Multicultural Australia Papers

DETERMINANTS OF

ETHNIC GROUP VITALITY I N

AUSTRALIA

by

ALAN HODGE

Alan Hodge is Head of the Multicultural Centre at Sydney College of Advanced Education

These Occasional Papers on aspects of Australia’s multicultural 4 r 1 T society are published to stimulate discussion and dialogue. The opinions expressed in these papers need not represent those of the publishers. o il The Clearing House on Migration Issues, 133 Church Street, Richmond, 3121, welcomes contributions to this series from individuals or organisations. MULTICULTURAL Clearing AUSTRALIA PAPERS House Already Published MAP 30 $3*00 RACISM AND EDUCATION: LESSONS FROM BRITAIN on by Jan Pettman MAP 31 $2.50 MIGRANTS IN THEIR HOMELAND: Migration A STUDY OF RE-IMMIGRATION by Ersie Burke MAP 32 $3.00 THE AUSTRALIAN MIGRATION LAW: Issues A TIME FOR CHANGE? by SoA. Ozdowski MAP 33 $2.00 RACIST PROPAGANDA AND THE A documentation unit of the Ecumenical IMMIGRATION DEBATE Migration Centre (Incorporated) by Lorna Lippmann MAP 34 $2.50 IT PROVIDES Australia-wide unique information- documentation resources on POPULAR CULTURE, KNOWLEDGE • the cultural background of the main ethnic groups; CONSTRUCTION, AND AUSTRALIAN • the immigration experience in Australia and around the ETHNIC MINORITIES world; by Peter Lumb • current issues (welfare, education and bilingual education, employment conditions, political and religious MAP 35 $3.00 participation, legal aspects, intergenerational differences, etc.) faced in inter-ethnic relations; MEDITERRANEAN WOMEN IN • discrimination, prejudice and race relations; AUSTRALIA: AN OVERVIEW • ethnic and community organisations and services; by Gill Bottomley • government and community programs and policies. MAP 36 $3 o 50 OFFERS an extensive collection of published and unpublished documents, Australian and overseas periodicals and reprints. IMMIGRATION, CITIZENSHIP AND HUMAN RIGHTS IN AUSTRALIA PUBLISHES by Baden Powell • Migration Action, the only Australian periodical on ethnic relations; • CHOMI-DAS, a quarterly bulletin of documentation and abstracts; • Reprints of articles, papers and reports of interest to the community and selected groups; MAP 37 $3 o 50 • Kits for workshops, seminars, meetings; Bibliographies on selected topics. DETERMINANTS OF ETHNIC GROUP VITALITY IN AUSTRALIA OPEN for consultation by the public during weekdays from 1.00 p.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays to Wednesdays; 1.00 p.m. to by Alan Hodge 7 p.m. Thursdays; 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Fridays. As space is limited, groups of 4 or more must book in ISBN 909274 15 O advance. A photocopier is available. ISSN 0155-4409 Multicultural Australia Paper no, 37 is published by and available from Clearing House on Migration Issues 133 Church Street, Richmond, Vic., 3121 Phone (03) 428-4948

133 CHURCH STREET l- MOV W t RICHMOND VIC AUSTRALIA 3121 TEL (03) 428 4948 DETERMINANTS OF ETHNIC GROUP VITALITY IN AUSTRALIA

For some Australians, the ethnic origin of their forbears is an important feature of their identity, of their sense of self-classification: for many other Australians, the term "ethnicity" is mystifying; they may recognise that we all have an "ethnic" ancestry, but would maintain that".... the idea that one's ethnicity is a major factor in the individual's self-definition is an exaggeration....

Such an interpretation of the term "ethnicity" ignores the distinction (2) very clearly made by Michael Banton, that there are two ethnicities that have different functions and different characteristics. He cites Lloyd Warner's conclusion that in "Yankee City", while immigrants from England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Anglophone Canada did form ethnic groups, only Greek-Americans, Irish-Americans, Italian-Americans, Jewish-Americans, and so on were in fact classified as ethnics. This, Banton says, is one of those mistakes from which subsequent generations can learn: we need to coin two terms and he suggests "majority ethnicity" and "minority ethnicity", to denote the minus one definition of ethnicity by which Vthe dominant group in a society sets the standard by which the others are judged and is not itself judged."

Members of a dominant group are thus not aware of their own ethnicity and the extent to which it helps fashion their self-concept. They remain unaware that if the majority group is large enough to occupy a whole territory, it is usually defined in political terms, such as "nation" or "state", and this replaces their need to acknowledge their "majority ethnicity".

In Australia, the connotation of "ethnic" has been further distorted by the offical use of "ethnic" in such titles as "Department of Immigration and Ethnic Affairs", and by popular use in such concepts as "ethnic radio" or "ethnic food". To many Australians, "ethnic" is thus a synonym for "migrant", or "non-Australian", or "pertaining to Australians of non-British origins". The idea that all of us have ethnicity, inescapably through our lines of descent, is discounted in favour of a loose, ill-defined division of Australia's population into "Australians" and "ethnics".

How and when an "ethnic" comes to be considered an "Australian" by all other Australians is hard to discern. Even more mysterious is the way in which individuals of like ethnic descent can form associations of like- 2. minded individuals who constitute an "ethnic group". In a culturally diverse society like Australia, it is a study of considerable interest to trace the factors that determine whether parents in an "ethnic group" are able to transmit their sense of "ethnicity" to their children, and whether this ethnicity can in turn be transmitted across subsequent generations.

S\ In Language, Ethnicity and Intergroup Relations, an excellent collection _ (3) of papers edited by Howard Giles , we have descriptions of ethnic community contact and interaction in many parts of the world. While these overseas experiences are of importance to us in Australia for purposes of comparison, it is unfortunate that the Australian situation is not discussed in Giles' book. In the final summary chapter, "Towards a theory of language in ethnic group relations," there is a structural analysis of some of the factors that determine a group's ability to retain its sense of ethnic individuality and to transmit this across generations. The ability is termed "ethnolinguistic vitality", and Giles and his fellow authors choose three variables as being of particular potency in determining the likely vitality of a minority group within an ethnolinguistically different host society : status, demography and institutional support.

