My thoughts on Australia Day

What does Australia Day mean to me (other than being a holiday)?

Seriously, although I live in Queensland, I did not move here for the sand and surf despite this being one of our main assets on the Gold Coast (hence the name). And some people see this country as being nothing other than beaches.

My heart will always be in Melbourne where I grew up and will eventually return one day. My point however has nothing to do with where I physically live now, but how I feel about being an Australian and what that means to me. And to answer the question, I need to fill you in on a little of my background first.

My heritage is Croatian and Russian and my parents migrated to Australia in the early 1950’s to make a better life for themselves and their two girls at that time (my younger sister and I were born in Australia almost a decade later).

What I greatly respect my parents for is their intuitive balance in maintaining aspects of their own culture so we would be proud of our heritage and to also appreciate the wonderful opportunity this new country called Australia had given them (and consequently us).

Thankfully my parents did not follow the norm and they did not gravitate to a suburb where others from their home country settled so that assimilation would be easier for them. In my opinion, had they done that, assimilation was less likely to occur at all and it would have been more of a hindrance as the need to learn English would not have been as necessary.

Why hurry to learn English when your neighbours and shop owners speak your native tongue? Unlike my relatives who followed my parents to Australia a few years later, and did exactly what many migrants do i.e. move to suburbs where people from their own culture are prolific, my father chose to live on the other side of Melbourne in the opposite direction to where every other migrant from his home country was settling. Not only that, we lived on one acre of land instead of a small suburban block.

In my little town on the outskirts of Melbourne there were only a handful of “European” children at my school (mostly Dutch from what I can recall). That did not faze me and my parents had even thoughtfully given me and my younger sister, anglo-saxon sounding names as we were born here and would be living our lives in their adopted country. Having said that, both our christian names still end in ‘a’ which is a Croatian tradition for female names!

My mother was also extremely conscious of the fact that English was not our first language at home and pedantic about us keeping up with spelling homework throughout our schooling. Consequently, I ended up with better English skills than my native Australian counterparts (by which I mean, those who were at least second generation Australian born or more).

I had no choice but to fit in and learn English or I would not have been able to communicate. Yes, I was teased occasionally and called a “wog” and that happened to the few other Europeans at my school so I was not totally alone in that regard. Over time, “wogs” became less unusual and the term eventually went out of fashion.

Did I hate Australia or the people for giving me such a hard time? No I didn’t. My parents helped me to understand that our culture was a new experience for Australians and the teasing was not directed at me personally, but at a culture they misunderstood.

In Australia my father was able to build a beautiful, comfortable house on a large block of land and a real treehouse which was the envy of my friends. We were surrounded by fresh air, natural bush, green grass, dirt roads and friendly neighbours. Although life not always rosy and sometimes a financial struggle, overall opportunities were far greater than my parents could ever have dreamed possible in their old country.

Getting back to answering my question: what Australia Day means to me?

To me it is a day to give thanks to the country which gave my parents a better life and as a consequence, greater privileges and opportunities to me and my sisters.

My parents at the age of 83, have now lived longer in Australia than in their homeland. And they appreciate their good fortune and feel truly patriotic towards their adopted country.

Ceck out the great iconic Australian images by John White

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