177 Nations of Tasmania: Recent Episodes
Mark Thomson
177 Nations of Tasmania is a podcast project with the challenge to broadcast interviews with at least one member of all 177 of the nationalities represented in Tasmania's last census and find out about why they came to Tasmania, what they brought with them ( experiences, culture, traditions, skills, ideas etc), and the experience of settling on a small and fairly isolated island state not known for being very multicultural.
As of late 2025, the number of New Zealanders living in Australia was estimated to be around 700,000 - a huge number for such a small country, reflecting the close relationship between our two countries. In Tasmania, it's estimated there are about 5000 New Zealanders living here, making them one of the top 5 migrant groups.
It's assumed often that New Zealanders are very similar to use and don't have many challenges to settle in here, but the true picture is more complex.
One thing that distinguishes New Zealand from Australia is the influence of Maori culture, something which until fairly recently was repressed. Olive grew up in a small farming community near Gisborne, a small city on the east side of the North Island. Her mother and grandmother were strong influences during her younger years and gave her a connection with Maori culture and her grandmother, in particular, practised traditional Maori healing.
Losing her mother and grandmother at the age of 16 was a deeply traumatic event for Olive and for a while she fell into some unhealthy coping mechanisms. Most of her family also migrated to Melbourne and, pregnant with her first child, she joined them to be near family support.
It was around ten years ago that Olive met a Tasmanian man, who she later married, and was part of the reason that brought her to Tasmania. The other was a slightly more spiritual reason, which you will her about in the podcast.
You will also hear how during the COVID pandemic and the lockdown in Melbourne lead to Olive reconnecting with the Maori language and culture through online communities, something she now also shares within her local community in Tasmania.
El Salvador is a small Central American nation that has suffered from a multitude of hardships over many decades, include civil wars, a brutal military dictatorship, crippling poverty and violent crime. This has led to a large exodus of the population escaping, through both legal and illegal channels, to countries like the USA, Canada, Mexico and Australia. In fact Australia is home to the third-largest population of Salvadoreans outside the country itself.
Roque came with his family to settle in northern Tasmania in the early 90s as a result of the civil war that lasted from 1981 to 1992. Australia accepted some 10,000 Salvadoreans during this time as a part of its Humanitarian Resettlement program, and Tasmania received several hundred of those.
Roque chose Australia over USA or other countries because he wanted to be as far away from El Salvador and its problems as he could, but with no English when he came, settling in near the small city of Devonport was quite a challenge at the beginning.
However, as Roque says, he met some angels in Tasmania, almost by chance, who helped him with work and even build a house, and ultimately let him put down roots in Latrobe.
Cuba is a country that really stands out amongst Latin American nations because of the revolution in 1959. Since then they have lived under the rule of a Communist dictatorship and for most of that time also under severe sanctions from the United States, both of which have create severe hardship for the people of Cuba, both in material terms and also in terms of the lack of civic freedoms. This has resulted in large numbers of Cubans leaving the country over the years to seek a better life in countries such as the USA, Canada, Spain or other parts of Latin America. Not a lot come to Australia, because it is very difficult both practically and financially.
Alfredo is perhaps then a bit of a pioneer, who arrived in Hobart in July 2025 from Ecuador, where he spent 12 years previously. His first goal was to improve his English, but his main goal is to find a safe place for his family to settle. Like many migrating from South America, safety and security were major considerations.
But despite the hardships that drove him away from Cuba, Alfredo remembers his childhood fondly, as he grew up in a place that was safe and security and where there was a strong sense of community around and people helped each other out. It was only later in life that he started to question the ideology that he had drummed into him religiously from a young age, as the reality that he experienced no longer seemed to match the government line.
Alfredo is also a writer, having self-published books on dentistry, he's also written books for children and is working on a fantasy novel as well. On top of this, he has started teaching kickboxing in Hobart as well, and that reflects a theme that kept coming up in our interview that Alfredo values service to others.
Trinidad and Tobago is one of the larger nations of what is often known in the West Indies. It's known for its tropical beaches, its coral reefs, its steel drums and the Caribbean's biggest carnival celebration. In Australia, it is also associated with world-class cricketers like Brian Lara.
Rodney grew up in a couple of small close-knit communities on the north coast of Trinidad and has great memories of his childhood there.
Life took a darker turn for him later in life though, and family circumstances meant that he was better off going to live with his mother in New York at the age of 15. His experiences in Trinidad and seeing the growing influence of the illegal drug trade, influenced Rodney's decision to study a degree in Criminal Justice in New York.
However, it was during his degree that he made an online gamer friend from Tasmania, and cutting a long story short, he came to Tasmania to live in 2018. After the stress and tension of life in New York, Tasmania felt like a return to home and the more close-knit of community he had grown up with in Trinidad.
It can be easy to forget that English is not the only indigenous language of Britain, and indeed Welsh, still spoken by around 600,000, has its roots far deeper in the history of ancient Britain. Wales is a land of mythical folk tales, rolling hills, magnificent choral singing traditions, passion for rugby and so much more. Though perhaps clichees, although these contribute to a distinctive Welsh identity, which can still be seen in faraway places like Tasmania, which has long received Welsh migrants ( and convicts).
Huw is one of the more recent arrivals from Wales having come to settle in 2021. His partner had arrived in early 2020 to take up a position at the University of Tasmania. Due to a succession of misfortunes and tribulations, such as a global pandemic, Huw couldn't make it until much later.
Huw grew up in a very rural area of north-west Wales and was brought up in a Welsh-speaking household, and indeed, English wasn't introduced into his schooling until he was 7 years of age. As we discuss in this episode, language, especially having more than one, can have a big impact on shaping how one sees the world and Welsh is no exception.
Growing up on a farm where everyone had to pitch in, meant Huw developed a strong sense of community, something which he has found resonance with in Tasmania also.
Ingrid hails from the tiny island nation of Saint Lucia, a lushCaribbean island known for its volcanic peaks, vibrant Creole culture, and status as the only country named after a woman. With a population of around 180,000, Saint Lucia blends African, French, and British influences, and though its official language is English, many speak Saint Lucian Creole.
Ingrid trained as a physician in Cuba on a Saint Luciangovernment scholarship, worked in paediatrics, and later took on various public health roles across the Caribbean. She made a big move to study Master’s degree in Adelaide, where she met herpartner—but it was the appeal of small-city life that drew her to Hobart for her Ph.D.
Now based at the Menzies Institute, she’s deep into healtheconomics research and has found a second home in Tasmania—one that, surprisingly, shares much with her island roots.
Lobelia’s story begins in the Solomon Islands, a Pacific nation comprising over a thousand islands scattered southeast of New Guinea.
Growing up in a small, remote village on one of the six main islands, she experienced a simple and traditional village lifestyle, with no technology and few of the modern convenience we take for granted now.
At the end of her high school, life in the Solomons took a dramatic turn when the country was gripped by significant ethnic conflict and social unrest. This period of instability was so severe that it required intervention from theinternational community, including Australian police forces, to help restore peace and order. For three years Lobelia stayed at home with her family in their village, not quite sure where her life was going to go.
Once stability was re-established, Lobelia’s decided join the local police force. She later advanced her career by working in the Maritime Division, where she got to see life on some of the remote islands. She also had the opportunity for further training at Australian Maritime College in Launceston, and it was here she first met Craig, who would become her future husband.
After marrying Craig, Lobelia made the big move to Launceston, Tasmania in 2017. Like many migrants to the region, she faced the challenge of starting over professionally and just building a social circle. She decided to do a course in Horticulture at Tafe Tasmania, and now runs her own gardening business.
Laos, a Southeast Asian country of about 7 million people,is known for its Buddhist traditions and vibrant food culture. Outhay grew up in the capital, Vientiane, helping her family run a 24-hour convenience store where everyone pitched in. Memories of both the abundance and scarcity of foodshaped her childhood.
After studying English at university, Outhay worked ingovernment administration, where she met Roger, a Tasmanian geologist working in Laos. Romance developed gradually, and laws in Laos had significant penalties for Lao women having relationships with foreign men, meaning they had to bite the bullet and they got married in 2005.
In 2006, Outhay moved to a farm in Wilmot, north-westTasmania. She connected with the local community through playgroups with herchildren and became known for her spring rolls. Later, she retrained by studying cooking at TAFE, worked at a café, and completed a chef’s apprenticeship—earning Tasmania’s Apprentice of the Year in 2016.
Yemen is a country that gets little attention despite being at the centre of one of the greatest humanitarian crises in the world, as declared by the UNHCR in 2025.
There is not space enough here to describe all the events that have led to such a crisis, including civil war, an overthrow of the government and in 2015 a Saudi-led mass bombing of the country, but the results have seen a catastrophic collapse in living standards, large-scale hunger and instability.
In other words, not the kind of environment parents would want their children to grow up in.
This was the view of Khaled's parents in 2015, as missiles rained down in their neighbourhood, destroying many buildings around them, and this was the first step to Khaled coming to Tasmania.
Coming to Hobart to study a Business and Finance degree, Khaled could scarcely have come to a more contrasting environment. A place that was peaceful and quiet, even a bit too quiet, and it took Khaled a while also to adjust to western culture. Despite this, he has truly made a lot of his opportunity to develop his skills, creative pursuits and character. This included completing a novel during the pandemic while he was struggling to find work after graduating.
Of course, it goes without saying, that the situation in Yemen is still very unstable, and in this episode, Khaled speaks of the fears for family still living back home.
The Isle of Man, or Manx, is a self-governing dependency of the United Kingdom, located between Great Britain and Ireland, and has been influenced by the cultures of both. It's known for being an offshore tax haven and a centre for gambling companies. It also has the oldest continuously-running parliament, the Tynwald, which is claimed to be over 1000 years old. There is also the Manx tongue, a Celtic language spoken by little over 2000 people, but which has undergone a recent revival.
With a population of around 80,000, it is perhaps a surprise to find a Manxer on another island on the other side of the world.
It was Ellie's love of boats and sailing that drew her away from the Isle of Man, first with a a sailing adventure across the Atlantic, then 6 months sailing around the Pacific. Her first contact with Tasmania though came through a circumnavigation of Australia on the tall ship the Endeavour .
It wasn't until years later, when Ellie became pregnant with her second child, that her and her Australian partner, made the decision that Tasmania would be the place they would settle and raise their children, and it's been a decision that Ellie hasn't regretted.
Music used in this episode is in the Manx language and is used under Creative Commons from Culture Vannin -
https://culturevannin.im/manxfolklore... . Culture Vannin exists to promote, supportand celebrate the culture of the Isle of Man.
Aymen's first experience of Australia was arriving at Sydney Airport with no English or knowledge of his new country and getting very lost and missing his connecting flight.
His lack of English was a problem at first, but his soccer skills helped him get involved with the local soccer community and this opened up social networks and job opportunities that Aymen took advantage of.
Aymen grew up in Khartoum, but at around the age of 18, the threat of enforced military service became very real and he decided to escape to Egypt, and after two years, he was able to join his brother in Tasmania.
Since arriving in Tasmania about a year ago, Michael has got somewhat accustomed to people questioning whether Benin is a real country - an indication of how little known his homeland is in Australia.
