Reference List

Australian Government. (2009, 2010). Fact Sheet 8 - Abolition of the 'White Australia' Policy, 2011, from http://www.immi.gov.au/media/fact-sheets/08abolition.htm

Commonwealth Government of Australia. (1901). Immigration Restrictions Act 1901. Retrieved from http://vrroom.naa.gov.au/records/?ID=19096

Commonwealth Government of Australia. (1921). Young Immigrants Arriving in Australia, 2011, from http://vrroom.naa.gov.au/records/?ID=19447

Commonwealth Government of Australia. (1927). Directions for applying the Dictation Test, 1927, 2011, from http://vrroom.naa.gov.au/records/?ID=25257

Commonwealth Government of Australia. (1928). Australia - The Land of Opportunity, 2011, from http://vrroom.naa.gov.au/records/?ID=18887

Commonwealth Government of Australia. (1932). Dictation Test. Retrieved from http://vrroom.naa.gov.au/records/?ID=24632

Commonwealth Government of Australia. (1945). Oppose tilts at White Australia: A.L.P for Race Purity, 2011, from http://vrroom.naa.gov.au/records/?ID=19458

Commonwealth Government of Australia. (1964). Making Australia Home, 2011, from http://vrroom.naa.gov.au/records/?ID=19152

Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. (1972). The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception. In J. Cumming (Ed.), Dialectic of Enlightenment. New York: Continuum Press.

Killen, R. (2007). Effective Teaching Strategies: Lessons from Research and Practice (4th ed.). South Melbourne: Thomson Social Science Press.

Kumaravadivelu, B. (2008). The Other side of Othering. Independence, 43, 17-18.

The Learning Federation. (2007). Exemption from the Dictation Test: 1908 - asset 1, from http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/for_teachers/sample_curriculum_content/tm_-_civics_and_citizenship.html?showcaseObjectID=2138

Marcus, A. (2006). Representing the Past and Reflecting the Present: Museums, Memorials, and the Secondary History Classroom. The Social Studies, 98(3), 105-110.

Museum Victoria. (2010, 25 January 2011). 1900s-1920s: An Assisted Journey, 2011, from http://museumvictoria.com.au/discoverycentre/websites-mini/journeys-australia/1900s20s/

NSW Board of Studies. (2003). History Years 7-10 Syllabus. Sydney: Board of Studies NSW.

Powell, M. (Writer) (1966). They're a weird mob. In M. Powell (Producer). Australia, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdfsrhRimZ0

Robertson, K., Hohmann, J., & Stewart, I. (2005). Dictating to One of "Us": The Migration of Mrs Freer. Macquarie Law Journal, 12.

Seixas, P. (2006). What is Historical Consciousness? In R. Sandwell (Ed.), To the Past: History education, public memory, and citizenship in Canada (pp. 11-22). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Sherratt, T. (2010). Liberating Lives: Invisible Australians and Bibliographical Networks, from http://discontents.com.au/shoebox/archives-shoebox/liberating-lives

For the Educator

Powell, M. (Writer) (1966). They're a weird mob. In M. Powell (Producer). Australia, from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdfsrhRimZ0

This online exhibit is relevant not only to our national history, but also to history education. Using this exhibit would be beneficial for students completing stage 5 History as it is an engaging form of visual learning to enhance a student’s understanding and comprehension of the concepts within the Immigration Restriction Act. As noted in the NSW syllabus, students would learn to “outline the reasons for the introduction of the Immigration Restriction Act 1901, and explain how the Immigration Restriction Act 1901 was used to restrict immigration”;  while learning about “the origins and implementation of the Immigration Restriction Act 1901” (NSW Board of Studies, 2003, p.31).

This exhibit would be effective to use in a lesson by using a role-play technique. Role-plays assist students in developing their empathy skills by placing them in a situation that requires a deeper element of understanding while placing their own interpretation on the situation (Killen, 2007). Students will be given an introduction to the task through teacher directed discussion regarding the topic. During this introduction, students will be shown a short clip from the movie “They’re a weird mob’’ (Powell, 1966). It is expected that from this clip students will gain a better understanding of the difficulties faced by new Australians, as well as giving them an insight as to how they can incorporate such situations in to their role-plays. Once the students have a superficial understanding of the topic, the class would utilise this web site and analyse the articles to gain a better understanding of what life would have been like for people living in Australia during the early 1900’s. Students will be given the opportunity to present their role-play in costume and character while adhering to set criteria.

Resource to be used:

Role-play empathy task. Students are to submit as a group, a rationale of the choices made regarding their intended role-play. The class is to form into groups of approximately five students. Each individual is also required to complete a separate component consisting of ten questions, and hand it to the teacher separately.

 

Each group will have a different immigrant coming through customs randomly distributed by the teacher.

