“The first years in Australia were difficult. I worked hard in a factory. Long hours and menial work while studying at university to become an interpreter, but Australia was very good to us. Australians opened their hearts, and no one here will say a bad word about Australians.”
The Vietnamese Museum will be one of six multicultural galleries to be built in Australia and will open amid far-right pressure – most notably from Pauline Hanson, leader of the One Nation party – for a sharp cut in immigration numbers.
Hanson recently faced a public backlash across the country after calling for multiculturalism to be replaced by a “monoculture,” which was dismissed as incomprehensible by the Asian, Aboriginal and European Australians who christened the Mythical Crane Boat.
Once refugees, now part of Australia’s story. By Luke Hunt, P&I