Benin is a small country in West Africa, squeezed between the much larger Nigeria and Togo. It was formerly part of a much larger Kingdom of Dahomey and was also one of the centres of the Atlantic slave trade. A legacy of this is seen in places like Haiti, Cuba, Brazil and New Orleans, where Voodoo is still practised, a belief system originating in Benin. In western culture this has become associated with pushing pins into dolls, but in Benin it is still a very much accepted bona fide religion.
Michael's story is remarkable other ways though. From a tough time as a child at a boarding school in Nigeria, to University studies in Ghana, where he'd secretly hoped to further his soccer career, he eventually got a scholarship to study agriculture in Israel. During his year in Israel he fell in love with a Filipina, and she was the eventual inspiration for him to come to Tasmania.
He arrived in Tasmania to study but with no contacts, little money, no secured accommodation and no partner ( her visa was rejected). His strategy for dealing with this situation and getting on his feet in Hobart was pretty unique and a really great story, which I'm not going to spoil here.
Oren was living in the middle of Melbourne with his partner during the COVID pandemic, when the city was put into regular lockdowns. This heightened the feeling of being stuck in a concrete jungle, and though not the only reason, it got Oren thinking about making a change. In 2021 he followed his partner down to Tassie, where she did a permaculture course and they did a farmstay down at Cygnet for 8 months...and the rest is history, as they say.Oren originally came to Australia to study Audio Engineering, and music and sound have been very much a part of his life. Indeed, some of his teenage musical influences lead him to questioning some of the aspects of Israeli society. This questioning came to a head when he left school and faced the obligatory 3 years' military service. Through a mixture of protest and negotiation, he ended up spending his time in a desk job in the Air Force. By the end of it, he was ready to jump back into the world of music and entertainment, and 18 months later he made the life-changing decision to move to Melbourne.Original music produced and composed by Oren Gerassi.https://borcho.com/ear-stimulants/
To mark Refugee Week 2024, here's a compilation of stories from five of the interviews I've done in the last 12 months that reflect different aspects of the refugee experience from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East.There's Ieva's story of her whole family walking 200km to get to the port of Riga to escape the oncoming Soviet Army, Sandra's tale of when a to-close-for-comfort missile attack was the final straw for her family to leave Damascus. Khadga explains how ethnic Nepalis were brutally imprisoned, threatened and expelled from Bhutan and Lawrence describes his memories of life of being a South Sudanese refugee in a camp in Uganda. Finally, Aubert explains part of the legacy for genocide survivors from Rwanda and the long-lasting effect it has.Image attribution under Creative Commons 2.0Creator: Mirek Pruchnicki Copyright: Mirek Pruchnicki | Flickr
Tunisia is a small northern African country, majority Muslim and Arabic-speaking, but also strongly connected with other cultures of the Mediterranean and North Africa.
Akram is, at least at the time of recording, the only Tunisian in Tasmania. Yet Tasmania was an intentional choice by Akram, who arrived here in 2023 with his Filippino wife and two young children. Previously they had been living in Qatar, where Akram had worked for around 10 years. He had originally moved there to take a job at the Sheraton Hotel.
Despite having done thorough research before arriving, there were some shocks. The first six months was quite a struggle but as Akram puts it, he learnt to be patient and accept new situations and now life is looking up for him and his family.
Music credit : "Sidi Mansour" - Ahmed Alshaiba ft Ahmed Mounib, Mazin Samih.
Malawi is a small country that fits like a thin sliver between the Zambia, Tanzania, Mozambique. It's become known as the "beating heart of Africa" for being a sanctuary for people from some of the war-torn and troubled nations nearby. With a population of around 19 million, it's also one of the continent's most densely populated.
Mwase's story begins by the shore of Lake Malawi, Africa's third largest lake and a feature of huge importance to the life and economy of the country. Although Mwase grew up in a small town, he was curious about the world and a backbacking trip around southern Africa opened his eyes to other cultures and lifestyles. When he returned to Malawi, he met an Australian volunteer, who he eventually married, and cutting a long story short. lead to his big move to Tasmania in the early 2000s.
Tasmania in the early 2000s was only just starting to see a few faces from Africa on the streets, and discrimination and finding a sense of community were just some of the challenges Mwase had to deal with. He became involved with community care work and incorporated his passion and skills in music into this, and has been involved in numerous musical projects in his time in Tasmania.
Bhutanese now make up Tasmania's largest refugee community, and also on of the major migrant populations living in the state. Yet many Tasmanians know little about them and their story.
In the early 90s many Bhutanese of Nepali ethnicity, were expelled from country, often with threats or actually use of violence, and forced to live in refugee camps in Nepal. For many years they lived in limbo in these camps, hoping to one day return to their former homeland.
In Khadga's case, he and his family lived in the camp for 19 years before being accepted for settlement in Australia. Through the research he had been able to do at the time, Khadga had come to the conclusion that Tasmania would be the best place for them to settle given it's similar climate and topography to Nepal.
Initial adjustments were tough but Khadga succeeded in getting first a qualification in Child Care, and then Nursing and Paramedics. He currently works as an Aged Care Nurse, but also is a co-owner of a business providing disability care.
Bosnia Herzegovina is perhaps sadly best known for the brutal war waged there in the 1990s between Serbs, Croats and Muslims. An estimated 100,000 were killed and millions became war refugees.
Mia, as a 4 year old , was one of those many that fled the war, and her family took refugee in Croatia, where she would grow up and receive her schooling.
At 18 years, Mia received a funny message on MySpace from some random Aussie guy. He was thinking to come to Croatia. They seemed to click and when they met Mia quickly felt she'd met the man she wanted to be with. A few years later she had moved to Launceston, Tasmania and got married. The first few years would prove to be a steep learning curve, both experiencing married life and a new culture.
In Croatia, she had studied Architecture, and though she would complete further studies to become qualified, her first job in Tasmania was actually in a surf shop.
Although Estonia is a small country far away on the other side of the world, there has been a long-standing, though small Estonian community since the aftermath of WW2, when many migrants from the Baltics settled in Tasmania.
Triin is a more recent arrival, having settled in Tasmania a bit over 10 years ago after a career in professional volleyball in Europe. In fact, volleyball is the main sport for women in Estonia, and was through this that she met her Tasmanian husband, who was also playing volleyball in Europe.
When they both reach the stage in the careers when retirement was looming, they had to make a decision as to where to live together, and Tasmanian seemed to be the most viable option.
Though in some ways, settling down in Tasmania was a relatively smooth process for Triin - she got work quickly and the language was never a problem, but there were some cultural differences that were a challenge to adapt to, not least the very different style of communication and social relations compared with the norm in Estonia.
Triin continues to play volleyball in Tasmania and help develop local players with the skills and knowledge that she brings from Europe.
We also discuss the Estonia love of foraging and choral singing, a strong feature of other Baltic cultures also.
Nubar was born in Egypt to Armenian parents, and grew up speaking Armenian, English and French rather than the majority language of the country, Arabic. After the revolution in Egypt in the 1950s and the rise of Arab nationalism in the region, many Armenians perceived they were going to be worse off and chose the emigrate to places like Australia, and Nubar's family were no exception.
Armenians have a long and rich history that goes back thousands of years, of migrating from their homeland in the Caucasus and settling in forming communities in many different parts of the world, but particularly the Middle East and Asia. It's a history well beyond the limits of this podcast, but Nubar's accounts of some of his family's history will perhaps give a taste of that history.
Nubar arrived in Melbourne with his family when was still school age and ended up initially having a career as a drama teacher, before pursuing and interest in filmmaking, which would ultimately lead to work as a lecturer at the Swinburne Film School in Melbourne. He currently lives on King Island, where his wife was born, a fairly remote island to the north-west of the Tasmanian mainland.
Although Papua New Guinea is one of Australia's closest neighbours, it's a place and a people that the average Australian is fairly ignorant of. It's probably not well known, but Papua New Guineans make up the largest of the Pasifika communities in Tasmania.
Anne is a PNG born and bred, but now works at the Devonport Library, absolutely miles away both physically and culturally , from her early years in different parts of Papua New Guinea.
As her father was an Anglican Minister, and later a Bishop, her family moved around PNG every few years, and so she talks about her memories in a small town in the PNG Highlands, contrasted with the city of Lae, the second largest city in PNG. Like many other Pacific Island countries, the concept of family is very different to that in Australia, with family extending to a much wider community and the bonds being much stronger.
Once Anne finished school, she came to Australia to study at Uni. She spent her first few years in Ballarat, but after graduating came to the NW of Tasmania, and after further study and some volunteering, ended up working as a librarian in Devonport.
There could hardly be two more contrasting places than Singapore and Tasmania.
Joanna originally left the hustle and bustle of Singapore to take a restful break in Tasmania on the recommendation of a friend. She was shown around Hobart by a man she later decided she would spend the rest of her life with.
Joanna had studied Design in Singapore, and later Psychology, but she ended up studying Nursing in Tasmania and working in the Aged Care sector. She would eventually combine these experiences to pursue her current career as an environmental gerontologist.
Her experience of Aged Care in Tasmania also proved invaluable when she returned to work in Singapore with her husband and did pioneering work in helping make changes in the way aged care services were delivered in Singapore.
Florian grew up in a the picturesque alpine region of the Austrian Tirol, in a small village near Innsbruck. For many, life in the Austrian alps might be considered quite idyllic, and possibly because of this, locals tended not to stray too far out of their local district. Therefore, when Florian sat down and told his parents he was going to Australia with his Brisbane-born wife, it was a really big deal.
The original plan had been to stay for 2 years, but it ended up getting extended, and after a stint in South Australia, Florian discovered the green hills of northern Tasmania were more to his liking and the connection he felt with the Tasmania landscape eventually lead to staying long term.
Despite some reservations by his parents initially, the long distance from home has actually helped Florian bond more strongly with his family and value some of the traditions of his homeland more than he did in the Tirol.
Ieva's family left Latvia as the German army was retreating in the face of the surging Red Army forces, in what proved to be a dramatic journey. They would eventually land in a refugee camp in Germany, and then it was a 6 year wait before they were accepted as migrants to Australia. It was not their first choice as they had wanted to follow other family members to USA or Canada. Like many war refugees, family members became separated across the globe.
Between 1947 and 1952 around 20,000 Latvians would migrate to Australia, making them amongst some of the earliest new post-war migrants to settle from post-war Europe. Like many Latvians, Ieva's family would eventually settle in Adelaide, and later she would marry a fellow Latvian living in Tasmania, and she has lived in Hobart for the last 60 years.
Ieva only returned to Latvia for the first time in 1990, as a part of an Australian Latvian choir invited to a cultural festival, at a time when the country was on the verge of independence. She was also the President of the Tasmanian Latvian Association for 35 years and has actively tried to maintain some Latvian traditions and language. Like many Latvian migrant communities around the world, traditions of Latvian choral singing have been kept alive, though maintaining many traditions with a small community is a big challenge.
The Netherlands and Tasmania have many ties . From the name of our island through to the development of burgeoning agricultural exports such as onions and tulips, the Dutch have really left their mark on life in Tasmania. Even today, they represent Tasmania's 6th largest migrant group and are the only migrant group which is overrepresented in Tasmania compared to the rest of Australia.