Instructive though this analysis may be, and applicable no doubt to the many countries and minorities that were discussed in the book by the various contributors, it is in many aspects inapplicable to the Australian scene. Some of the factors seen as significant by the authors are definitely not potent in determining the vitality or durability of ethnolinguistic groups in the Australian community; and many variables that seem worthy of analysis because of their obvious relevance to this and other countries are not treated in the chapter.

This paper undertakes an application to the Australian setting of such a structural analysis as that devised by Giles and his fellow contributors. We will discuss the three structural variables Status, Demography and Institutional Support against the background of Australian society in the 80s, and treat three other variables that seem to be of particular potency in our society: Aspirations, Cultural Characteristics and Host Society Attitudes.

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1 STATUS

According to Giles, "the more status a linguistic group is recognised to have, the more vitality it can be said to possess as a collective entity." ( page 309) One surmises that the writers had English-Canadians in mind. They then proceed to speak of economic status of the group, rather than of individuals who constitute the group.

This concept is difficult to apply to Australia in any way that is not simplistic; there is no validity in assigning relative status to ethno- linguistic groups as a whole in the Australian community: "Do Turkish- Australians have more status than Macedonian-Australians?" is an unanswerable question. Members of such groups may be seen to have status relative to members of other groups, but we would maintain that this does not necessarily confer vitality or durability on the group as an identifiable entity within the society.

In the same way, many descriptions of the class positions of migrants in Australian society make unwarranted assumptions about differences that are due only insignificantly to socioeconomic factors and more importantly can be explained in terms of demographic characteristics of the original migrating generation.

In the matter of status, one might take German-Australians as a complex example: as individuals they tend to score highly on such status components as years of education, portable job skills or professional qualifications (4) ; ...... on arrival, salary levels and similarity in residential distribution to the Australian born. One could deduce from this that a sizeable proportion of the presumed 581 000 persons of German ethnic origin in Australia representing 4.1% of Australia's population, are likely to be of reasonably high status. Yet despite the numbers of Australians of German ethnic origin, and this likely status position, one could not claim that, apart from Barossa and Riverina families, German-Australians constitute a particularly striking example of an enduring ethnic group in terms of transmission of home language across generations or of maintenance of German culture traits.

Conversely, one can cite a numberof ethnolinguistic groups whose members on the same objective criteria would tend not to be included in middle or high status categories in any large numbers, and yet we can see obvious evidence of extremely active, well-organised and cohesive community groups

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whose vitality is not in question. There have to be other more important factors than status, viewed as a simple variable.

One such important consideration (for which there is no hard evidence) is the somewhat aggressive cohesion that characterises those communities whose members have lost status by emigrating, and whose ethnolinguistic group life serves as a compensation for potential loss of self-esteem; the wider community places them in the category of "migrant" with its connotations of powerlessness; they have to fight for recognition of their qualifications, their skills and their persona as they master the task of adjustment to a new language and a new culture with different values. The members of tight-knit groups find restored self-esteem in the company of persons of similar background. Far from being a liability, so-called "ethnic ghettos" provide support for a much healthier emotional climate in which new arrivals can concentrate on this process of adjustment.

This is a description of some Australians from many different national backgrounds, among them Latin-Americans, Armenians, Egyptians, Turks, to name a few, whose reduced status level on first arrival is a spur to group cohesion and energy.

In the area of self-esteem, Giles finds that "low self-esteem ...can sap its (ie. the group's) morale, whereas high self-esteem is more likely to bolster it." (page 310). In the local setting, one finds that matters of self-esteem often have insidious consequences for the durability of the ethnolinguistic group: since 1947 many settlers have been subjected to a loss of esteem on arrival in Australia, particularly if they have come from a village setting where their esteem has come from their position in a stable network of intimate relationships for which they have been unable to find a replacement in Australia. Instead, the wider community allocates its approval in terms of the affluence that comes from high employment level, high salary, favourable location and standard of residence. A common reaction by the settler is to recreate the network of family and paesani relationships as if itwere the old country, and to seek to restore esteem by adherence to, perhaps even stricter insistence on the old country's values and observances. This may have the opposite of the desired effect on their offspring who are forced to live and make their mark in both worlds - the home-and its petrified preservation of the ...15 5.

old values, and the outside world of school and work that is so alien to to their parents. Frequently this can be seen to lead to a rejection of the parental world by the children who, in bygone days of assimilationist policies at least, have been forced to make a choice. If they opt for the parents' way, they must endure the attribution of low esteem by the host society in which they are trying to succeed; if they choose to adopt the mores of the host society, they may achieve a greater degree of acceptance, but may well continue to suffer the same lack of esteem as their parents if a different physical appearance, language difficulties and cultural "separateness" conspire to rebut the young person's move towards accultura­ tion. At the same time, the fall-back position of family warmth and unity has now been forfeited as a consequence of rejection of the family's values. This gloomy picture is unfortunately the common one that has been presented by many children of worthy immigrant parents; in a multicultural society, in theory at least, the present generation of children has every chance of growing up without being forced to make the choice, either their parents' way or the way of the host society. The gloom is lightened by the existence of many thousands of young Australians of immigrant parents who are perfectly comfortable in their dual identity, both Australian and Maltese, or Czech, or Chilean, or any of the more than one hundred and thirty other ethnic backgrounds from which Australians have come.

One further aspect of status is examined by Giles, language status. "Linguistic minorities... who speak an international language of high status are no doubt advantaged in terms of their group vitality." (page 311) This appears to be of little consequence as a factor in determining an ethnolinguistic group's vitality, or even its transmission of that language into the second generation born in Australia. A more crucial factor appears to be the extent to which the language is the carrier of the group's identity in its homeland, and becomes a core-value of the group's ( 8) identity in Australia.

