Call to remember the old Order of Australia

It is these non-English speaking origins that distinguish the Forgotten Ethnic Generation from other migrants in the same age bracket. Unlike their counterparts from countries such as England, Ireland, Scotland, and New Zealand, where there are many commonalities, the obstacles to cultural adjustment encountered by members of the Forgotten Ethnic Generation were far more pronounced. A fact reiterated perhaps by the failure of Mother and Son to translate in some foreign markets. Italians apparently found the show insulting to mothers (what this might say about Italy’s celebrated mummy’s boy mentality is best left to the legion of frazzled wives and girlfriends).

Other key points of distinction for the Forgotten Ethnic Generation include preferred choice of attire and diet (the importance of familiar food is far more intense and deep-seated than many give credit for), religious and spiritual sensibilities, favoured forms of entertainment (music especially) and established social conventions regarding gender and extended family hierarchies and responsibilities.

Unfortunately, duty to tradition presented particular difficulties in the early 20th century due to the overwhelming shadow that hung over everyone of that era: the war - or to be precise, wars plural - the consequences of which drastically affected the acceptance of, and desire to maintain, overt cultural affiliations with a land and a citizenry beyond the one of desired settlement.

There are few Australians who can truly comprehend the impact of growing up in the aftermath of one world war only to be thrown headlong into another. With so few countries spared from some kind of political or military involvement, it was not simply a matter of crossing a border to safety.

Finding a place of lasting sanctuary was not easy and advertising one's background and allegiances not always wise, with Australia no exception.

By 1930 the Australian Government had instituted a virtual ban on entry for all non-British Europeans, only a year after they had terminated the assisted immigration scheme. The only exceptions to non-entry were those who could demonstrate suitable wealth or the presence of relatives already in Australia.

Then a decade later, in September 1940, the HMT (Her Majesty’s Transport) Dunera arrived in Sydney bearing a cargo of British “enemy aliens” - German and Austrian Jews who had fled the Nazis but whose ties to those former homelands deigned them an unacceptable security risk. The next May they were followed by the first Italian prisoners of war to arrive in Australia.

Clearly, this was not a time for aspiring migrants to stand out too noticeably; to highlight obvious points of differentiation. To risk being allied with the enemy or denied refuge altogether. So signs of nationality were often kept hidden from view, keepsakes and mementos were secreted away, and accents suppressed as best as could be managed.

People focused instead on keeping their head down, not creating a fuss and getting themselves and their family swiftly out of harm’s way. Then with luck, finding some sort of job to put food on the table and a roof overhead.

It was this foremost instinct to survive that infused much of their unassuming attitude toward home-life and work-life. Perspectives that make an intriguing contrast to their Ethnic Baby Boomer offspring who are just as much a product of their own circumstances, but whose circumstances were a world away from the generations preceding and the generations to follow.

Among Ethnic Baby Boomers, for example, the defining temperament is (or at least was) one of unbridled confidence; optimism over stoicism, assertiveness over acquiescence, and transition over tradition. Whereas their parents “learned to make do and feel grateful for whatever they had”, their Boomer offspring believed the world was ripe for the picking and they were the ones ready to reap the benefits. Theirs was an era of exploration and experimentation; maximum indulgence with minimal inhibition.

More crucially for the Ethnic Baby Boomers, many of whom were born in Australia, was a desire to leave behind the horrors of their parent’s darkest days, to break the shackles of the history and embrace the opportunities of life in the Lucky Country. True to the spirit of the Me Generation, they wished to forge their own path and speak with their own voice without feeling unduly encumbered by the way things used to be done back in their parent’s day, in places far, far away.