In the past few decades the Dutch population has experienced a fairly significant decline, but migration from the Netherlands hasn't completely dried up, and Nico represents on of those more recent arrivals, arriving 13 years ago.
Initially she came over with intention of picking cherries for a short time but ended up staying longer and meeting the man who was eventually to become her life partner. After a few travel adventures and time living with her partner abroad, they decided to come back to Tasmania and now Nico works as Multicultural Community Development Officer for the Multicultural Council of Tasmania. In this role she has drawn on her experience both as a migrant and working across cultures around the world and while her Dutch directness seemed to be a bit of a problem initially, she's found that it can have its place in her role.
Ross grew up in Northern Ayrshire and in a town north of Glasgow. He developed a strong interest in aquaculture at high school, with one of the primary attractions being that it would allow him to travel for work.
In his early 20s he came to Australia on a working holiday and found work on a fish farm in Tasmania. His employer wanted him to stay longer and it meant that Ross had to make a big decision, a decision that meant he would still be in Tasmania 20 years later and still working in aquaculture.
We also discuss a bit about some of the small Scottish traditions he maintains and how his kids have become interested in Scotland and their extended family in Scotland.
When I was a kid , "Made in Taiwan" was where every kids' toy seemed to be made, from Matchbox cars to the early electronic games. None of us knew anything about it except that it was a distant land full of gigantic toy-making facilities.
In fact, Taiwan is a small country, half the size of Tasmania, but with almost the same population as the whole of Australia.
Aki was born in the busy capital of Taiwan, Taipei, and followed her sister to Tasmania as a working holiday maker around 10 years ago. After various jobs, she decided to stay in Cygnet, a small town south of Hobart with a minimal Asian population. It was a real move out of her comfort zone but helped her improve her English and get to know locals, especially when she got a job at the local pub.
Aki would eventually get longer- term employment at one of Tasmania's largest salmon producers, Tassal, and it was through this work that she would eventually meet her partner , ultimately leading to settling more permanently in Tasmania.
Paraguay is a small land-locked country in the heart of South America, which still retains a rich indigenous heritage, in particular the Guarani language, which along with Spanish, is the official language of the country.
Patricia's story begins in the capital city of Asuncion, where she grew up in a close-knit neighbourhood surrounded by family. When she was 11, she moved to Chile with her sister, due to a change in family circumstances.
Although Chile was a neighbouring country, there were many aspects of life and culture there that Patricia struggled with. However, it was here, while at school, that she started earning money selling homemade ice cream and other similar enterprises, and that is something she would return to in a different way in Tasmania.
She would eventually meet her future Australian husband in Chile and she moved with him for several years in Canberra before coming down to Tasmania. After initially working in logistics, as she had in Chile, Patricia decided to take a chance and purchased a food truck from a placed called Triabunna, and now sells empanadas under the name Salsa Sol at different locations around Hobart.
Photo Credit : Alex Florez Photo
Rwanda is a small nation of 13 million people in the centre of Africa, and the setting for one of the worst atrocities of the late 20th century. During the Rwandan Genocide in 1994 an estimated 500,000-800,000 people of the Tutsi minority were killed by members of the Hutu majority
Tasmania may seem a million miles away from such horrors, but the small Rwandan community here has continued to commemorate the event in Hobart in April for the past 20 years. Aubert has been one of the key organisers of the commemoration event, an event which includes commemoration of all genocides, in the hope that humanity can learn from history and avoid dehumanisation of others and the violence that brings.
But in this interview Aubert also discusses the positives of growing up in Rwanda - family and community playing a big role in Rwanda society and a happy childhood for Aubert.
After arriving in Hobart in the early 2000s, Aubert also did a number of different jobs, including teaching French privately and even an interesting stint as an assistant at the Body Shop.
He's also been involved in helping new arrivals adapt to the new culture here through both his work and also as a some time coach at mentor at Hobart's most multicultural soccer club, Hobart United.
South Sudanese represented the first significant group of Africans to settle in Tasmania, starting from the early 2000s. Lawrence and his siblings arrived from a refugee camp in Uganda in 2003 when he was 14. School was challenging as there was no one that spoke his language and his prior education had been disrupted by regular moves from camps to camp to Uganda.
His father had been killed during the civil war in his country and the family had fled to Uganda as refugees to find safety, as many hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese have over the course of the ongoing conflict in Sudan.
Despite many challenges in adjusting to a new life in Tasmania in the early years, Lawrence was able to get work while still studying and eventually even ran his own shop. He now works in transport doing deliveries all around Tasmania, which gives me an opportunity to see all the parts of the island. He also sings and writes his own songs, which is his avenue to express his feelings and thoughts about things.
We also talked about the importance of family in South Sudanese culture and how the concept of family differs markedly from ours in Australia.
Cecilia grew up in the old Swedish university town of Uppsala. As a child she had an interest in art and textiles, but would eventually go on to study chemistry and liminology - the study of rivers. Her studies would eventually lead her to work for the Swedish Polar Secretariat and work at the Swedish scientific base in the Antarctic. This connection also lead to her meeting her Tasmanian husband, Harry and ultimately coming to Tasmania in 1998.
Although Swedes like Cecilia invariably speak excellent English, adjusting to a new life so far away from family was not without its challenges, and in this episode we discuss a few of them, and also a few of the ways Cecilia tries to maintain connection with some of her Swedish roots, especially finding regular opportunities to speak Swedish with other Swedes in Tasmania.
We also talk about a few very distinctive Swedish things such as the concept of "lagom" and the notorious and very much acquired taste of "surströmming", a kind of fermented herring eaten mainly in the north of Sweden ( Look it up on YouTube and you will get a sense of the strong reactions that it evokes from foreigners ! ).
Denmark has been raised higher in the minds of Tasmanians ever since the Crown Prince of Denmark married a Tassie girl, sometimes affectionately referred to as "Our Princess Mary". Lisbeth's story has some parallels - she's a Dane who meet someone special in Tasmania. In her case, it was towards the end of a two-year Working Holiday in which she'd worked as a jillaroo in Northern Queensland and as an accountant for Australia's biggest mining company. Her romance with Adam in Tasmania was something of a whirlwind one by today's standards - they married within 6 months, and they are still going strong over a decade later.
Lisbeth has two young boys, who have shown interest in their Danish heritage and are both learning Danish through Zoom from a teacher in Denmark.
Lisbeth is also passionate about mental health, and is in the later stages of studying a Psychology major and has been trying to raise awareness of mental health in her local area.
In this conversation we touch on family issues, including a childhood stay in her mother's birthplace of Greenland, and dealing with her father's cancer diagnosis. And like many other countries, Denmark has some of its own traditions and customs, especially around Christmas.
Music credit :
"Skye Cuillin" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Although Spain may be associated with sunshine and hot weather, it's actually a country of significant regional and linguistic diversity. The region of Galicia, in the north-west corner of Spain actually has a temperate, wet climate, as well as its own officially recognised language.
This is the region where Carmen grew up, in the moderately-sized city of Ferrol. She studied Marine Ecology at university, and after completing her studies in Spain, she had the oportunity to do some postgraduate research overseas, and that brought her to Launceston, Tasmania.
15 years on, she is still there, but now working in the role of sustainability officer at the University of Tasmania's northern campus.
Cyprus has a rich history stretching back to the Bronze Age, and it's strategic importance on trade routes between East and West has meant that many peoples have left their mark there from the Ancient Minoans to the British. It's a culture steeped in tradition and history, but first poverty and wars and more recent economic development and changed have impacted the island, and has resulted in quite large scale emigration to places like Australia.
These days, Cyprus is quite a prosperous and stable place, and so it quite unusual to meet a recent Cypriot arrival in Tasmania. Markelos caught the travel bug young. He didn't feel suited to the classroom environment at school and decided that he wanted to see the world rather than pursue university study. He came to Australia as a working holidaymaker, but covid prolonged his stay and he ended up coming to Tasmania to study to be a commercial diver. In doing so, he found Tasmania felt more like home than anywhere else he's been and hopes to stay longer term.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine caused one of the greatest increases in displaced persons since WWII. The repercussions of this war have been felt across the world, both in terms of economic and human cost.
Tasmania, though extremely distant from the events, has since last year, become host to a small group of Ukrainian arrivals. They have been supported by the small, but long-standing Ukrainian community of Tasmania, who have kept many cultural traditions alive.
Anna was one of these arrivals in early 2021. Her husband Oleh had observed the Russian build up of forces on the border and recommended that they go with their infant son to Portugal for a while. However, they had never anticipated the full extent of what was to come.
They chose Tasmania because it was far away, and they had a connection in Hobart. When they arrived they were also pleased to find there was a existing Ukrainian community here.
In Tasmania, Anna has continued to pursue her passion for Ukrainian folk art and sells some of her art work at Hobart's Salamanca Market, and uses the funds to support her family and Ukraine in this incredibly challenging moment in its history.
Music : ''Хай живе, вільна Україна'' (Long live, free Ukraine!), composed by Petro Prosko.
The civil war in Syria has raged for over a decade and displaced millions from their homes. Millions still remain in the countries surrounding Syria while hundreds of thousands of others have sought refuge in western countries such as Australia.
Sandra and her family tried for seven years to try and life a normal life as civil war raged on and car bombings or missiles could arrive at any time. It took two shocking events to make them finally decide to make the move out of Syria, and the family fled to Lebanon before being accepted as refugees to Australia.
Discovering they were to be settled in an island off the Australian mainland, Sandra had the impression that they were going to some sort tropical island paradise, so arriving on a rainy March day at Hobart airport was quite a shock.
No one in the family spoke English on arrival, and Sandra had to repeat some years at school before getting into Uni to follow her dream to become a teacher, a dream which is now coming close to reality.
Ali spent his childhood in Beirut, a city then torn apart by violent civil conflict, and where any minute the family may have to run down to the basement for safety. Yet once Lebanon had been something of pearl of the Middle East, and was a desirable place to visit for people from other Arab countries, and was known for its free and liberal society. In some respects, the story of Ali's family is a microcosm of the history of modern Lebanon, or at least offers a window into it.
However, it was not the war that caused Ali to leave Lebanon. In the early 90s tragedy hit the family when Ali's father was involved in a serious car accident and spent 3 years in a coma. After he died, Ali felt he had to leave Lebanon. Through a family connection and an encounter at his aunt's funeral, he got an opportunity to go to London to work for a foundation. Things didn't quite work out as planned, but while he was there he met his future wife, who happened to be from Tasmania, and eventually he made the decision to travel to the other side of the world to live with her and raise a family.
Although he got off to a rough start in a city with very little to offer in the way of Middle Eastern culture or community, he's been here some 16 years now and well and truly adapted to life in Hobart.
Italians have a rich migrant history in Australia, as in other parts of the "new world" , enriching the cultural life of cities from Buenos Aires to New York and from Toronto to Melbourne. Indeed, they were from a long time, Australia's largest non-English-speaking migrant group. Their role has been no less in Tasmania's migrant history, and that legacy can still be seen in parts of Hobart and Launceston.
However, in the last 20-30 years the number of Italians migrating to Tasmania has been relatively small. With Italy changing both economically and socially since the post-war days, fewer Italians have had the need to emigrate and those that have come for very different reasons to the past.