Often the language has been preserved in the homeland despite foreign occupation and active suppression; its status therefore is more than just a means of communication; the language is a symbol of independendence, the crystallisation of the group's history. This seems to be a much more potent factor in the preservation of language in Australia than its mere status as an international language or not. One needs only to look at the vigour with which language is maintained in Australia in such language communities as Latvian, Hungarian, Greek, Polish, Ukrainian or Armenian. ...lb 6.

2 DEMOGRAPHY

The second variable to be examined by Giles is demography. Some tendencies that are observable internationally can be seen just as clearly in Australia. Large numbers mean greater chances of vitality and greater opportunity to transmit the language and culture through active usage in a viable community life. An exception, where large numbers of immigrants have not guaranteed tight cohesion, may be seen in the case of Dutch immigrants from the 50s. In the case of Ukrainian refugees from the same period, small numbers of original immigrants have maintained vitality and cohesion. Other factors are obviously operating as well in these instances. Geographical concentration of population encourages high vitality, as in the case of Italian-, Greek-, Arabic-speaking-, or Jewish-Australians, to name a few examples. But the reverse, the dispersion of settlers, does not help to explain the persistent high vitality and durability of language and culture traits among Mauritian- Austral ians or Latvian-Australians, even though they have not formed groups living in close proximity.

• -s There are a number of other factors that seem to be of special importance in Australia. Continuity of new arrivals over an extended period of time means a regular renewal of linguistic capital, regular replacement of persons able to provide a model of the dynamically changing mother tongue as spoken in the homeland. The very availability of such sources of renewal can however constitute a source of diminished resolve to keep the languages and culture alive, whereas those groups who came here as political refugees, and with no prospect of returning to their birthplace, have been assiduous in maintaining and transmitting their language and culture, as if they alone were the sole 9) bearers of the true tradition. Silesian Germans of the 19th century, and later arrivals like Latvians, Ukrainians and Assyrians, are just some of the many nationalities who have become true "multicultural" Australians by transmitting a dual identity.

Despite the resolve that comes from isolation, another factor that affects the vitality of group life and the determination to transmit the language across generations is the ease and frequency of return trips to the country of origin. This is not at all a question of proximity to Australia, nor just a matter of family affluence that will permit air travel between Australia and the old country for settlers and their children. It is rather a matter, which will be taken up again under the heading of Cultural Characteristics, of the identity of the individual group member. Anglo- and Celtic-

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Australians have always responded to this impulse to make the sentimental journey "home" to England, Ireland or Scotland, even after numerous generations of residence in Australia. For some groups, like Lebanese- or Italian- or Greek-Australians, it constitutes a motive for preservation of language and culture here, so that the family group or the group with attachment to a particular locality or religion can be intact. Without this urge to remain close to family members and to origins that is shown by so many Australians of immigrant descent, our national airline and our international telephone system might well have some difficulty in balancing their budgets!

The pattern of migratory movement can bring influence to bear on the kind of group life practised in Australia: chain migration, that is, migration of family members, friends and acquaintances from the same region, seems to equate with vitality; it has within it aspects of large numbers, residential concentration, commonality of problem-solving devices. On the other hand, immigration by individuals or single families who have little or no support from an existing ethnolinguistic community leads more to isolation from fellow-countrymen and more rapid immersion in the wider society. Planned, government-sponsored migration, as in the settlement of displaced European refugees between 1947 and 1951, may lead to dispersal of (l settlers as they move to take up work or accommodation at government direction.

The early moves to settle Vietnamese refugees in small numbers in rural or outer-urban districts offer an illustration of a government policy, viz. to make Asian settlement unobtrusive, working to fragment a group who would otherwise tend to cohere for mutual support.

Marriage patterns are a very important demographic factor that can determine the extent of tranmission of language and culture across generations. Such patterns will constitute an amalgam of settlement characteristics, group cohesion, religious exclusivity, courting patterns and other culture traits (to be treated later) and of course community size. Imbalance in the sexes causes mixed marriage, as was prevalent among Yugoslav males who arrived between 1948 and 1 9 5 2 ^ ^ and who, unlike single Italian males of the 50s who came to Australia, had no recourse to betrothal with women in the home country. Mixed marriages are likely to lead to a dilution of language and culture maintenance, except in a very strongly family-oriented group like Italian-Australians, where non-Italians, especially male outsiders, can seemingly be absorbed more easily into the culture group while the language

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and culture continue to be maintained and transmitted.

Religious difference from the host society, as in the case of Moslem- or Hindu-Australians, Jewish-Austjralians and adherents of the Eastern Christian churches operates to encourage in-group marriage patterns. The widely prevalent Mediterranean tradition of protection of the female reputation prior to marriage is a further strong pressure on maintenance of in-group marriage amongst groups who originated in those areas.

The reproduction rate of different groups is potentially a factor in group size; it is certainly a bogey that haunts the minds of those Australians opposed to immigration.from particular areas, from Asia for example, because of the supposed danger from excessive fertility rates. In earlier times, the high rate of reproduction amongst Irish-Australians was viewed unfavourably by the Anglo-Australian majority as constituting an attempt to bridge the disparity in the two largest ethnic elements in the Australian population. A large family might have more to do with religious dogma than with ethnic vitality. There is good evidence to indicate that in general, reproduction rates of immigrant parents pertaining to children bd>rn in Australia come (12) very close to national norms. One may well find some future exceptions to this tendency; it would not be surprising, for example, if groups who have suffered a cataclysmic upheaval in their homeland, like Vietnamese in Australia, exhibited a tacit desire to make good the population losses of the past by their reproduction rates (which are currently quite low) in future generations.

3 INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT

It is suggested by Giles that the denial of institutional support for the maintenance of language and culture in an ethnolinguistic group is a potent factor in low vitality. In Australia at least, and, one could surmise, in other countries as well, this factor is tempered in its potency by the prevailing climate of political and public opinion, which will be treated in the next section.

