The Memory Tapes Episode 6 - Unfolding Journeys: Migration and Memory

Episode Six – Unfolding Journeys: Migration, Memory and Australia

Australia is a land that has been shaped by migrants. Before this, and throughout, First Nations people have cared for this Country for millennia. In this episode, Dr Shirleene Robinson begins with a remarkable recording of Matthew Ryan, who travelled from Ireland to Australia in 1897, believed to be the oldest surviving recording of a migrant describing their voyage to Australia. Dr Robinson explores migration journeys throughout Australia's history, uncovering stories blighted by discrimination and prejudice, and affirming journeys where Australia offered security and friendship.

To learn more, the book The Memory Tapes is available where all good books are sold.

This episode includes excerpts from the following oral history interviews from the National Library of Australia's Oral History Collection:

1.Matthew Ryan interviewed by Hazel de Berg

Matthew Ryan's life in Australia was a happy one. He married; he worked as a blacksmith and in horseshoeing. He had many supportive relatives in the country. His career did mean he eventually sustained some hearing loss and also dealt with typhoid fever. Yet he helped to build the Glebe Bridge, worked on the cane fields, and retired, financially secure, in a climate he liked.

2. Eddie Quong interviewed by Diana Giese

In 1993, Eddie Quong told the extraordinary story of his grandmother, who had travelled to Australia from China at the age of sixteen in the late 1800s for an arranged marriage with Eddie's grandfather. Her search for a new life began as racist exclusion was escalating, yet she met challenges with bravery, initiative, and determination.

3. Anna Piotrowski interviewed by Barry York

Bonegilla was the first home for more than 300,000 new arrivals between 1947 and 1971 — a former army camp turned temporary village. For children like Anna, it was the beginning of an unfamiliar life under the southern sun.

4. Kathleen Golder interviewed by Ben Ross

Kathleen's memory captures both the grief of departure and the hope of arrival, the emotional crossroads faced by so many who left behind the familiar for the unknown. For some, that journey meant freedom. For others, it meant loneliness and loss. For their children, growing up in the years that followed, it meant learning to belong in a country still uncertain of its own identity.

5. Richard Galea interviewed by Elena Volkova

Richard Galea was born in Sydney in 1958 to parents who had migrated from Malta just three years earlier. He remembers that being considered 'different' could come at a cost.

6. May-Britt Mosshammer interviewed by Shirleene Robinson

Sometimes, some Australian ideals went just too far from those who came from afar. May-Britt Mosshammer, who migrated to Australia from Denmark [in the 1950s] with her family – taking to Australia 'like a duck to water'.

7. Van Thi-The Huynh interviewed by Ann-Mari Jordens

Born in a small town northwest of Vietnam, Van Huynh faced many personal difficulties. Her older brother and then her two younger brothers, all died from illness in their childhood. Van cared for her older sister who contracted polio. Moving to Saigon at age six, she pursued an education as the country succumbed to the Vietnam War. Van's father was wounded and died during the Tet offensive. Surviving the fall of Saigon, the political and domestic situation continued to decline, so Van and her family began a perilous ocean journey, eventually arriving to start a new life in Australia.

8. Everest Pitt interviewed by Hamish Sewell

Everest Pitt tells of her childhood in Fiji, where she needed to grow up quickly while looking after her brothers and sisters in the household. Always knowing she was going to leave – Everest looked abroad, eventually migrating to Queensland in 1974. Everest has come to see herself as both Fijian and Australian.

9. Sevuloni Waqatairewa interviewed by Thelma Thomas

Sevuloni was born in Nausori, part of Tailevu, Fiji. He attended primary school in Suva, and when in year five he and his family migrated to Australia. Sevuloni remembers building strong friendships with Indigenous children in Newtown, Sydney. From there, Sevuloni completed a retail management cadetship with Coles Myer Group, developing professional expertise in management, sales and marketing which he then applied in a new role at Microsoft, where he worked for the next 20 years.

10. Mustafa Jawadi interviewed by Ann-Mari Jordens

Mustafa tells about his childhood in Afghanistan and at the age of six, travelling with his family to Iran, where he lived as a refugee. He recounts travelling through Indonesia, then making his way via a perilous boat journey to Australia. The family was taken first to Christmas Island, then to Nauru, where Mustafa spent three years in detention before finally being resettled in Canberra. Since then, Mustafa has undertaken studies in Canberra and has reflected on the complex ways his family's journey played out.

11. Mohan Parasu interviewed by Barry York

Mohan Parasu describes his childhood in Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh, India. Mohan's father was involved in community and social work, his grandfather was a patron of the arts and theatre, while his mother managed the large ancestral home. He describes his early academic interests and the achievements of his brothers. Mohan migrated to Australia in 1992, as a highly skilled electronics engineer.