Therefore, it was very interesting to speak with Dante, who arrived in Tasmania in 2007 as a skilled migrant. Dante's reasons were perhaps more personal than economic, but he did migrate at a time of worsening conditions in Southern Europe in particular, which would be a prelude to the Global Economic Crisis of 2008. Dante was a self-employed IT professional in Ravenna, in Emilia Romagna, and had been struggling to maintain a healthy work-life balance for some time and on top of other pressures, he felt it was time for an "escape". His eventual escape destination of Tasmania was a matter of several happy coincidences, or perhaps it was just always meant to be ? As things turned out, Dante has never regretted his decision and has fully adapted to life in Tasmania.
Music Credit :
"Bushwick Tarantella" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Myanmar, known also by some as Burma, is a nation that has spent decades under military rule. Minority groups have been persecuted, mistreated, driven from their land and even killed. One such group is the Karen people, who live predominantly in the south-east area of Myanmar bordering Thailand. It is estimated that around a million Karen are living as refugees in Thailand, but in recent years many have been accepted into countries such as Australia, Canada and the US. Tasmania also now hosts a sizable Karen community, who make up the overwhelming majority of Myanmarese living here.
Gay Nay left her homeland as an infant. Her parents were farmers who were forced to flee with little more than the clothes on their backs and then spent over a decade in a refugee camp in Thailand before finding that they were going to Tasmania. Like many others, they faced the challenges of the cold, the language and finding work but over time they overcame these and now both Gay Nay and her parents are in employment. Many Karen have, however, left Tasmania for the bigger mainland cities where they have more community support and employment opportunities. Gay Nay also followed this path, moving to Perth for 3 years, but eventually returned to Tasmania, where she feels now is very much her home.
Macau could perhaps be considered as Hong Kong's smaller and overlooked little brother. It is similar in that its a small ex-European colonial enclave on the south coast of China and it is also administered under the "Two systems, one nation" policy. However, it is much smaller in size and population and its main industry is tourism, primarily based around the casino and gambling business. As you will hear in Ariana's story, this does limit the scope of opprtunities for young Macinese and leads to many leaving Macau for pursue their aspirations elsewhere.
Before 1999, Macau was a colony of Portugal, and though the influence of Portuguese language and culture has been waning, it still makes up a part of Macau's unique and distinctive identity, in particular in its cuisine and architecture. However, in many other areas it is the Cantonese Chinese culture that predominates.
Ariana originally came to Australia to pursue her studies in Translating and Interpreting, and she completed a Masters in Brisbane. After graduating, she struggled for a while to gain secure employment and fell out of love with the interpreting business somewhat. Like many, she was drawn to Tasmania by the Australian Government's Regional Migration scheme, which gives preference to visa applications from those residing in regional areas such as Tasmania. This also prompted a change of career direction for Ariana. At first she worked in childcare before eventually securing her current job in events management, which has been a breakthrough for Ariana both in terms of securing a long-term visa, but also job satisfaction and personal confidence.
In modern history, the Irish have been one of the great migratory peoples, with millions seeking better opportunities in Britain, the Americas and Australasia and elsewhere over nearly two centuries. Irish migrants have been a part of Australia's history since the arrival of Europeans and a large percentage of the population still claims some Irish heritage. These days, Irish migration to Australia is more of trickle, with the country enjoying an economic transformation over the last 30 years.
John grew up in Limerick in the 1940s and 50s, in a time when the Catholic church was still a very strong influence and opportunities for young people were much more limited. After getting a taste for travel after hitchhiking around France at 19 years, John would first move to London to try and get into the travel industry as an accountant. This would be the first step in a life of travelling and transitioning into new careers. His wanderings would take him to Montreal, Bermuda, Uganda and eventually, Hobart. Although his first career was chartered accountancy, he would have several career changes and in Australia he came to coach writing skills for professionals in various organisations.
Music credit :
"Achaidh Cheide" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
"Fiddles McGinty" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
John's story begins in an undistinguished town in the South-East of war-torn Germany, with childhood memories of sheltering under a blanket in a cellar as Lancaster bombers roared overhead. As a young boy he experienced the deprivation of the post-war era and then the emergence of the Germany Democratic Republic and its sophisticated surveillance society.
Even after escaping across the border to West Germany on his brother's motorbike, the East German Secret Service tried to recruit him while he was working at Mercedes in Stuttgart. The fear of the East German secret service was just one of several reasons that a 20-year old John decided to migrate to Australia as a "10-pound Kraut" in 1960, and this would ultimately lead to employment at the Hydro in Tasmania and a new life.
Barbados is a former British island colony, but , on the surface at least, that's about its only similarity with Tasmania. For many it's a dream holiday paradise of luxuriant sandy beaches and lush tropical vegetation. Who would exchange such a place for the capricious climes of Tasmania ? In Donna's case, her purpose was to do further study abroad, and she was looking for a smaller place, yet with decent infrastructure, that would be an easier transition for her young son than the fast-paced big city life of Sydney or Melbourne.
Although the plan was to just stay for 2 years to study her Masters of Psychology, Donna is still her 18 years' later and has even found a small number of other Caribbean islanders in Tasmania.
As well as the distance from home and the colder climate, one unexpected challenge was skin care in the much drier climate of Tasmania. As a result of this, Donna learnt to make her own soaps and now has a small side business making skin care products for people with darker skin ( On Instagram as bajanaussie246 ).
The Republic of North Macedonia, as it is officially known, is a small country in the Balkans wedged between Greece, Serbia, Albania and Bulgaria. Generally, it's name will draw blank stares from many Australians, and yet Macedonians have been coming to Australia, at one time in big numbers, since the 1930s and have made a significant contribution to our migration history. However, at the current time, you could probably count the number of Macedonian migrants in Tasmania on your fingers.Seven years ago that number was bolstered by the arrival of Blagoja, a native of Skopje, and his wife. He works as a technician for electronic security systems, and from a young age he was a hands-on problem-solver, something he acquired from both his family and the community he lived in. He was never a fan of school or book learning but was a kid who had to be active, and for 15 years he practised Parkour, and was even a Parkour trainer in Sydney for a time, which also lead to a role in the stunt department of the Mad Max movie. Initially he came to Tasmania as a kid with his family, who were looking to escape the unsettled times in the early days of Macedonian independence, but they returned after a few years and Blagoja would grow up in Macedonia, before returning many years later as an adult.
Timor Leste or East Timor is one of Australia’s youngest near neighbours, gaining independence from Indonesia in 1999 after a referendum. But it was a difficult birth of a nation, with violence and instability marring the transition to independence. This context is relevant to Elvira's story, who was school age at the time of independence and in this episode you’ll hear a little bit about her memories of that time and how her mother managed to anticipate the troubles ahead and send her to a safe place.
Elvira, with many other East Timorese, came to Tasmania under the seasonal worker’s visa program in 2017, to pick berries on a farm near Launceston i. Normally, she would stay for 6 months and go back, but of course, 2020 was not a normal year and a 6 month stay turned into 2 ½ years, 2 years separated from her daughter in East Timor. Fortunately things have worked and Elvira’s daughter joined her last year and has settled into school in Launceston and she and most of the East Timorese were able to work on other farms around Australia throughout the period of border closures.
When Jon's parents arrived in Australia from Serbia ( then Yugoslavia) in the late 1950s, they were very disappointed. A Serbian acquaintance had sent misleading photos and exaggerated stories of his life in Australia, and Jon's parents had been one of several families who had been attracted to Australia on this basis only to be let down by the reality. Jon's father had had a jewellery business in Belgrade, which was repeatedly closed down by the authorities, and led him to getting the family out of the country.
In this episode, Jon talks about some of his family, who had roles of some note in both pre-war Yugoslavia and the post-war Tito regime, including a decorated General and one who was referred to as "Auntie Hitler", who was high up in the government.
Jon would move to Hobart in the early 70s to study at university , and met his current wife there. After being active in student politics, Jon took up a role as an industrial advocate for nurses after graduating. He eventually started an import-export business which he still operates today.
In the photo, Jon is holding the rather impressive plumbing trade certificate of his grandfather from 1921
Kyrgyzstan is not a country many Tasmanians would know much about, and probably most would be surprised to know that there are Kyrgyz living on this island so far from their homeland. Kyrgyzstan is a small country in Central Asia, a mountainous land of some 7 million inhabitants nestled between giant neighbours, China and Kazakhstan. It gained independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, though it has followed a somewhat different path to it's neighbouring countries and look to tourism as its future, being to blessed with energy and mineral resources that its neighbours possess.Cholpona comes from a region called Issyk-Kul, a centre for skiing and winter activities and an area of tremendous natural beauty. Kyrgyzstan is also a country of many tribes, where your name and ancestry count for something and family includes virtually everyone in your village. Cholpona's journey to Tasmania involved a chance meeting with a Tasmanian man, Luke, on a plane, and a long long wait to get a visa while in Dubai, where she also worked for many years.
Listening to Mohammad's story, it feels very much a journey of going with the flow through a series of unplanned events. For instance, he'd never seriously thought or about or planned to come to Australia to study, and ultimately to live, but a conversation with a cousin lead to a half-serious idea to go to Australia for a holiday that would eventually lead Mohammed to do his Master's in Brisbane. But that was never really the plan and at the end of his study after a bit of an unsatisfactory search for jobs in Brisbane, he got offered a position as a front-of-house manager at Strahan Village, on the remote West Coast of Tasmania, where he would stay for 4 years.
Outside the tourist season, the town of Strahan is not exactly full of foreigners, certainly not ones from the Middle East, and this episode Mohammed recounts some unique experiences and opportunities he had there, including his involvement in organising a major fun run event to raise money for the local primary school.
Mohammad now works as the CEO of the charity Variety, which supports children in need in Tasmania. It's a role that he's passionate about and one which connects with many of the values and aspirations that he formed growing up in Jordan, and in this episode you can hear a bit more about that.
The only association most Australians will have with Kazakhstan is the fictional character, Borat. And while the small number of Kazakhs living in Australia may explain this lack of knowledge, Kazakhstan is a huge country which should be hard to ignore.
With this in mind, it was an unexpected pleasure to talk with Kazakh, Diana, living in Tasmania, and hear about her experiences growing up in Almaty and then living in Tasmania for the last 3 years.
Diana's father was a former weightlifter and encouraged physical activity and Diana started going to a special sports school at a young age, where she trained to become professional swimmer. However, after leaving school, she would pursue a career in Hospitality, first with study in Spain, and then in Sydney, before moving to Hobart, where her first job was at an Italian restaurant.
Ghana is rich in resources - it's the world's 9th largest producer of gold and producer a big proportion of the world's cocoa beans. But as with some other similar African countries, the wealth from these resources, has been slow to trickle down to the people. In this episode, Desmond talks about what it was like in growing up in a rural area in northern Ghana. Although his village has better facilities than many others, school was not well-resourced as might expect in the developed world. Despite the challenges, Desmond was able to become the first from his school to gain entrance into university in Ghana, and this would lead him on the path to come to Australia, first to do his Ph.D, and then to take up a lecturer position in the School of Management at the University of Tasmania.