One can think of many cases where withdrawal of support or denial of institutional help in culture maintenance have indeed increased rather than diminished a minority community's determination to preserve its language and culture. Its vitality, in such a case, even if clandestine, is often fierce, maybe desperate. One can cite numerous examples like the Greeks under Turkish rule, Christian minorities like the Maronite, Nestorian or ...19 9.

Coptic communities in the Middle East, Rom or Sinti minorities throughout Europe, Basque peoples in Spain or Southern France. In fact, it is true to say that support for culture maintenance is a relatively modern idea; throughout history it has rather been the norm for ethnolinguistic minorities to preserve their ethnic identity despite the state or nation, rather than because of it.

In the Australian setting, contemporary Aboriginality is the striking instance of group identity being preserved in the face of denial, even of active destruction. To be sure, languages have been lost in this extreme case of culture contact, and of course culture changes have been forcibly wrought, but Aboriginal vitality is being renewed with surprising speed. Even in 1967, when the referendum of that year gave the hope of a turnabout in Aboriginal-European relations, to use the word "vitality" would have seemed ludicrous. Yet the latent Aboriginality was there despite the suppression of 180 years.

The Church is an institution of society that can contribute to the vitality of a minority group if it crystallises that group's distinctiveness; but the Church can also serve to erode the feeling of difference and in so doing undermine vitality. For instance, the Catholic Church in Australia for long represented the embodiment of Irishness in this country; not a separate language, (Irish-Gaelic has never been much used here), not even a very different culture; but a distinct feeling of difference and separatism in which many Australians of Irish descent found their self-respect and their identity.

It is interesting to compare the role of the Catholic Church in Australia when later arrivals found conflict with the Irish Catholicism of the faith as practised here. Dutch Catholics, for example, who arrived as immigrants in the 1950s, easily found a place for their religious life in the established church. Dutch immigrants of the same period who were of the Dutch Reformed conviction, found no such equivalent institution in Australia, and have tended to maintain their separatist, fundamentalist stance. ( 13)

On the other hand, Italians of Catholic faith have found some difficulties in adapting their image of the Church as a social institution integral to their daily life and coming to terms with the individualistic nature of the . (14) Irish-Catholic Church m Australia; it is possible to sustain the argument that Italian-Australians use the Catholic Church in Australia as a peripheral

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adjunct to their ethnic vitality, based as it is in family links and regionalism.

Islam in Australia has aided ethnolinguistic vitality for Moslems from Lebanon by providing support for language maintenance in the Koran schools and a focal point for observance of the faith in an alien environment. The Turkish community with Cypriot as well as Turkish origins is more fragmented; one has the feeling that Turkish identity relies less heavily on the Islamic faith for its vitality, important though this faith is and fundamental in its determination of the forms of family life. Turkish ethnolinguistic identity seems to lean more heavily on language and national pride as the crucial elements in cultural tranmission.

Government as an institution has moved to give support for the maintenance of linguistic and cultural difference since the late 60s in Australia, when a policy of assimilation gave way to a policy of integration. One can trace the growing commitment of funds and manpower resources by national and state governments, from early expressions of support, through "cultural" grants, encouragement of the folkloric aspects of ethnic life, to the establishment of ethnic radio, then multicultural television, available in some capital cities. Important milestones along the way have been government per capita grants to after-hours "ethnic schools" of language and culture, use of state school premises for these classes, and moves to include the teaching of community language other than English within the normal school curriculum.

These relatively recent innovations were in general welcomed by ethnolinguistic groups; but they were of greater importance to some groups than to others. For instance, older established communities, like Greek- or Ukrainian- Austral ians , had already set up their schools and had community mechanisms for culture maintenance. Innovations like ethnic radio or school support for community language teaching were useful adjuncts but not vital. For more recent arrivals, like Latin-American- or Macedonian-Australians, whose vitality was high but whose mechanisms for culture transmission were yet to be developed, these innovations were an essential part of their program for setting up language and culture teaching for their children.

This difference between the climate of public and official attitudes today and, say, that of 30 years ago, makes us very aware of the paradox of multicultural ism. One can argue that Greek-Australians, Ukrainian-

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Australians and certain others have been successful in maintaining community vitality and a sense of ethnic identity largely because of the very fact of total absence of institutional support at the time when they arrived in numbers. Those ethnic groups who have come later, in a climate that is at least one of toleration, if not of respect for their cultural differences, may well be "loved to death" by official policy. By virtue of being accepted into a multicultural society, they may well lose that determination that is needed to safeguard difference. When those differences disappear, then what we will have in Australia is the familiar local version of the melting pot metaphor, not the crucible that forges a new llbermensch, but a melting pot that melts away cultural differences like snow in spring, and turns us all out the same shade of grey.

There are other institutional supports that can affect community group vitality, supports of an informal kind that do not stem from any government intervention.

An important element in ethnolinguistic vitality is the influence on community groups of those who become "representatives" of a group and claim to speak for them. These may be the persons "prominent in ethnic affairs" the opinion makers who edit or write for community language newspapers, or those who stand for office in pan-ethnic organisations like the Ethnic Communities Councils in various states . It is common for such persons to be well-educated in their homeland, often struggling to achieve an employment status commensurate with the aspirations they once pursued, but which have been frustrated in Australia by non-recognition of their qualifications or by difficulties with mastery of English as a second language in adulthood. They succeed somehow in steering a middle course between the nostalgic disappointment of the immigrant intellectual and the fatalistic acceptance of powerless marginality of many immigrant workers. The successful community "spokesperson" is able to rally those who share his or her ethnic heritage to a vision of the new society in which groups at present marginal in the community will achieve

social justice in gaining access to positions of autonomy. Herein can be found another paradox of multiculturalism: this vision of the future is pan­ ethnic, and runs quite contrary to the parochialism of ethnic lobby groups, that impels employers to give preference to workers of the same ethnic background as themselves, or which encourages reliance on doctors, lawyers, tradesmen and shopkeepers of the same ethnic origin "because they can be trusted". These latter phenomena exist of course, but it is significant that political lobbying by bodies of a single ethnolinguistic background are almost unknown in . ../12 12.

