宅男导航

Dr Nathan D. Gardner Molina is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Melbourne taking part in an ARC Discovery Project to produce a history of Australia鈥檚 community sponsorship programs for refugee resettlement. As a historian of Australia鈥檚 immigration and ethnic diversity, he delivered the 2024 Hancock Lecture for Australian Academy of Humanities,聽What Makes a Multicultural Nation?

Congratulations on the release of your insightful new book, In the Face of Diversity! Tell us a bit about your academic background and how this project came to be.

The idea for this project came from seeing Chairman Mao Zedong at a tram stop one day in 2016: his face was on the front cover of The Age under the title 鈥淐ontroversial Chairman Mao tribute concerts sharpen Chinese community divide鈥�. More than the concerts themselves, I was struck by the title鈥檚 implied unity of a singular 鈥淐hinese community鈥� and that such divisions were somehow new or unusual. As I鈥檓 fascinated by the social and political aspects of Australia鈥檚 immigration, multiculturalism and diasporas, I used this idea of unity and diversity to explore the manifold histories of Chinese Australian communities and the organisations that represent them.

What were some of the biggest challenges you encountered during the research process?

There were some things that were difficult in a 鈥渟traightforward鈥� way; for example, trying to read the handwritten Chinese characters on some of the grainy photocopies of community newsletters. Attuning myself with the sense of humour of some authors or the unexpected views I came across in these newsletters could also be tricky; sometimes I asked native Mandarin-speaking colleagues to check my translations to make sure I wasn鈥檛 misunderstanding some dry piece of wit or provocative remark! Something else entirely was the challenge to keep sight of both 鈥渢he trees鈥� (the individual community organisations) and 鈥渢he forest鈥� (the general patterns produced by these organisations in response to a particular issue) when writing this work. Striking a balance between these two perspectives made editing the work challenging, too.

In the Face of Diversity is divided into seven chapters, each covering a distinct historical moment that galvanised the political and social activity of Chinese Australian community organisations. How did you decide on this structure for the book?

The structure of the book was basically decided for me. As I developed my archive of community-produced materials, I quickly saw that it was these historical moments (such as the turn to multiculturalism, the Blainey debate, etc.) that were eliciting responses and actions from community organisations that departed from their regular events or operations in a remarkable way. As I delved into these historical moments, I began to see how the range of responses and actions taken by these community organisations were informed by their own unique compositions, histories, locations and so on. This structure allowed me to see how some Chinese Australian communities and organisations could align on certain issues and remain divided on others.

This book draws on both Chinese- and English-language archival materials. In what ways does examining texts from different languages and traditions enrich the historical record?

I really like this idea that Samia Khatun raised in her book Australianama which was the necessity to challenge the 鈥渃rushing monolingualism鈥� of Australian history. I think there is a related imperative to challenge the monoculturalism of Australian history. Before British colonisation, this land hosted many cultures and, on the one hand, while this reality didn鈥檛 change after British occupation, on the other hand, the ethnic cleansing, erasure of languages and violent assimilationism perpetuated by British colonial forces since 1788 has consequently produced a very monocultural and monolingual account of Australia鈥檚 past. Using different languages allows us to move beyond these 鈥渕ono-perspectives鈥� and renovate and restore the historical record.聽

What do you think the future holds for Chinese Australian communities? Do you see new challenges or opportunities emerging?

I don鈥檛 think historians are in the business of making predictions about the future, but I do hope that non-Chinese Australians eventually lose their preoccupations about the existence of a monolithic 鈥淐hinese (Australian) community鈥�. For example, speculation about which way the 鈥淐hinese vote鈥� is going to go at each election represents these kind of assumptions that stack together like nesting dolls: the first, biggest assumption is the existence of an ethnic voting block, and inside that is an assumption that the ethnicity of that voting bloc invariably and irrevocably ties it to China, and inside that is an assumption that the defining issue for that bloc is therefore Sino-Australian relations and so on until we鈥檙e left with the last doll that is this basic and essential assumption of difference between Chinese and non-Chinese Australians. As such assumptions were at the root of many of the 鈥渄ebates鈥� covered in the book, I think Chinese and non-Chinese Australian communities alike will need to continue challenging these assumptions for as long as they exist.

If readers take away one key idea from your book, what would you hope it to be?

In relation to the above, when people hear or read references to 鈥淐hinese Australia鈥�, 鈥淐hinese Australians鈥� or the 鈥淐hinese Australian community鈥�, I hope that, after reading my book, they will instinctively ask 鈥渨hich one?鈥� I want people to question the generalisations and think about the diversity of Chinese Australian communities (and the diversity of the people within them) instead. It would go some way to seeing the myriad communities and histories that comprise multicultural Australia.