In this episode we also talk about a number of interesting aspects of Ghanaian culture, most notably the unique way the funerals are celebrated, not mourned.
The Republic of Congo is not to be confused with the Democratic Republic of Congo, it's much larger Francophone neighbour. But like it's neighbour, it is rich in valuable minerals, particularly oil and timber. So perhaps it makes sense that Charles, who, with his wife is the only Republic of Congo-born residents of Tasmania, should be a geologist.
As you will hear in this episode, it has been an interesting life path to get here. We talk about several life changing moments - his father going blind, the culture shock of moving from an inland rural area to a large coastal city for education, and then an academic journey to Malaysia and finally to Tasmania, where he currently works at the University of Tasmania's School of Earth Sciences. He also does voluntary work advocating for the local African and other diverse communities, and we also discuss his faith and how he reconciles that with being a scientist - an interesting conversation.
Adely has followed an interesting path, from studying music and being a in a popular rock band, graduating in Arabic language to eventually settling on Accounting, which was part of her reason for coming to Tasmania to study. Since she's come here, she's also managed to start a small but successful business using her training and skills as a Nail Technician, but provide a different type of service to what's generally available locally.
Adely also arrived in Tasmania at what turned out to be a particularly challenging time - just before covid-19 caused international border closures, and this meant that she wasn't able to see her husband in Uzbekistan for 2 years, and contributed to feelings of homesickness. There have also been a few interesting cultural differences that she's had to adapt to, especially the different way people communicate here, about which Adely has a few funny stories !
Uzbekistan is the most populated of the four Central Asian republics that gained independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, and though there is a strong Russian influence, there are things unique to their country which are causes of national pride. As you will here more in this episode, one of them is the Uzbek cuisine which takes advantage of the region's abundant fresh fruits and vegetables.
The Maldives is so often seen as a fashionable and unique travel destination in online travel sites and images of bikini-wearing influencers swanning around atolls of glittering white sand or bathing in azure waters are common place. But what is life like for everyday people in this small island nation ? And why would a Maldivian want to leave this seemingly idyllic life, for a life in the much colder and temperamental climate of Tasmania ?
Ahsan migrated from The Maldives and has lived in Tasmania for around 15 years now, and has three children here, and loves life here. He originally moved to complete a Ph.D, but ended up working as an electrical engineer for an arm of Hydro Tasmania. In this episode we discussed life in The Maldives and how it has changed since he was young, and how precarious life can be there at times.
To get a bit of perspective, it's useful to know a few key facts about The Maldives. The archipelago of some 26 coral islands is scattered over an area of 90,000 square kilometres, of which 298 km2 is land. In this conversation we discuss how this effects life on the islands and creates a culture of interdependence and communitarianism. It's also the flattest country on earth, with an average natural elevation of 1.5 metres, making it extremely vulnerable to rising sea levels and natural disasters. The 2004 tsunami had a particularly devastating impact, as you will hear.
This is a collection of clips from existing episodes, all relating to the topic of "food and hospitality".
It features clips of Peter and Rebeka discussing some differences between aspects of hospitality in Slovenia and Australia, Sergio reminiscing about childhood experiences of festivities in his Portuguese village involving roasting a pig, Ariana explaining the importance of coffee drinking to Brazilian social life, and Manu recalls picking tropical fruits on the tiny Tongan island where he grew up.
This is a compilation of three stories told by very different women of their experiences of escaping their homelands : a political refusnik from Russia ( in the former USSR ), a young Eritrean who fled political persecution and the threat of compulsory and indefinite military conscription, and the story of an epic escape from behind the Iron Curtain in the then Republic of Czechoslovakia ( today's Czechia )
This is a compilation of clips from four very different stories that all relate to escaping danger or repression in their homelands and eventually making their way to Tasmania to start a new life.
This compilation features : Reza, a Hazara from Afghanistan. Nancy, whose family was deeply effected by the 1973 military coup in Chile by the notorious General Pinochet. Cedrick, whose family had to flee civil war in the Democratic Republic of Congo , and Jenny/Yenni, who experienced Russian tanks rumbling into her home city of Kosice after the Soviets occupied Czechoslovakia, crushing the Prague spring in 1969 and snuffing out the country's little whiff of freedom.
This is a compilation of clips from interviews I've done so far featuring different stories about how people met their partners, which in most cases resulted directly or indirectly in them coming to or staying in Tasmania. Every one has a different story to tell, and they include a used car sale, a meeting in Mexican customs, a blind date, an online dating site that lead to a meeting in Mauritius, a proposal on Parliament House in Canberra and a "set up" by some crafty Tasmanian mums (allegedly) !
Features Eri (Japan), Adel ( Iraq), Helen ( South Africa), Dana ( Poland), Anette (Norway), Jeff ( Canada), Loni (Samoa), Michaela (Madagascar), and Claudia ( Switzerland)
Mereani grew up in a village on the main island of Fiji. It was much less isolated from the capital than other Fijian villages, but when Mereani was growing up, there wasn't much of the technology and mod cons we might expect today and her family mainly lived from farming.
After finishing school, Mereani got a job in a traditional Fijian dancing group at a tourist hotel, and it was through this that she would eventually meet her future Tasmanian husband and eventually move to a climate that was quite a bit colder than she had expected. Although she's more or less adapted to the cold and Aussie English, she stills holds on to some of her Fijian values including those around family and the collective mentality that people have in Fijian villages.
At 15 years Gediminas was selected to attend the National Academy of Sport in Vilnius, which precipitated a great change in lifestyle , with training becoming part of his daily routine. He played as a professional footballer in several countries before reaching a crossroads in his career in his late 20s and thinking about the next step in his life. That next step turned out to be a journey to the other side of the world to play football (soccer) for Devonport in 2018. Although this contract was just for a year, he would return to live in Launceston, after romance with a Tasmanian girl and they now live together in Launceston with a baby daughter. In the meantime, Gedi was drawn in the direction of coaching, and now he is passing on the skills he learnt as a pro in Lithuania to kids in Launceston.
One of the common themes in the podcast has been about food and hospitality, something central to many cultures and which has many emotional connections for migrants, connecting them with family and homeland in various ways.
This compilation features excerpts from my interviews with Amr (Egypt), Ranti ( Indonesia), Anna (Hungary), Anna ( Seychelles) and Darya (Ukraine) talking about different aspects of food and hospitality from their homelands, and sometimes comparing with what they've experienced in Tasmania
Manu grew up on a small island in Tonga, a small nation in itself, in a time where they had no electricity or technologies that we would take for granted today, like TV or cars. Later he would move to the main island to attend high school and start playing rugby, a sport that is dear to the hearts of many Tongans. But his rugby ability would prove to be an asset later, when as a 25-year old he moved to Tasmania and rugby proved an outlet to make friends, build his networks and connect with others in the small Pacific Islander community in Tasmania.
Manu now works in the community care sector, assisting young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, and according to Manu, caring for others in the community is very much a part of the Tongan ethos, where family is central to community life. But getting to where he is now has been a rough road at times and he talks about discrimination, trouble with the law, losing his job and turning things around through education and how his upbringing instilled his with the qualities of adaptability and resilience.
Samoa is a small island nation in the South Pacific which may appear to many of us as a tropical island paradise. The truth is, as Loni describes in this episode, is daily life for many islanders is quite tough. Samoa is not a wealthy country and many people live in small communities, living from small-scale agriculture, and the islands have been hit by power cyclones in the past.
Many Samoans migrate to New Zealand, and increasingly in the past 20 years, to Australia, where the population has increased exponentially. Yet despite the geographical proximity and the growing Samoan community, it's a culture that few of know much about, apart from that the produce a lot of good rugby players and a disproportionate number of night club bouncers. Yet, as Loni describes in her own story, it's a culture with strong traditions and norms that bond the community tightly together. Family bonds go well beyond just the nuclear family and singing is a huge part of community life.
Loni was one of those Samoans who migrated first to New Zealand and worked there for a number of years before moving to Sydney, where she'd eventually meet her Tasmanian husband, Peter, who you will also hear in this episode. Moving to the eastern side of Hobart in the early 90s, there were few non-white migrants around and Loni's description of the initial feelings of isolation and homesickness will probably resonate with other migrants.
Madagascar is a unique and fascinating island nation off the east coast of Africa ,well-known for its incredible biodiversity, especially its famous lemurs. Less well known is its human and cultural diversity, with strong influences coming from Asia, Africa and Europe.
Michaela has lived in different places in Madagascar and is familiar with the different regional dialects and traditions of the country, and her own family background reflects a lot of the fascinating cultural diversity of this large island. She met her Tasmania husband online, and in her 40s, she came with her daughter to Tasmania to be with him. Like many new migrants, finding employment in Tasmania was not easy, and she found her 17 years' work experience in Madagascar working at various NGOs was not really regarded at all. However, she was eventually able to make the most of another talent - her "healing hands" , and now runs her own massage business in Hobart.
Music : "Energizing" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Amr was born in Egypt but received his early education in Saudi Arabia before moving to Malaysia, then Queensland and Melbourne, and more recently, Tasmania. However, he still remains rooted in his Egyptian identity and during school times in Saudi Arabia, he would frequently return to family in Egypt in school holidays.
As a result of his education and upbringing in a progressive Egyptian family living abroad, Amr sees himself largely as a "global citizen", but it wasn't until he arrived in Tasmania that he felt that he really found a place that truly felt like home, and he was especially drawn to the sense of community that he connected with aspects of Egyptian life.
Food is also a big part of Amr's life and he has just recently left his job in advertising to embark on a new passion running a food business.
Music : "Desert City" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
In the Australian census, Hong Kong is listed as a separate "Country of Birth" to the People's Republic of China, acknowledging the different history of the two and the status of Hong Kong as a British colony for some 150 years. As a result Hong Kong and its people have their own distinct culture and outlook. Many have also found their way to Tasmania. In Anthony's case, it was his family's choice to come here, to learn from a Buddhist spiritual leader here who hade made his home in Tasmania in the 1980s.
Anthony got to experience high school in Tasmania in the 90s, a time when there were far less Chinese here than there are now, and the Chinese community looked very different. He continues to be heavily involved with the activities of the Chinese Buddhist Community, particularly with performances of the traditional Lion Dance. So although Anthony has spent much of his life living like a local, he still maintains many aspects of his Hong Kong heritage. It was interesting to here his perspectives as someone who has a foot in both cultural worlds.
Norway is a country with one of the highest standards of living in the world, with their health care and education systems rated amongst the best in the world as well as living amongst strikingly beautiful landscapes. So, apart, from the cold, what would bring a Norwegian to the other side of the world to live ?
In a word, love. That was the case for Anette, who also, and some many find this surprising, finds Tasmania a trifle too warm at times..
But of course, there is more Anette's story than that. She met her husband-to-be in London, where she studied at drama school for several years.
Currently she lives with her husband and children in Railton, near Devonport in north-west Tasmania.
In this episode we talked about a range of topics comparing life and culture in Tasmania and Norway on things such as how we talk about our feelings, attitude to education and the way we celebrate Christmas.
Kenya is probably best known in Australia for its long distance runners and safari parks, and it's not generally been a big source of migrants here, so it's perhaps why our knowledge of its people and culture are limited.