Australia today at a national or state level, whereas pan-ethnic groups exercise strong influence in the formulation of government policies that affect non-Anglo-Australians.

t 4. ASPIRATIONS

No one easily or willingly becomes an immigrant. There are a host of reasons why one finally decides to undergo the inevitable trauma of migration, and they all involve some set of aspirations for one's life to come in the new land. Differing aspirations can affect the extent to which individuals are able to make the adjustments that are necessary in adapting to life in a new cultural setting; they affect the decisions that are made about which cultural traits, appropriate enough in the homeland, must be modified in the process of adaptation, and which ones can be retained intact in one's private or public life.

Anglo-Celtic Australians have long assumed it to be normal and indeed inevitable that new settlers would eventually come to resemble the members of the host society in their behaviours and their beliefs, and preferably as soon as possible after arrival. This expectation of rapid assimilation has placed many immigrants in a dilemma that has created a very circular train of circumstances. Amongst those who have migrated with the hope of improving their material circumstances, it is common to detect a certain bitterness: they came to Australia for the sake of their children's future; they felt willing to confront the dislocation, the loss of identity, the loss of status, the sense of isolation and the loneliness that is the lot of so many immigrants, in order to create an opportunity for their children, perhaps unborn at that point.

The bitterness comes from two sources: for many children of immigrants, there is a dissonance between parental aspirations and their level of achievement in the school system, either through language difficulties in education or

through being assigned by the system to a particular limit of attainment. Others were forced by the assimilationist mechanisms of the school to make an actual choice: as discussed earlier, they either choose to go their parents' way and remain "foreign", or go the way of the school, their peers and the wider society, reject so many of the values of their parents and identify with their new world away from the home. Many immigrant parents feel that the act of migration, with their children's best interests in mind, has led to the "loss" of these children, a sure recipe for bitterness.

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In describing this reaction of the parents, one must at the same time acknowledge the conflict that is suffered by sincere and loving children who struggle to adulthood in the front line of culture contact and culture change. One can only wonder.at the resilience of the human spirit on seeing so many children of immigrant parents who achieve a comfortable bicultural identity, and be sympathetic to those others who act out a charade in their daily alternation between the two worlds of home and school.

The degree of satisfaction of the parents' aspirations creates a circularity: under assimilationist pressures, parents may encourage their children to adopt "Australian-ness" as their role model; to assume this role is to face conflict between the. values taught in the home or learnt in the country of origin on the one hand, and the values of the adoptive society on the other. Acceptance of the new society's values, of itself, will not guarantee the children's "success" in terms of status, level of employment, access to power in their adult life. So the parents can then see that their sacrifices as immigrants have contributed to inter-generational breakdown and still the aspirations for their children have not been realised.

Theoretically, a society that actively endorses the acceptance of cultural diversity ought not to be exerting such convergent pressures any longer on the children of immigrants. Australia's more pluralist policies ought in principle to mean rather the encouragement of difference, a spur for the children of immigrants to retain their ethnic identity while continuing to feel comfortable with a dual identity. In practice, one wonders if the conformist, normalising thrusts of school and society will ensure that only the more emotionally confident and intellectually competent of children of immigrant descent will be able to achieve this comfortable duality.

As well as the general question of immigrant aspirations outlined above, one must make mention of the culture-specific nature of vocational aspirations that vary between ethnolinguistic community groups, in patterns that are too general for this to be explicable in terms of personal difference or class determination. Careers advisers in schools are struck by the frequency with which young people of particular ethnic backgrounds aspire to careers in medicine or law, often in the face of unreal expectations given their academic record to that point. Others again from certain groups show a propensity for pursuing studies in architecture and engineering, in proportions greater than average.

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In yet others, one finds a much smaller proportion of students wishing to remain to the end of their secondary schooling, and in others a much higher proportion presenting for the Higher School Certificate than in the school population at large.

Teaching as a career has long been used as a form of upward mobility;^^ at the present time, with teacher unemployment and reduced numbers of students undertaking pre-service teacher preparation, there is evidence that the proportions of student-teachers of non-English-speaking background are increasing more rapidly than their numbers in the whole population It may be that they are using teaching as a way of satisfying aspirations for upward mobility at.a-time when this seems not to be a characteristic of * * ' student-teachers in- general. .

The connection between upward vocational mobility and ethnolinguistic vitality is difficult to predict; will these young people who are achieving higher status occupations than their parents come to identify simply as members of their profession or as ethnic members of a profession? One could foresee that in the short term, family pride in their achievement would tend to force them to the latter pole; the passage of time and the kind of clientele or reputation they build up may serve to diminish the ethnolinguistic component in their self-identification as a professional.

A quite different aspect of aspirations of immigrant parents for their children is the differentiation between career options for boys and girls in the same family. Sometimes this may be a matter of limited family resources, so education and career chances of the son or sons are given a higher priority than those of the daughter(s), a not uncommon feature of past discrimination against women in Australian society, irrespective of the ethnic community involved. A more recent twist to this old theme is to be found in the practice forced upon many South-East Asian families who, if able only to sustain the emigration or illicit flight of one family member, have tended to give the place to one of the sons. The position of these young men living in Australia without the support of a family are a matter for grave concern to welfare agencies and to the various Asian community groups.

Greater limitation is placed on the aspirations of girls in a family if they coma from that stratum of a male-dominated society that traditionally denies women free and equal access to education. In Australia, although education

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may be compulsory, it has been known for girls from some Mediterranean families, from some Moslem families, or from some families from a particularly conservative rural background, to be kept at home frequently as baby-minders, to be taken away from school on the completion of compulsory schooling, or to be denied recognition of academic capability because it is not held to be important for women. Such practices affect ethnolinguistic vitality only obliquely; but in the long term it may be that women who are thus limited in their career options will be thrown back into networks of women similarly placed. In this way, they will contribute to the preservation of a rather closed and reactionary little world that may promote culture maintenance but which may display qualities quite the opposite of vitality. Other women for whom broader career options are opened will paradoxically enjoy greater vitality in their vocational field, at the risk of widening their network of possible marriage partners and of increasing the likelihood of an exogamous marriage that will inevitably undermine the capacity to maintain children's ethnicity.

