Your Grandfather Is Wong Tin Lee

Abstract

In this autoethnography, the author uses racial formation theory to contextualize her family experiences and the life story told to her by her grandmother. In an effort to clarify some aspects of family history after her grandmother passed away, the author searched Australian archival records looking for new information and accidentally uncovered a family secret. Specifically, their ancestors were neither upper class nor were they all white Europeans; the family story in Australia actually begins with an interracial marriage between a man from Canton, China, and a white woman born into extreme poverty. Moreover, two generations of children in this multiracial family had been removed from their parents and placed in institutions and foster families. The family history presented here challenges assumptions about what it means to be Australian and who was living in the Australian colonies at the time of Australian Federation. White Australia is explored as both an immigration policy and as a racial project that shaped the lives of non-whites living in Australia, including that of Chinese and multiracial Australians like the author’s maternal ancestors.