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Category: Interviews »

Subject: Cultural Studies »

Mark Wang on the effects of White Australia on Chinese residents

Mara Moustafine and Mark Wang.

Mark Wang identifies the effects of White Australia on Chinese residents

Created:

unknown

Date Added:

09 February 2009

Source:

source not available

Format:

mov (Quicktime);

File size:

3.8 MB

Length:

01min30sec

Transcript

MW:

00:08

When my grandfather came back he was – it was round about 1910 that he – they set up business in Little Bourke Street, 1910, 1920 and they set up a cabinet making workshop, a banana store, a, you know, market gardening. My grandfather’s family had the cabinet making workshop in Little Bourke Street around the 1920s and the Victoria Government decided that they wanted to promote European workshops because the Chinese cabinet making workshops were starting to impact on the industry. So they developed a legislation to say that all the Chinese people had to stamp their products, “Chinese labour” to distinguish between the Chinese labour made product and the Western product. And so they had to do that.

01:01

It’s a bit like when you – when the Australian Government promotes Australian made, you know, it’s like a marketing angle. Whereas, it may have become part of the fact that they want to buy Australian made, in today’s society is meaning, “Oh let’s not import so much.” But in that time, the Chinese people were Australian, so it’s – they’re discriminating against people who actually live here, so it’s quite different.

01:30

End transcript