Career aspirations variously described above are only one aspect of the aspirations that are held by immigrants; another quite different bundle of aspirations and ambitions is quite clearly discernible in the long-term expectations of new arrivals. Many immigrants, prompted by economic considerations, come to Australia undecided whether to stay or return. Their ultimate resolution of this dilemma is compounded by economic developments here and in their homeland, by the educational and vocational achievements of their children, by their success in transmitting their language to their children, (if speakers of languages other than English), by the immigration chains of relatives and friends they were able to establish, in short, by the satisfaction or otherwise of their aspirations for material comfort, job success for their children and a social life that satisfies their ties with the homeland.

5. CULTURAL CHARACTERISTICS

In previous sections, reference has already been made to various factors in ethnolinguistic group vitality that could be described as cultural characteristics of the group. By this term we mean generalised behaviours and beliefs that were typical of the culture group to which they belonged before migration. Culture traits that were appropriate in the homeland may be retained intact, slightly modified, radically altered or abandoned altogether. Different interactional patterns will ensure that in any given

— /I6 16. set of individuals each adopts a spectrum of behaviours to suit circumstances. Culture contact and adaptation after immigration are often deemed simplistically as being a question of straightforward choice: either maintenance of a culturally determined behaviour or substitution of a new behaviour that is approved by the new culture reference group in the host society. The real world of human interaction is never as simple as that, nor are the culture changes that are occurring in all of us.

It is not surprising that for most of us, the family unit is the social institution that most clearly shows the rubbing edge of culture change and culture maintenance. How could it be otherwise? The culturally determined traditions of family roles and responsibilities underlie many of the reactions that immigrant parents make to the pressures for change. These reactions are often so similar in families from the same cultural background that, taken together, they affect ethnic group resolve to maintain particular patterns and values.

Those immigrant groups for whom the family constitutes a special concept of extended kin are a case in point: for such groups, maintenance of the parents' language, promotion of endogamous marriage, retention of the customs relating to family celebrations, music, dance and food preferences, are all features of community life that are pursued vigorously in order to preserve the identity of the group as "family". At the same time, but perhaps incidentally to the main impetus for their behaviour, they are promulgating an ethnic vitality. The results of this vitality may indeed run contrary to behaviours that are seen to stem from core values of Australian culture: collective family obligations and responsibilities, as opposed to the individualism and personal responsibility for decision­ making that is so widespread in Australian society. Or further, the place of women in concepts of family honour, and the conflicts that arise when these concepts clash with issues of equality of the sexes and autonomous decision-making for women. And again, the tradition of patronage that is so widespread among rural communities and persists among immigrant groups who have come as part of a chain from a tight-knit rural community and for whom patronage is still real and useful, but which may be confused with bribery by other Australians who are unfamiliar with the tradition.

. . . / 17 17.

Behaviours that are maintained or only slightly modified after arrival in Australia may be so widespread amongst a particular immigrant group as to constitute a cultural characteristic that enhances ethnic vitality and resolve to maintain the group intact:

* traditions of feasting and celebrating that include children in the festivity are likely to be maintained across generations * grandparents who assume the role of child minders when both parents are working, or who have come to Australia under family reunion sponsorship with this function in mind, have the effect of rein­ forcing the transmission of the home language * groups that have a long tradition of preserving their identity as a minority group in an alien nation have often come to Australia with the expectation thay they will have no difficulty in keeping alive their traditions while encouraging their children to adopt a dual identity. One thinks of Armenians from Lebanon, Coptic Christians from Egypt, Greek Macedonians, or Indians from Uganda. The pervasive strength of Australian traditions of monoculturalism often comes as a surprise to such parents. * amongst overseas Chines, there has been a long history of integration in any new envi ronment while successfully retaining the essential Chinese traditions. Perhaps it has been the residual effects of Australia's former official policies with respect to Asian peoples, as embodied in the restrictive legislation that we knew as the White Australia policy; whatever the reason, many Chinese in Australia have been willing to encourage their children to adapt (Anglo-) Australian ways so enthusiastically that home-language maintenance and transmission of the traditional Chinese values are increasingly being seen as a real crisis in culture maintenance by Australian-Chinese parents. * the paesani tradition, that has been such an important factor in chain migration, has led to the formation and maintenance of community associations of families with ties to particular localities in the homeland. Their importance in fostering ethnic vitality can hardly be underestimated among immigrant communities of Greek and Italian origin, for example.

Australian government policies of the late 70s and early 80s lent tacit approval to the maintenance of ethnicity. Prompted no doubt by political considerations, our multicultural policies encouraged ethnic vitality

.../ 1 8 18.

while only slightly changing the operating traditions of Australian society and hardly impinging at all on the fundamental areas of societal institutions, structures and value systems. There is considerable speculation at present that multicultural policies were in fact designed to "keep migrants in their place" at the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum by substituting culture maintenance for equality of access to the material benefits that Australians have come to expect. It is a popular neo- (18) Marxist interpretation of settlement policy to see immigrant workers as part of a dual labour force, open to exploitation through their powerlessness. In this view of settlement, culture maintenance is a distraction that encourages immigrants to substitute nostalgia for social justice. Governments that claim to be reformist are likely to lay less stress upon support for ethnicity and ethnic vitality, and more upon affirmative action to redress perceived imbalances in distribution of immigrant groups throughout all facets of the society. One can argue that multicultural policies have been realised when immigrants and their children can be seen to have permeated in proportions equal to their numbers through the workforce, across socioeconomic strata, into positions of power and influence in business, politics and industry. Looking to the long term, one can argue that if this simplistic picture of equality of access comes to be realised, it will have occurred at the expense of a sense of ethnic identity; social justice may only be achievable when ethnolinguistic vitality has dissipated. The paradox of multiculturalism may have many new twists in store for us in future generations.