Cecilia currently lives in Launceston, working as a project manager in the health sector. As is very common in much of sub-Saharan African, she grew up on a small farm in a rural town amongst vegetable gardens and animals. In common with other Africans I've interviewed, Cecilia was surrounded by extended family, something that is of much greater importance than it is here, and we talk more about that in this episode. She also came from a family that valued and pushed the importance of education, and it is perhaps this that provided the starting impetus for Cecilia to eventually decide to do her Masters in Melbourne, and after that eventually find a job in Launceston.
The Seychelles is a small collection of islands in the Indian Ocean, a nation of a little less than 100,000 inhabitants. It's the home of coral reefs, rocky forested islands, sandy beaches and green turtles, and Anna, who moved to Launceston to be with her partner , Marcus, around 4 years ago.
Anna used to work in the tourist industry but Tasmania has helped consolidate a new career path she'd already started moving on, and has given her a bit work-life balance.
In this episode, we talk about some of the unique aspects of living in the Seychelles, both the natural environment and the close-knit community where everyone knows each other...this may even sound a bit familiar to people in some parts of Tasmania.
Sergio moved to Burnie from Northern Queensland several years ago where he works as a child psychologist.
He grew up in a remote village in Central Portugal, and describes a style of traditional village living which is increasingly disappearing as young people leave for opportunities in the bigger cities. So listening to his stories of village life as a boy will take you back in time a bit, but also give you an insight into some of Portuguese rural life and traditions.
Adel was born in and grew up in Baghdad to an Iraqi mother and father who was a refugee from Palestine. In this episode Adel talks about his formative experiences growing up in Baghdad and then at school in Birmingham and the things that influenced his later life.
Adel studied Agronomy at Baghdad University and after making his way illicitly across the border to Jordan during the first Gulf War, he was eventually able to use this degree to gain a skilled visa to Australia. Starting a new life In Australia wasn't always easy, but Adel would eventually succeed in gaining a Ph.d in Food Science and is now a Senior Lecturer at the University of Tasmania.
He also describes his experience of going to Palestine, and searching for his father's home village, which had been erased years before by Israeli settlers, and his ongoing advocacy for justice for the Palestinian people.
It's a story with both dark and light moments, and just a little romance and even former AFL football coach and broadcaster comes into the story..
Music : "Ibn Al-Noor" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Somewhat like Croatians, many Slovenians fled the former Yugoslavia to escape conscription and many found their way to Tasmania in the era of mass hydro-industrialisation that occurred in the 50s and 60s.
Peter and Rebeka though are a new generation of Slovenians, who, thought they spent some of their childhood under Yugoslavia, have mostly lived in independent Slovenia. Before deciding to settle in Tasmania, Peter had been to Australia many times before due to a family connection in Sydney, and Rebeka had toured in her role as an opera singer.
3 years ago they decided to start a new life in Tasmania, with the small city life and an environment not too dissimilar from their homeland being a big part of the appeal, and Peter was able to secure work in Hobart as a jeweller. The transition to this new life has not been without its challenges both practical and cultural , and I'm sure that migrants from other backgrounds will relate to some of their stories.
Rebeka also performs as a part of a Slovenian-Tasmanian folk band, and excerpts of the music can be heard during this episode.
Music is Kaj ti je deklica? ( What is wrong my dearest ?) by Slovenian/Tasmanian folk band Lastovke (Swallows)
Aws (aka Alusine) is a great example of enterprise and initiative. He came to Hobart just as a traveller when he was on Sydney and quickly realised there was no barber shop serving the growing local African- Australian population.
Aws was born in Sierra Leone and grew up there in a difficult time when the country was suffering a long civil war and eventually, like many others, Aws and his family would flee to neighbouring Guinea and eventually would relocate to Sydney.
Bolivia is not a country we hear a lot about it in Tasmania - it's far away, it's landlocked with cities high up in the mountains where the people play panpipes - it's like a fantasy country in the minds of many. The reality is, that like many countries it's quite an unequal society and so people will seek their fortunes in other places. It wouldn't be totally accurate to describe Lucia's journey this way, but she did leave Bolivia after finishing high school to seek a better or different future in Chile. Lucia would eventually travel to Melbourne to study after deciding to take a different career path and, to cut a long story short, she ended up in Tasmania in 2019 and got a job in the tourism sector. Needless to say, 2020 was a difficult year for that sector and Lucia faced a tough struggle to find another job, but things now seem to have worked out and she says "I think I have found my spot here in Tassie".
In describing his memories of his childhood in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Cedrick described how he developed a competitive spirit at school, and it's a spirit that stood him in good stead for the challenges he would face later in life when he came to Tasmania to make a new home.
The Democratic Republic of Congo is a resource-rich country at the heart of Africa, and the continent's second largest in area. For much of the last 20 years or so it has been rived by a brutal civil war, that has received little coverage in our own media. As a result, many people may not fully appreciate what has caused many millions of Congolese to flee their homes and find safety in neighbouring African countries. A small percentage are lucky enough to be accepted as refugees into a handful of western countries, such as Australia.
Cedrick's family were in that category, and eventually settled in Tasmania in 2008. Though may Congolese have left Tasmania in this time to look for better prospects on the mainland, Cedrick has remained here to build a family and a life, and is comfortable calling Tasmania home now, having spent more of his life than in the Congo now.
Helen was born and bred in South Africa to English parents. Though her upbringing was privileged compared to many others, she was aware from a young age of both politics and the social and racial inequality that permeated South African society, and her family was opposed to the apartheid system. She would eventually meet Owen, an Australian man in South Africa after hitch-hiking through Africa and to cut a long story short, they ended up in Launceston, Tasmania, where they have lived for around 40 years.
Adjusting to life in Australia and Tasmania was not as easy as Helen had expected. Despite coming from an English-speaking country, there were certain things that were vastly different.
Mauritius is a nation consisting of a small group of islands in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It's diverse history and geography have made it a melting pot of cultures, religions and languages, with the French culture the most marked influence.
Jean-Marie grew up on the densely-populated island of Mauritius, but also spent some of his childhood on a small and idyllic island called Rodrigues, in a time before many modern conveniences had yet arrived and in this episode he talks a little a bit about what life was like there.
Coming from an island nation, it's perhaps not surprising that Jean-Marie went into the maritime industry, initially working onboard boats travelling from Mauritius to South Africa. The family move to Melbourne in his 20s was a bit unexpected as you will here, but eventually he would continue his career in the maritime field and that is what ultimately brought him to Devonport, Tasmania, and he has spent the last 7 years living in Shearwater just east of Devonport.
It would be an understatement to say that there aren't many Hondurans in Tasmania - as far as she knows, Diana and her husband are the only ones. Coming from a country that is heavily influenced by the US, she and her husband wanted to gain experience in a different English-speaking country and have a bit of an adventure. Her husband was also keen to settle in a place with four seasons...though perhaps Tasmania "overdelivered" in this regard !
Although Diana's background is in community services, her first job was at a bottle shop in Hobart, which gave her a unique induction into Tasmanian culture and people. During the first lockdown in Hobart , she was surprised to find that bottle shops were considered an "essential service" and she was able to observe some noticeable cultural differences from what might be expected in Honduras.
Australia is not generally a popular destination for Ecuadorians, but Denisse, a self-confessed contrarian, developed a fascination with Steve Irwin and his show the Crocodile Hunter. At 19 years of age she came to Australia on an exchange to study Hotel Management with the an eye to take of the family business. However, she ended up taking a different path and gravitated towards science, and driven by her passion for animals. Ultimately this would take her back to Ecuador to study sharks in the Galapagos Islands and then to Tasmania, where she is currently doing a Ph.d relating to marine life and the Antarctic.
Ethiopians now make up one of Tasmania's largest African communities, and their numbers have grown noticably in recent years. But how much do Tasmanians know about Ethiopia and Ethiopian culture ? My guess is not that much, and yet Ethiopia is not only one of the larger and more significant countries in Africa, it has a complex history and culture, which is reflected in the different peoples of Ethiopian origin settling in Tasmania.
Although many Ethiopians have settled here through Australia's Humanitarian visa program, Nizam arrived on a scholarship to study his Ph.D at the University of Tasmania, and he has just recently submitted his thesis realting to Resource Management.
He is also part of the Oromo people, one of several major groups in Ethiopia, with their own language and traditions. In our conversation, Nizam painted a vivid picture of daily life in rural Ethiopia growing up and describe how his father single him out to be the one in the family to get a proper education and taking him away from the farm life that his siblings were destined for and would eventually lead to tertiary studies in Ethiopia, Germany and now Tasmania.
He also explains the unique Gadaa System, recognised by UNESCO, a traditional democratic system of making important decisions and regulating life amongst the Oromo community. Amongst other things, Ethiopia is claimed to be the origin place of coffee, and Nizam explains its great significance in the life and culture of Ethiopians.
Davor is both a passionate Croat and a proud Tasmanian. Shortly after he finished his school in Zadar, then in the Former Republic of Yugoslavia, his family decided to move to Australia, via Italy. Like many young migrants, Davor was able to adjust to the initial culture shock relatively quickly and from a fairly young age became involved in different activities with the local Croatian community, starting with the local Croatian football (soccer) club not just as a player but also helping with administration.
Davor has also spent many years as a broadcaster on local Croatian-language radio, which has received national recognition, and has a lot of knowledge and passion for the culture, achievements and history of his country of birth, as you will hear in this episode.
Migrants from Poland came to Tasmania in large numbers after World War 2, many coming to work on the large dam construction projects in the 1950s and 60s. Others came here for different reasons, bringing new skills and different customs, and raising families in Tasmania to become one of the state's most successful and prolific migrant groups.
Dana, though, could probably not be regarded as a "typical" Polish immigrant to Tasmania. She was drawn here by love you could say, rather than fleeing a war-torn country or escaping Communist repression as others did. In fact, she had been enjoying a good life as a successful concert pianist in Poland. Coming to Tasmania was in many ways a big change in both lifestyle and culture and her piano-playing took a lower place in precedence, as she focused on helping her husband in his business and being a proud mother.
Piera was born in Libya to parents of Italian and Maltese extraction just after the Second World War. Although her family had lived there for two generations, there was a growing hostility towards people of fairer, more European appearance, so Piera's father decided to move the family to Australia, where they had relatives living in Melbourne. Piera was only 9 when the family arrived in Melbourne with barely a word of English when she started school. Of course, once the family left Libya, they could never return.
Piera would eventually move, somewhat reluctantly, with her husband, to the small town of Wilmot in North-west Tasmania, an area with a reasonable community of alternative lifestylers, but eventually she would fall in love with the place. She now lives in Devonport, within sight of the port and the Spirit of Tasmania, the main sea route for visitors to and from the island.
Indonesia is Australia's biggest neighbour, though it's not one of our bigger sources of migrants. For such a populous and significant neighbour, Indonesian culture and perspectives are perhaps less familiar to Australians/Tasmanians than they should be. I went to the third city in Tasmania, Devonport to talk with Ranti about her experience of settling there after spending most of her life in the giant and busy metropolis of Jakarta.
