Histories of Chinese and Japanese residents challenging the White Australia Policy, 1945–1960: making the ordinary extraordinary

Abstract

Post-WWII histories about Japanese ‘war brides’, pearl shell divers, Chinese sailors and ‘Colombo Plan’ students frame these cohorts as early ‘challengers’ of the White Australia Policy. Because these histories are typically siloed from each other, bringing them together offers a fresh way to view how Japanese and Chinese residents shared a social space that linked Australia’s societal change and domestic concerns to international developments. Juxtaposition of these cohorts also compels considerations of less familiar cohorts of Chinese and Japanese residents in post-WWII Australia and of how historians might best use their craft to draw ‘extraordinary meaning’ through studies of these supposedly ‘ordinary lives’.