6. Host Society Attitudes Attitudes are not conceived and held in a vacuum; each of us is a victim of our history, both our personal history and the history of the country or countries in which we have lived long enough for our attitudes to be affected. So it is not possible to discuss those attitudes towards immigrants that have been current in Australia without recognizing the historical determinants of our attitudes and the extent to which they form a part of the core value system of Australia.

This is not the place to detail the vagaries of community attitudes towards outsiders that have been commonly held in Australia since the foundation of non-Aboriginal settlement; but is is important to recognise the strength of out-group rejection that has so often characterised our thinking.

.../ 19 19.

Any detailed account would describe the mocking larrikin disrespect for colonial authority that was to be found among the "currency lads and lasses" of the first decades of European settlement, directed at the institutions and represehtatives of a "foreign" domination. We would specify the slander and vilification of the Aboriginal owners of the land that lasts to the present day. We would trace the frequent denigration of the Irish, right up to the first decades of this century. We would describe the population influx of the decade 1851 to 1861, and the cosmopolitan nature of this 150% increase in population within ten years; there would be discussion of the return to the cities at the end of the goldrush, the subsequent unemployment, the growing resistance to immigration and the strong sense of exclusivism that by the end of the 19th century had become the strident nationalism of the nascent Australian labour movement. One would relate the anti^German sentiment that closed bilingual schools during World War I, the protectionist racism directed at Italians in the mid- 1920s, the violence against foreign miners during the depression, the suspicions that greeted refugees from Nazism in the late 1930s.

Let us concentrate on that watershed point in December 1947 when the first ship-load of non-British assisted immigrants arrived in Bonegilla Army camp from the displaced persons camps of Europe - Lithuanians, Latvians and Estonians in that group, to be shortly followed by Poles, Czechs, Yugoslavs, Ukrainians and others. The expectation was clearly that these "New Australians" (the term itself is eloquent testimony to our expectation) would quickly adopt local customs and values, would learn English and conform to local norms of behaviour. For almost two decades, the myth was perpetuated that assimilation was taking place, that old beliefs and behaviours were being sloughed off like a snake shedding its skin. Yet the remarkable characteristic of this period of the 50s and 60s is the relative absence of xenophobic hostility to these new arrivals. Was it due to the "Populate or Perish" slogan occasioned by the widespread realisation of the vulnerability of Australian's empty far north? Was it the rapid growth in personal material wealth during this time of full employment, buoyant economy, and rapid expansion? Or was it rather that workers now had beneath them on the scale of vulnerability "reffos" and "Balts" and "wogs" as well as "Abos", a new victim at the bottom of the heap who offered native- born Australian workers a hitherto unaccustomed sense of superiority.

For their part, the new arrivals in this early post-war period seemed to go

.../20 20.

along with the myth that they could quickly and easily shed their former language and identity. They often tried to follow the advice of their children’s teachers to use only English in the home, and yet, paradoxically, many were firm in their resolve to establish out-of-hours schools where the language and culture of their homeland could be passed on to their children. They were frowned upon for speaking their language in public places, but they mostly showed a fervent desire to give their loyalty to their new adopted land, especially if they could not now easily return to their former homeland that lay under a different political regime.

During the 1950s Germans and Dutch came in some numbers and for the most part found a place.in Australian society where their accustomed way of life and qualifications were not too much at variance with prevailing norms. When during the later 50s and 60s arrivals from Southern European countries were subject to a much greater cultural dissonance, they formed tighter residential concentrations in the capital cities, especially Melbourne, quickly established welfare and information agencies and set up social networks based on regional associations. It was the high return rates of disappointed immigrants from these later groups^that really alerted Australian officialdom to the dissatisfactions being experienced by immigrants who were expected to forsake the cultural identity of a lifetime and become "like Australians."

A short-lived dabbling with the term "integration" in the late 60s and 70s gave way in the early 70s to the official idea of Australian society as a "cultural mosaic", a "multicultural society" that could speak about "the (21) Family of the Nation", about "cultural diversity" and "pluralism." The inherent contradictions in these terms have been thoroughly aired ( 22) . elsewhere; in terms of ethnic vitality, one might assume that those arriving in Australia after this change of offical policy might have more easily felt that there was public approval for them to retain the culture and language of their country of birth and transmit them to their children. One must seriously question whether this is so: there are pressures which, albeit not overtly assimilationist, still force certain responses upon new arrivals. First, Australia may be claimed to be a multicultural society, but there is no question that without competence in English language, one cannot enjoy full participation in that society. Other languages may legitimately be recognised as languages of Australia, but none of them challenges the supremacy and indispensability of English. Second, one may be offically encouraged to retain one's ethnic identity and still legitimately

.../21 21.

take out Australian citizenship, even be seen as a true multicultural Australian. The contradictions that underlie this position are a source of confusion to many: dual identity - both Australian and Greek, both Australian and Assyrian^, or whatever, - does not carry dual citizenship. One must live by the laws of Australia, or suffer the civil and legal consequences. Dual identity is fine, but in practice, Australian institutions do not permit a great deal of duality, consequently one cannot properly speak of culture maintenance in a multicultural society, rather of cultural accommodation by the migrating generation. Their children run the risk of the immigrants' dilemma : either the way of their parents, and cultural "foreignness", or accommodation that in the next generation becomes assimilation and absorption and the end of the multicultural society.

A quite different set of host society attitudes are commonly alluded to by those migration policy watchers who can be said to pursue a neo-Marxist (23) line. These observers are prone to find in the fluctuations in Australia's post - 1947 immigration policies a clear evidence of the operation of a class struggle. The immigrant worker exploited as a member of a new industrial reserve army, vulnerable because powerless and willing to take on the dirty work that was rejected by the native-born; a constant supply of "factory- fodder" that provided cheap labour for unprofitable Australian manufacturing (24) industry; a dual labour force that served to divide the Australian working class by bringing intra-class tensions into the class struggle - this is the picture of the consequence of Australia's immigration policies that is commonly presented in neo-Marxist interpretations.