Despite the lack of shopping malls in small city that was so much quieter than she was used to, settling in Devonport has given Ranti the chance to develop skills she never knew she had and to take up pastimes which she would never had time for back in Jakarta.
One of the hardest things for many during the Covid pandemic has been the enforced separation from family. But imagine being separated from your wife and child for nine years as you tried to support them and forge a better future for your family in Australia, which is what Reza did until his wife and boy joined him in Tasmania two years ago.
Reza is a Hazara, one of the ethnic minorities in Afghanistan subject to harsh persecution from the infamous Taliban. Reza has spent most of his life in Iran, after his parents fled there when he was very small. But the situation for Afghans in Iran is neither safe nor secure, perhaps a kin to being in Purgatory after escaping from Hell. So, like many others, Reza chose to risk the long journey to Australia, taking a year before he was taken off a leaky boat on the way from Indonesia to Australia, and detained on Christmas Island.
After some time in Sydney and Melbourne, Reza got a job in Hobart and it's impossible not to hear the joy and optimism in Reza's voice when talking about his new home.
Can you imagine being 15 years old and being put on a boat by your father going to the other side of the world to a place where you didn't speak a word of the language ? Many of us can barely conceive of this, but this is what happened to Nick when he arrived in Australia on a long journey from his birthplace on the island of Lesbos, Greece. At the time there was fighting on Lesbos between rival political factions, and many young Greeks were sent away or fled to find a better future in America, Australia and elsewhere.
After a few years in NSW, Nick would eventually come to Hobart in his 20s to pursue a business opportunity and with a friend run a restaurant and club that serviced the many Greek Hydro workers in Tasmania in the 1960s. He also became involved in the activities of the local Greek community, a migrant community that became one of the most successful and prominent of Tasmania's migrant communities and perhaps provides a model for other less established communities to learn from.
One could say that Elena's colourful personality and career match the country and culture she comes from - Mexico. When she was a young woman in Mexico, Elena decided she wanted to study "aestheticologie", which equates roughly to what we might call beauty therapy here. Elena had a successful career in Mexico working TV and other fields. Through her work she would meet her Tasmanian husband and they would eventually come to Launceston with their two Mexican-born children. Things did not good to plan and Elena faced marriage break up and health issues on the way. Through a connection she became the host of a Spanish-language program on City Park Radio in Launceston, connecting her with many Spanish-speaking individuals and communities in Tasmania and beyond. She is also a strong advocate for the rights of children with autism , after her son was diagnosed with the condition.
Music : "Del Rio Bravo" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Nancy was 11 when the democratically elected government of Chile was overthrown in a military coup, and even at such a young age she and those in the poor neighbourhood she lived in Santiago felt the negative impact of the change. The regime of General Pinochet was one marked by human rights abuses and heavy political repression leading thousands of Chileans to flee to other countries. Chileans first came to Tasmania in significant numbers in the late 1980s, and Nancy and her family were among them, essentially political refugees fleeing one of South America's most notoriously brutal dictatorships. Although many younger Chileans have left since the 80s for the bigger cities of mainland Australia, the Chilean community is still the largest Latin American community in Tasmania. But for Nancy it had never been in the original plan to put down roots here, the plan had been to return to Chile when it was safe again to do so. After ten years she returned to Chile but things were not as expected and when she returned to Tasmania it was with a different mindset and now she feels truly at home in Tasmania.
Jeff was born in Toronto and came to settle in Launceston via Western Australia and Hobart, for a combination of lifestyle and work reasons. Jeff's a Skin Cancer Specialist, and Tasmania has the second highest rate of melanomas in Australia after Queensland, which has is the skin cancer capital of the world. He met his Australian wife on a flight from Vancouver to Mexico when he was still a medical intern and she was doing a ski season in British Columbia.
Although Canada and Australia are largely culturally very similar, Jeff has observed a few differences especially around education and has some astute observation around a few idiosyncratic quirks of life in Tasmania including the Launceston-Hobart rivalry and the custom of wearing shorts in winter !
Carole grew up in Brussels in a cosmopolitan neighbourhood in a country in which the two major cultural and linguistic groups have lived side-by-side for a long time. Growing up in this environment, Carole speaks of having to be open to differences in others and this can be seen no better than in her advocacy for her son Lio, born just before the Covid lockdown in Tasmania and diagnosed with Down's Syndrome. Like many migrants, she has faced the tough situation of not being able to introduce her little boy physically to all his family in Belgium and talks about dealing with this.
Just over 8 years ago a friend in Belgium asked if Carole wanted to accompany her to Australia. It was not a place Carole had considered. She had just spent months working in Zambia and traveling around Africa and was looking to travel some were similarly more adventurous. But she ended up coming and meeting her current partner in Mackay, Queensland. However, neither of them were keen to stay long term in Mackay and after a holiday to Tasmania decided to make the move to Hobart.
Music :
"Night in Venice" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Anna's story highlights how complicated defining "nationality" can be sometimes, and though I'm trying to use a standard based on the Australian Census's "Country of Birth", there is a category "Eastern Europe, not fully defined", showing that many people in Eastern Europe throughout the 20th century were displaced or found themselves within changed borders.
Anna was born in the 1920s in what was then Yugoslavia ( today it is Croatia), but only a few years before it had been part of the Hungarian area of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In fact, as a result of being on the wrong side in WW1, Hungary lost 60% of its territory, leaving many Hungarians living within the borders of different countries. In Anna's case, she would grow up in Burgenland, Austria, on the border with Hungary, and the majority were Hungarian speakers and her early schooling wasin Hungarian.
Of course, WW2 and the German annexation brought some shocking changes and Anna suddenly found herself at high school where instruction was suddenly only in German. The Nazi occupation was a hard time, but after the war, she met a Hungarian emigre in a refugee camp and married him two weeks later.
They emigrated to Australia in 1950 and settled down for a time in country Victoria. Later they moved to Sydney. After her husband died, she would visit her son, who had moved to Tasmania, initially to pick apples...and eventually she moved here.
But this is the briefest of summaries of a long life. Listen to the episode to hear about life in rural Austria in the 1930s and 40s and more about the migrant experience from a member of a generation of which fewer and fewer remain.
Jenny or Yenni was born into a Hungarian family in the eastern part of Slovakia, then Czechoslovakia. Jenny was a child when Soviet tanks occupied her home town of Kosice, and then grew up as part of the first generation of "socialist youth" in post-war Czechoslovakia. Things were going well until the "Prague Spring", initiated by the Slovak President of Czechoslovakia Alexander Dubcek, an exciting period of unprecedented freedom and possibility for the people of Czechoslovakia. This was crushed in 1969 when Soviet tanks and army rumbled into Czechoslovakia and when arrests started at her work, Jenny made the decision to get the family out of the country.
The family was able to get to Vienna and eventually apply for asylum to Australia and Jenny and her family arrived in Hobart in 1969 with just a few suitcases and very little English.
Although it took Jenny several years to become truly proficient at English, she was eventually able to write several books based on her life experiences.
https://www.amazon.com/Eugenia-Jenny-Williams/e/B004PEW6YA%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share
Ukrainians have a long history of settlement in Tasmania, being amongst the earliest groups of post-war European migrants to settle in Tasmania. But nowadays, this migrant community is relatively small and elderly. However, Darya is one of the new generation of Ukrainians to now call Tasmania home, after coming here on a Prospective Marriage visa.
Darya's childhood was spent mainly in Kiev in the 90s, a dark time in the country as the economy crashed and criminality was abundant. But by her high school years, the future was looking much brighter and Darya had the opportunity to go to the vastly different culture of Japan and study a 4- year Bachelor of Landscape Architecture. After returning to Ukraine, Darya pursued a number of different and varied jobs, before eventually working as a tour guide, mainly in Kiev.
She met her Australian husband at a friend's wedding in Ukraine and she would eventually come to Tasmania multiple times, before moving here permanently last year, just before the international border closed. She now works at the Migrant Resource Centre in Hobart as an intern Project Officer, helping run programs to help other migrants.
It would be hard to imagine finding anyone else coming further away to be in Tasmania than Ivalu. Hailing from Greenland, the world's largest island on the far north of the globe with a sparse population of around 55,000, Ivalu talks about the experience of growing up in this remote and unique place.
Ivalu had already travelled widely before she came to settle in Tasmania several years ago - an exchange year in Panama, study in Denmark and a Masters in Indigenous Studies in Tromso, Norway. Her study in Norway lead her to meeting the Australian man who would ultimately draw her to Australia. She now lives in Judbury, a small settlement 16 km from Huonville.
Though Tasmania and Greenland lie on opposite sides of the world and are vastly different in so many ways, they both share a level of remoteness and natural beauty, where the evidence of the power of nature is never too far away.
James grew up in the Malaysian province of Sarawak in Northern Borneo. Although James comes from Chinese heritage, Sarawak's population is culturally diverse and the festivals of each major ethnic group is celebrated by all. With a strong interest in Malaysian elections, both personally and academically, James was drawn to Tasmania by a work opportunity at a South-East Asian Studies Centre at the University of Tasmania.
Tasmania and Malaysia have strong connections going back decades, whether it be through the large number of Malaysian students at the University of Tasmania in the 80s and 90s, or through the commercial links around forestry and hydro-electricity, it's the SE Asian country with which Tasmania has significant ties.
With a librarian mother, Edward's early life was immersed in books, and planted a seed of curiosity to see the world outside his own country. Growing up in an English-speaking environment that was heavily influenced by British culture, meant that Edward has not felt the "culture shock" so much of adapting to places, and he has a lived in a few before Launceston. In fact, Edward has found much that is relatable in Launceston to a similiarly sized city in Nigeria.
For many Australians, their knowledge of Nigeria is often limited to the ubiquituous Nigerian email scams of years past, but as Africa's most populous country and a major centre for film and music, it deserves more attention, and Edward reveals some aspects of Nigerian society and culture that may surprise.
Music :
"Tafi Maradi" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
So what associations come to mind when you think about Brazil ? Sun, samba and soccer, perhaps ? But as well as that it's a big country geographically and one of the most diverse racially and culturally on earth.
Ariana is a rare example from the people I've talked to, in that she both aimed to come to Tasmania and was able to secure a job here before moving, which took many attempts over 9 months.
As someone who worked in the airline industry for many years, it's perhaps not surprising that Ariana has moved around a lot, both throughout Brazil and the world. Like many Brazilians started work at an early age, helping her mother with her house-cleaning business. But it was her dream to become an airline pilot, a dream that seemed impossible, but Ariana started to go in that direction step by step, and eventually worked as a flight attendant for a Brazilian airline...and from here a new world of possibility opened up.
But it was only after working in New Zealand that she decided that she didn't want to return to Brazil but instead make a new life abroad.
When Anna and her husband visited Tasmania for a short holiday several years ago, they had not imagined they would be coming back to live, but a year later Anna's husband was offered a job at the University of Tasmania and they decided to come and give it a go. Although the cultural transition has not been too massive, there have been some noteable cultural differences to adjust to, especially in the style of communication.
Anna grew up in a small place in Finland and went to a primary school with barely 20 students in total. She developed a love of music, especially for playing the violin and through this she has connected into the local musical community in Hobart and plays in a local orchestra.