The immigrant roles may include:

• A person or family from a European background who gets through immigration easily
• A Chinese person or family with an exemption certificate(s)
• A coloured person or family without an exemption certificate, but the money to pay their way through
• A European person or family who speaks a little English, but would otherwise meet all of the criteria
• A Chinese person or family coming to Australia for the first time with no exemption certificate

All groups would have:

• An Immigration official
• An official who reads out the dictation test if required

Groups will be required to establish whether the immigrant assigned to them will be required to undertake the dictation test.

The Construction of Historical Consciousness

Teachers are acutely aware of the importance of historical awareness for their students. The role that institutions such as the National Archives of Australia has in the protection of this consciousness is critical to its survival. As demonstrated by the artefacts shown in this exhibit, without access to places such as this, along with museums, websites, text books and films, awareness of history would be virtually non-existent. History supports our existence, if only we think to look, and students need to be able relate the past to the present (Seixas, 2006). Yet the construction of historical awareness seems to be placed mainly in the hands of institutions such as these.

Communism blamed for race impurity

Article found in the Sunday Sun 17 June 1945

Commonwealth Government of Australia. (1945). Oppose tilts at White Australia: A.L.P for Race Purity, 2011, from http://vrroom.naa.gov.au/records/?ID=19458

This newspaper artefact highlights the conflict that evolved over the policy between the Australian labour Party and the Communist Party. It was national belief at the time, that an abolishment of the policy could allow for non Europeans to dominate the country, and the Japanese at that!

There was an important point made in the article with Mr Roper stating “we have to remember Australia stands adjacent today to two thirds of the human race most of whom are coloured” (Commonwealth Government of Australia, 1945). In contrast, was the fact that by the early 1900’s the Japanese divers showed unrivalled skill in diving in the pearl industry in Broome, they were exempted from immigration restrictions (Australian Government, 2009). This highlights how the government at the time had the ultimate power and tenacity to allow whomever they valued or needed to achieve their goals for the nation.

These days Australia's current Migration Program allows anyone from any country to apply for migration to Australia, no matter their ethnicity, culture, religion or language, as long as they meet legal criteria.

The Gee Family

Certificate exempting Mrs Gee from sitting the dictation test

The Gee family

The Learning Federation. (2007). Exemption from the Dictation Test: 1908 - asset 1, from http://www.thelearningfederation.edu.au/for_teachers/sample_curriculum_content/tm_-_civics_and_citizenship.html?showcaseObjectID=2138

This artefact is a certificate of exemption from the dictation test, and had to be used by those who wished to regain entry into Australia after leaving for a period of time, those who were not ‘obviously’ of European descent. Without this certificate, the applicant could, upon their return, not be permitted to re-enter Australia. To obtain these certificates required the applicant to have lived in Australia for a minimum of five years and to be of good character. 

The certificate would also detail the purpose of the trip and with whom they were travelling, for example a husband and/or children. As demonstrated in the above photograph, the full front and side profiles are included, with full details of nationality, height, age, build and finite details of complexion and marks on their skin. 

Such an artefact supports other evidence of the extent of “legal discrimination” upon non-Europeans under the White Australia Policy. The Gee family for instance, was one such family. Mr Go and Mrs Hin Gee were married in Australia and rearing their children who were also born in Australia in the early 1900’s. However this family were required to produce an exemption certificate upon their return to the country any time they wished to visit family in China. Attached to this exemption certificate was the photograph that identified members of the Gee family. This exemption from the dictation test was only valid if Mrs Gee returned to Australia within three years of her departure.

Sherratt (2010) believes technology has allowed possibilities of exploration into the lives of these marginalised and powerless travelers. Further, he suggests “making best use of the technology of emotions and representation — how you use words and pictures and a story to impact, not just on what people think, but what they see in their mind’s eye”.

Making Australia Home

Newly arrived Dutch immigrants disembarking in Sydney

Dutch immigrants arriving into Darwin

Commonwealth Government of Australia. (1964). Making Australia Home, 2011, from http://vrroom.naa.gov.au/records/?ID=19152

Commonwealth Government of Australia. (1921). Young Immigrants Arriving in Australia, 2011, from http://vrroom.naa.gov.au/records/?ID=19447

History is represented through these photographs as they are two of several images that were seen during advertising campaigns throughout Australia and Britain. Many ‘white’ immigrants can be seen smiling, happy, well dressed and obvious healthy human ‘stock’ to add to Australia’s prosperity.

These photographs continue with the cultural industry that has so far been embedded in the Immigration Restriction Act through the continued vision of a ‘white’ Australia. Those British citizens already in Australia as well as those still in Britain would see these photographs as evidence of a country that is just how they imagined it would be: Bright and sunny days welcoming new European arrivals into a land of opportunity. Not an Asian or ‘coloured’ person in sight.

Photographs such as these tell a story to students through recreating the past that words alone are unable to construct. Artefacts like photographs can develop a students’ empathy by allowing personal connections to people alive over a century before their birth (Marcus, 2006).

A Call for British Men and Women

A propaganda poster found in England, stating the need for British men and women to immigrate to Australia.

