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Spotlight on our
| Cultural Diversity |
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"Some of Albury's special places identified in the workshop, with comments
by the participants."
"This photo shows the place where the Bonegilla Railway Station used to be.
Arriving here in 1956 was the first step to a new life in Australia."
Migrant communities from non-English speaking backgrounds have contributed
enormously to the development of rural and regional communities across the
state. However there has been little recognition of their contribution in
the listing of State and local heritage items. A new program will help to
redress the balance, bringing the cultural diversity of heritage in NSW
into greater focus. A successful workshop under the program was recently
completed in the border town of Albury-Wodonga, which has provided new
insights into the area's heritage.
The Migration Heritage Community Consultation Program aims to foster new
awareness of the heritage of ethnic communities. It is essential that their
experiences are recognised and celebrated as an integral part of the
state's common history.
The Program is funded by the Migration Heritage Centre, the Centre being a
NSW Government initiative through a partnership of Premier's Department,
Ministry for the Arts, Ethnic Affairs Commission and the Heritage Office.
This cross cultural program is being managed by Kate Rea in the Heritage
Office and will build on the Heritage Office's Ethnic Communities
Consultation Program, which has already established close links with
Chinese, Ukrainian and Italo-Australian communities around the State. The
Migration Heritage Centre has also supported and been involved with this
program.
Workshops have been held in regional and rural centres across the State,
including Albury and Broken Hill, with further meetings planned for Orange
and the north coast later in the year.
The workshops will test the most effective ways for people from non-English
speaking backgrounds to identify and assess heritage items from their own
cultural perspectives. The workshops take a cross cultural approach,
looking at how different communities have contributed to the heritage of
their region.
The experiences of the workshops will be used to develop models of
consultation with ethnic communities to be utilised by a range of agencies
that engage in heritage. In particular, they will link into local heritage
studies and build on heritage schedules attached to local environment
plans.
"The Australian-Croatian Club in Mill Street, Wodonga.
The program got off to a flying start in early September, when Albury
hosted the first of the workshops. Albury was selected to hold the workshop
because of its history as a destination point for migrants.
"As a transport hub Albury has attracted many migrants from non-English
speaking backgrounds. In last century Chinese, Lebanese and German migrants
contributed to the social, economic and cultural development of the area",
said project coordinator, Kate Rea.
This pattern has been repeated in the twentieth century, particularly in
the post-war period when Eastern European migrants assigned to Bonegilla
settled in the area.
Albury-Wodonga was chosen as a migrant destination point in the 1950s
because of the large Army accommodation facilities that had been built at
Bonegilla during the war.
According to historian, Dr Bruce Pennay, the huge influx of people had a
major impact on what was then a small country town.
"It is interesting to look at the adjustments people made to the new
migrants appearing in their midst. Some are wary and some are particularly welcoming, such as the Rotary Club and the Country Women's Association."
"What is interesting, is that if you are a migrant, your first landfall in
Australia is very significant to you. If you can, you look for jobs or
places near it. And a lot of the new migrants did stay in Albury or
Wodonga."
In later decades the designation of Albury-Wodonga as the National Growth
Centre attracted migrants from a range of countries, particularly the
Asia-Pacific region.
Representatives of Albury's ethnic communities participated in the first
workshop. Roko Vlasic, project officer of the Albury-Wodonga Ethnic
Community Council provided invaluable support, linking the Heritage Office
with Albury's culturally diverse community. These included representatives
of the Greek, Laotian, Filipino, German, Ukrainian, Dutch and Maori and
Croatian communities.
The program recognises the value of building community-wide, cross cultural
partnerships among individuals and organisations that contribute to
heritage practice. In Albury representatives of Albury City Council, the
Albury Regional Museum and Historical Society were also invited to
contribute to the workshop.
Following a short presentation from the NSW Heritage Office and a brief on
the heritage of Albury by Tony Newland, Town Planner at Albury City
Council, participants were given cameras and invited to spend the following
hour and a half photographing the sites and items that are important to
their communities.
"In this way participants were taking the first steps in identifying the
sites and items that are special to their communities. One of the
advantages of using photography is that people enjoy taking the
photographs. It is a process that is accessible and non-intimidating", said
Kate Rea.
The process comes from a community consultation model developed by
historian Meredith Walker and used in Queensland and which is now being
adapted for cross-cultural consultation.
The photographs were developed while participants had lunch and swapped
stories about what they had seen. Then it was time to assess the items that
they had photographed. This involved writing a short caption underneath the
photograph stating why the item was significant to the community.
A wonderful range of items were identified, including the Croatian Club in
Wodonga, the Slovenian Club in Albury, a Laotian temple and a 1930s Dutch
plane which was a participant in the 1934 London to Melbourne Air Race.
During the race the Uiver had made an emergency landing at the local
racecourse with the help of the citizens of Albury who lit the improvised
runway with their carlights. Mr Herman Blom of the Dutch community saw the
plane as an particularly important item. "It brought the entire community
together and Europe closer to Australia," said Mr Blom.
For some participants, particularly those whose migration had been more
recent, Albury Railway Station was identified as a site of great
importance. Ms Natalie Woods of the Maori community saw its significance as
a place that marked her family's arrival and symbolised a new beginning.
"The first (and only) Lao Buddhist Temple in Albury.
The Albury Railway Station is already listed on the State Heritage
Inventory. For the different ethnic groups in Albury, the station has
additional meanings and significance. This illustrates how readings of
existing heritage items are given greater depth and more comprehensive
meaning through consultation with ethnic communities.
"Meanings for heritage sites are as diverse as the community itself." said
Kate Rea. "The workshop aims to explore the different layers."
By the day's end participants had produced a mini exhibition. The
exhibition showed places of importance to each community and explained
their significance.
The workshop was a first step towards developing culturally diverse
heritage practises in the Albury-Wodonga region. The next step in this
important process is a public meeting where representatives of ethnic
communities, museums, history and heritage organisations will be invited to
form a cross cultural working party.
Council's Town Planner, Tony Newland, says that the working party will play
an important role in documenting significant sites in the Albury area. This
vital work will contribute to the community-based heritage study which
Albury is undertaking next year.
"We hope to incorporate the work of the ethnic community working party into
the major city-wide heritage study. The community will decide what places
or buildings have a special meaning or place in their heart and then
conduct some basic research. The whole point is for us all to appreciate
that there is more to the heritage of the Albury area than the traditional
Anglo-Saxon 19th century buildings and monuments."
At the completion of the first workshops in the Community Consultation
Program, an important first step has been taken to preserve the heritage
of ethnic communities from their own cultural perspectives. As participant,
Dr Bruce Pennay, said,
"This was an opportunity for ethnic communities to affirm their connection
to a specific place, to be part of its story".
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