or yet or but!! If you happened to pass the test you had to do the dictation in a second language and if you failed that you were sent home too. It was mostly for coloured or Asian people but I've a feeling a lot of Irish people could have been caught out with it too!
People worked in severe conditions in factories and things when they got here, right up to the 1970's. It was only around then that they started letting in other immigrants aswell. It took until 2008 for an official Sorry Day as an apology to the aboriginal people.
It just makes me wonder why the British would think they can come over and take over the place? It was the same in South America with the Spanish? Why couldn't they leave the people in the country alone and just come on a holiday if they wanted!! You can tell I wouldn't be a good leader of an empire- it would fairly dwindle!!
There was an exhibition there called Leaving Dublin. It's photos of people that have left Dublin since 2010. Not all of them came to Australia but the exhibition is just being held here at the moment. The photos are all quite sad looking. Everyone looks upset or afraid. They had video interviews with about eight people who's photo had been taken. Some were enjoying their experience and really liked Australia and the chance to come here for a year or so at least. Others, particularly one Dublin guy and one Limerick girl were crying on camera as they really wanted to live in Ireland where all their family and friends are but there are no opportunities for them at home. The Dublin guy in particular was fairly upset about it all. He said how they talk up Australia and all the jobs there are but that it is hard to get work out here. He said also that you got to know people and make friends and then they move on in their travels and you have to start all over again and you have no base network. We were nearly crying watching him!
There was another section of videos then from Irish people in Australia- people that weren't in the photos. Lots of them were older people that had been here for 30/40/50 years! Amazingly none of them had lost their accents!! They all thought it was a great place and they had made a great decision spending their life out here. I wonder if they would have thought the same in the first few years after immigrating!
I didn't do much else for the rest of the evening. I put some photos on the blog and then skyped home. Today I had a huge audience- Mam, Dad, Shell, Shaun ("the four of us" apparently!!!), Noreen, Kathleen, Padraigh, Imelda, Ciara and Huyen! Ill be going to Vietnam so we were looking at where Huyen is from and if I'd be able to get there for a day. Ill have to see! Ill have plenty of photos of Vietnam anyway, even if I don't get to that spot!