Commonwealth Government of Australia. (1928). Australia - The Land of Opportunity, 2011, from http://vrroom.naa.gov.au/records/?ID=18887

History is represented in this artefact through the use of propaganda that is aimed toward only British men and women. It supports the ideals that are purported in the Immigration Act of 1901 by its use of effective advertising.

 

From the 1920’s the government extended their efforts into advertising Australia as the new land of opportunity. As this poster suggests, the appeal is not just for men who can work, but also for their families, encouraging growth and prosperity as the all-white country that the Act endorsed. The mythology that Australia was a country with plenty of opportunity was true to those of British descent, while at the same time being a myth to others. This propaganda poster existed to serve national mythology on social and political levels to inspire immigration of the most desired British stock.

 

This poster is an artefact of cultural industry as it had become evident that after World War 2, Australia required a larger population if it ever had to become involved in war again. Along with the offers advertised in this poster there were also the offers of assisted passage to Australia, and land grants for when these new immigrants arrived (Museum Victoria, 2010). Thus creating a ‘need’ where there previously stood a ‘want’, yet marketing Australia as a gift that none should miss out on. The poster indicates a shared value between Australia and Britain regarding the desired composition of Australia’s population.

 

The poster tells us that Australia was in need of immigrants to assist in populating the young country. Yet it did not want to invite just anyone. The fact that the government chose to include only British immigrants, ultimately lead to the exclusion of others. Students require knowledge such as this as it would partially explain why Australia, along with other countries, adopted immigration policies.

The Dictation Test and How to apply it

Rules for applying the dictation test

Rules for applying the dictation test continued

Dictation test examples

Commonwealth Government of Australia. (1932). Dictation Test, 2011, from     http://vrroom.naa.gov.au/records/?ID=24632
Commonwealth Government of Australia. (1927). Directions for applying the Dictation Test, 1927, 2011, from http://vrroom.naa.gov.au/records/?ID=25257

These tests provided central political tools in the quest to control Australia’s immigrant population from Federation in 1901.
 

The dictation test was a key element to the Act and correlated directly with race, as it was “randomly” administered to non-whites and Asians as a reason to reject entry or to deport those least desired.

The design of the test was fool-proof by administering the test in an alien tongue that the applicant’s background suggested they would not know, supporting grounds of deportation or entry rejection (Robertson, Hohmann & Stewart, 2005). 

While the dictation test was under-pinned with notions of racism, the purpose of the test was to “serve as an absolute bar to such person’s entry into Australia, or as a means of depriving him of the right to remain… if he has already landed” (Commonwealth of Australia, 1932, p.1). Therefore to placate Australia’s ally’s such as the Japanese, the tests were advertised as being for educational purposes, yet slyly allowed racism.

This artefact supports the construction of ‘Invisible Australians’ by ostracising the lives of coloured Australians with established lives post-migration, by subjecting them to demoralising and dehumanising proof of worthiness.

As Horkheimer and Adorno (1972, p.126) suggest, the “whole world is made to pass through the filter of the culture industry”, the resemblance is evident with migrants passing through the filter of Australia’s dictation test.

Exposition of the dictation test artefacts to students would significantly highlight the negative impacts politics can have and endure not only on that generation, but many to follow. As citizens of Australia and the globe, students now have the right to question such policies, whereas their forefathers did not. This societal change can introduce students to the wider social impacts of cultures and the way they can be ostracised.

Immigration Restriction Act (1901)

An Act to place certain restrictions on Immigration and to provide for the removal from the Commonwealth of prohibited Immigrants

Parchment, cotton and wax. Dimensions: 400mm long x 320mm wide.

Commonwealth Government of Australia. (1901). Immigration Restrictions Act 1901, 2011, from http://vrroom.naa.gov.au/records/?ID=19096

During the gold rush of the 1800’s, Chinese immigration reached a peak and the Australian government sought to restrict economic competition. Therefore post-federation, this Immigration Policy was enacted to cement this goal. 

This Act represents the fear Australians had at the turn of the century toward races other than European. The fear was immigrants from other races would provide cheap labour, limiting the available employment to existing British citizens and for those more desirable European races.

Horkheimer and Adorno (1972) espouse the notions of cultural industry through creating a perceived need. The Act addresses that need by allowing legal racism under the guise of the protection of a pure Australia. 

“European culture defined itself by placing itself at the top of a scale against which all other societies or groups within a society were judged." (Kumaravadivelu, 2008, p.17) This viewpoint clearly highlights the discourse of intercultural communication as endorsed by Edward Hall, surviving generations of interculturalists. (Kumaravadivelu, 2008) 

In the multicultural Australia of today, it would be difficult for students to imagine an Australia so opposed to cultures other than European, that historical artefacts such as this are necessary to construct the knowledge required to empathise with this era. Students reading this Act in today’s culture would be horrified at such terms adopted such as “any idiot or insane person” (Commonwealth of Australia, 1901), which is in juxtaposition to contemporary politically correct terminology.