Living with ‘difference’: Growing up ‘Chinese’ in white Australia

Abstract

While much of what has been written regarding the history of Chinese migrants in Australia centres around Chinese exclusion under the White Australia policy, there has been little exploration of the struggles encountered by the descendants of Chinese migrant families who grew up under the White Australia policy due to their precarious position as ‘undesirable Other’ within white Australian society. Using an interdisciplinary approach and drawing from the personal narratives of multi-generational Chinese Australians, this paper seeks to address this gap by focusing on the childhood experiences of Chinese Australians who grew up in white Australia - a time when for many Chinese Australians being Chinese represented a distinct handicap or liability. This paper looks closely at the inscription of 'difference' in the lives of Chinese Australians that occurred in through social encounters that took place at the interface of mundane everyday life and the wider (white) Australian community, analysing this differential process in relation to the societal meanings with which 'Chineseness' was commonly imbued, and demonstrating the diverse ways that 'Chineseness' became inscribed in the lives of multi-generational Chinese Australians whether they saw themselves as 'Chinese' or not.