The truths that this picture contains have doubtless provided the impetus to changes in social policy that are in course of introduction in Australia at the time of writing (June 1984). The government's equity and access policy, as illustrated for example in the Participation and Equity Program, heralds a push towards social justice for disadvantaged and powerless members of society. As we suggested at the end of Section 5 on "Cultural Characteristics", social justice and ethnolinguistic vitality are not alternatives, but can be made to appear so if a government policy has the effect of withdrawing financial support from maintenance of language and culture in order to secure social justice. 22.

7. CONCLUSIONS

There must of course be other factors that determine the capacity for an ethnolinguistic minority to preserve its sense of identity while at the same time becoming integrated into a pluralist, culturally complex and ethnically diverse society. We have suggested some, and discussed the way in which they may be perceived to operate in Australia.

When we live day-by-day with a profound social change that is evolutionary in nature rather than an abrupt revolution in our way of life, we have two difficulties : first, we only see at first hand the changes as they affect us, and our daily experience has no guarantee of being representative of a national scene; and second, we have great difficulty in standing far enough away from the rubbing edge of change where friction is greatest, in order to see the changes in a longer perspective.

One would like to think that our national policies for a multicultural Australia have within them the seed from which can,grow a new kind of poly­ ethnic Australia with a capacity for even-handed social justice irrespective of a person's ethnic or class origins. New for Australia, since we have until only recently lived with the myth of a monocultural society; and perhaps new for human societies which have tended to profess equality while preaching discrimination. Who can help but be fascinated by the future? References

1. CHIPMAN L "Ethnicity" in TAY A E-S (ed) Teaching Human Rights, Australian National Commission for UNESCO, 1981. pp 13T-2

2. BANTON M. "The Two Ethnicities" Journal of Intercultural Studies 3 (1) 1982 pp 25-35

3. GILES H. Language, Ethnicity and Intergroup Relations New York, Academic Press, 1977.

4. see AUSTRALIAN POPULATION AND IMMIGRATION COUNCIL A Decade of Migrant Settlement Canberra, AGPS, 1976.

5. BURNLEY I.H. "European Immigration Settlement Patterns in Metropolitan Sydney," Australian Geographical Studies, 10, 1972 pages 61-78

6. PRICE CA The Ethnic Composition of the Australian People Catholic Intercultural Resource Centre Reprint (n.d.) p. 13

7. see HUBER R "People of the Mediterranean" in LEE I (ed) Communication, Cultural . -4 Diversity and the Health Professional, Sydney Teachers College 1981, pp 205-216.

8. see SMOLICZ JJ & SECOMBE MJ, The Australian School through Children's Eyes - a Polish-Australian View Melbourne, Melbourne University Press, 1981

9. See, for example, PUTNINS A.L. Latvians in Australia - Alienation and Assimilation Canberra, ANU Press, 1981 UNIKOSKI, R. Communal Endeavours - Migrant Organisations in Melbourne, Canberra, ANU Press, 1978

10. For example, immigrants from Baltic countries, 1947-1951 were directed to work under contract for two years, often in isolated areas.

11. AUSTRALIAN GOVERNMENT COMMISSION OF INQUIRY INTO POVERTY, Welfare of Migrants Canberra, AGPS, 1975.

12. NATIONAL POPULATION INQUIRY, Population and Australia - Recent Demographic Trends and their Implications, Canberra, AGPS, 1978, pp 49-51

13. OVERBERG, H "Dutch in Victoria 1947-1980 - Community and Ideology" in Journal of Intercultural Studies ,2(1) 1981 pp 17-36 References (continued)

14. see PITTARELLO A. "Soup without Salt" - The Australian Catholic Church and the Italian Migrant, Sydney, Centre for Migration Studies, 1980

15. MEADE P The Educational Experience of Sydney High School Students Canberra, AGPS 1983.

16. BASSETT G.W. (3 articles in Australian Journal of Education) 2 (2) 1958 PP 79-90, 5 (1) 1961 pp 11-21, 15(2) 1971 pP211-214 McKEVITT 0 and DOUGLAS G. "The Occupational Background of Beginning Teachers" in Australian Journal of Education 17 (1) 1973 pp69-79.

17. HODGE A.A. Teachers and Ethnic Identity Sydney Teachers College 1979 (unpublished monograph)

18. see DE LEPERVANCHE M in ENCEL S and BRYSON L Australian Society 4th Edition, Melbourne, Longman-Cheshire 1984 PIORE M.J. Birds of Passage Cambridge University Press 1979. . j f 19. see COMMITTEE OF REVIEW OF AIMA, Report to the Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs, Canberra AGPS 1983.

20. MANNING CLARK C.H. Occasional Writings and Speeches Melbourne, Fontana Collins 1980, p120.

21. So many of these terms caught the popular imagination when first used by the first Minister for Immigration in the new Labor government of 1972, Mr A.J. Grassby.

22. For example: MARTIN J.I. The Migrant Presence Sydney, Geo Allen & Unwin 1978. BULLIVANT B.M. The Pluralist Dilemma in Education, Sydney, Geo Allen & Unwin 1981.

23. See for example: LEVER C,. Migrants in the Australian Workforce Melbourne, Latrobe Sociology Papers, 1977 COLLINS J. The Political Economy of Post-War Immigration in WHEELWRIGHT EL and BUCKLEY K Essays in the Political Economy of Australian Capitalism Vol I, Sydney, ANZ Book Co 1975. JAKUBOWICZ A. The Nature of Multiculturalism - Liberation or Co-option CHOMI Reprint, No 401 Melbourne, Clearing House on Migration Issues 1980 24. This concept is explored fully in PIORE M.J. op. cit.