Jaewon first came to Australia as a student, looking to improve her English in Melbourne, but in the process met the man she was to marry and they lived in the Middle East and South Korea before her husband got a job in Launceston, a place Jaewon knew nothing about beforehand.
Having young children though has helped get to know people in the local community and build a social network, but Jaewon had to adjust to being a full-time mum for the first time in Launceston. Eventually, she had the idea to start a food stall with a friend making Korean pancakes, and 5 years on they have a regular stall at the Launceston Harvest Market and other markets around Launceston. Moving the Launceston has also given Jaewon the opportunity to follow a passion from childhood of having a little studio to paint.
Melika and her husband came to Tasmania in what proved to be the most challenging time imaginable - 3 weeks before Covid-19 hit Australia fully and the international and state borders were slammed shut. Neither of them had a job and wear very worried that finding work was going to be very challenging. Things worked out for Melika, finding work within a month, but were much more challenging for her husband, who after many months of trying without success, eventually got an IT job in Adelaide.
Melika, who is from Tehran, is a qualified architect, a job she dreamed of doing from a young age. She had wanted to emigrate, though her husband was reluctant, but when researching Tasmania and seeing pictures online she fell in love with the place and persuaded her husband that they had to come her and give it a go. In the mean time, as you will here, Melika has embraced the beauty of Tasmania's nature, becoming something of a "tree-hugger".
Iran is a country about which many Australians have misconceptions, and you can hardly blame them with regularly negative news about Iran in the media. With a growing Iranian population in Tasmania, it's important to know that there are a lot more sides to Iran, it's people and it's ancient culture. Though Melika's is but one of many many stories, I hope that it will make people see that there is another side to Iran and one should always question one's preconceived ideas about a place and its people.
Arman was brought up in a fairly small, rural area of Bangladesh, but was sent to school at a competitive cadet college ( a kind of boarding school) at 12 years of age, surrounded by ambitious high achievers. Arman has set his sights on getting into the army, but when his efforts failed his self confidence, sky high until that point, took a hard hit.
Being forced to taste failure for the first time though ultimately lead to a new path as his mother applied for him to study Business at the University of Tasmania, where he started study just over 5 years ago. With few other Bangladeshi students around, Arman had to get outside his comfort zone, learning to apply for a casual job for the first time in his life and volunteering at multiple organisations.
Arman also talks about the social and family pressures in Bangladesh culture versus the more easygoing style that he appreciates in Australia.
Eri comes from the old Japanese capital of Nara - a small peaceful city which could represent a picture postcard of traditional Japan. But the path Eri has followed has been anything but traditional and has brought her to Tasmania via Germany, England and India. Eri was always interested in dance, but only learnt of the field of dance psychotherapy while living and working in Germany and this later lead to study in London.
Eri had from a young age become fascinated by other cultures and ways of life outside her own, and after 2 years England she decided she wanted to really get out of her comfort zone and travelled to India, following again her passion for dance. She later came to Australia to work and earn enough money to return to India. But fate took a different turn and she ended up coming to Tasmania and meeting her future husband, who she now lives with in Hobart.
Photo credit : Yuko Masuda
Helena and her husband were living an idyllic lifestyle breeding horses in rural Czechoslovakia and looking forward to buying a rustic old property to set up their own horse-breeding farm, when a fatal accident triggered a series of events that would change the course of their lives and lead them to Tasmania. After their manager was killed in a car accident, his replacement, an ardent Communist party member, did not approve of their activities and their chances of getting their property disappeared. Later, as they had some success breeding horses, they attracted the attention of local Communist members who tried to coerce them into joining the party, this soon lead to regular harrassment and ultimately the decision to get out.. a decision which could mean never seeing their homeland again. It was no easy job to get out of the country even for a holiday, but Helena had an aunt and uncle in Tasmania and they decided they would try and migrate there in the mid-1980s. After some dramatic moments escaping Czechoslovakia and Europe, Helena, her husband and two boys , ended up in Tasmania. But with little English and few job prospects, it was tough to adjust at first. However, like many migrants, Helena persisted through adversity and has had several interesting careers in the meantime. It's a story full of both light and shade with a healthy bit of humour too...and some interesting experiences of cultural differences, including on her return to Czechia.
The Cold War and the Soviet era can feel like ancient history for some people, but for Olga and Yuri the oppresson of Soviet Russia is still part of their lived experience. After being involved in political activities in Russia, they were subject to threats from the KGB, job loss and imprisonment, and then experienced a wait of many years to get out of Russia and discover the West. They eventually chose Australia to migrate to in the 1980s before moving to Tasmania in the late 1990s. They brought with them 3 children, who have stayed and settled in Tasmania as well.
Olga has written a book about her family's experience of living in and esaping Soviet Russia, titled "Let Me Out Of Russia"
https://shop.fullersbookshop.com.au/p/markdowns-and-remainders-let-me-out-of-russia-a-struggle-for-freedom
German left Venezuela 5 years ago, before the economic, social and political situation seriously deteriorated. His reasons for leaving were more related to a love of travel than the situation in the country that has caused many Venezuelans to leave in the past few years.
After some time in the USA, German was thinking to go to South Africa where he new people, but his girlfriend persuaded him to follow her to Brisbane, Australia around 4 years ago, where he studied English and then Cookery. After breaking up with his girlfriend, he decided to make a new start in Tasmania, a place he didn't know a lot about but he was able to continue his studies here and got a job in a kitchen a month after arriving.
The township of Cygnet and the Huon region in which it lies were both named by French explorers in the 18th century, so it seems an appropriate place for a Frenchwoman to have settled down in. Catherine moved here 9 years ago with her husband and the area bears many similar features in common with her birthplace in Normandy - the apple orchards and cider, the cows in green paddocks and even the bird sounds all reminded her of her childhood. Although she has lived in Australia since the 90s and Tasmania for 9 years, at first she was shocked by some of the cultural differences such as seeing women drinking cold beer directly out of a bottle - not the done thing in sophisticated France at all.
After a tumultuous youth growing up with the backdrop of the French Algerian war which sparked disturbances in Paris, Catherine developed a sense of responsibility early in life as well as what was to prove a lifelong devotion to yoga, Many years later, her Australian husband, Bob, would credit the yoga for her surviving a dangerous brush with cancer, an experience which Catherine describes in more detail in this episode.
Catherine also talks about her Moroccan roots through her father's line and her grandfather and father's role in French Resistance during the Second World War and how this impacted her father's life in Paris afterwards.
Nicolas was born in a small majority Christian town in Palestine, but when he was 2 his family left for Chile, where they had long-standing family connections. In fact, migration from Palestine to Chile has a history going back to the 1920s. Although the family settled with in Santiago, Nicolas never felt like it was quite home, and as an adult returned to Palestine to reunite with family and to work. But it didn't quite work out as expected and Nicolas headed back to Chile to work in the family's restaurant business. From talking to an uncle who lived there, Nicolas decided to try his luck in Australia, eventually studying engineering in Tasmania.
When Boyd arrived in Australia with his family at 18 years old, his father's first act, perhaps a symbolic one, was to take the family out for a seafood lunch and told his children that Zimbabwe was where they were brought up, but if anyone asked to say "Australia is my home now". Advice Boyd credits with helping him settle down in the new country much quicker.
Years later he returned to Zimbabwe with his father and heard for the first time about some of his father's experiences as a soldier in the war leading up to independence in 1980, experiences which had long-term impacts on his father ( as with many veterans of armed conflicts).
Dona grew up in small village in the Philippines where just getting to school required deep commitment - literally, as kids had to cross a river with no bridge to get to their primary school. Dona had a strict religious upbringing, but broke family traditions and expectations by not marrying a pastor, rather she found love online with a man in Tasmania.
15 years ago, she came to Tasmania knowing nothing about life here, in fact before she came she had confused it with Tanzania ! Despite a disappointing lack of big shopping malls, Dona has learnt to love bushwalking and nature and does volunteer work helping to support new arrivals through food, and has initiated a charity to help young footballers in the Philippines with the help of local Tasmanian soccer clubs.
When Paola left Argentina for the first time having just finished uni studies, she never expected she would have ended up at the bottom of the world in southern Tasmania. The plan had actually been to backpack around Europe and go back to Argentina, but a 500 km walk on the Camino in Spain with an Aussie guy she met travelling lead to a kind of spiritual awakening, falling in love and then moving to Australia.
Just over two years ago her and her husband made the decision to trade a successful life in Sydney and move the family to a country property just outside the township of Cygnet, a 50 minute drive south of Hobart, a decision which has exceeded her expectations in many ways.
Elaine arrived in Tasmania in 2013, when her husband got a position in the Philosophy Department at the University of Tasmania. Originating from a small town in the "Rust Belt" state of Ohio, she came via Melbourne ( 19 years ) and London, looking for a change and a place to concentrate on her writing.
Americans now make up Tasmania's 7th largest migrant group, and it's a group that has been growing, according to the last census.
As a long-term resident of Australia/Tasmania , Elaine has some interesting reflections on some of the cultural differences between Australia and the US and also about how living abroad so long has changed the outlook she has of her country of birth. Also, despite not being a particularly sporty person, she has developed a passion for Aussie Rules football ( You'll have to listen to find out what team she supports), particularly the women's pro league.
After Carlos's mother remarried and relocated from Peru to Tasmania in 1972, 12-year-old Carlos was meant to follow. His visa application was rejected and Carlos was left in the care of his elderly grandmother who was too old to look after him properly. Carlos, though a victim of polio at an early age had made him lame, lived a privileged early life, but left to educate himself through his high school years, life was tough in Peru. His parents had stressed to him the importance of getting an education should he make it to Australia, but it wasn't until 1984 that he was able to visit them on a tourist visa and after many trials was able to get residence. Although initially he did not like Hobart - he spoke no English and there were almost no Spanish speakers, he would eventually go on to study art in Hobart and become an accomplished wood artist.
Carlos's is a great story of resilience and persistence and a strong pride in his Peruvian heritage
Like many other recent migrants, Carlos was drawn to Tasmania by the regional migration programme, after spending a year in Melbourne. He and his wife had decided to leave Colombia 4 years ago to seek a safer and more secure life in Australia. Carlos bought with him much experience working in social projects in Bogota, but with few employment opportunities in Tasmania, he ended up working in an apple orchard and doing cleaning at the university. However, through persistence he managed to get an opportunity work in a job that he now loves with the Red Cross.
Although Tasmania seemed a bit too quiet for him at first and the lack of variety you might get in a large city is something he misses, coming from Colombia he appreciates living in a safe and secure environment above all.
Grace Nguyen, or to give her her Vietnamese name, Ngoc Thanh Tu Nguyen, is not perhaps your typical Vietnamese accounting graduate. She came to Tasmania 8 years ago with some music and business studies in Ho Chi Minh City behind her. In her time in Tasmania she's been a volunteer for the Wilderness Society, sang with the Southern Gospel Choir, played a role in a music with a local theatre company and even tried her hand at pole dancing classes , and that's on top of having studied a three-year degree in a language that she really struggled with on first arrival.
Grace also offers some great advice on one of the toughest issues facing new migrants to Tasmania - how to tap into the "hidden" jobs market.
When Claudia contacted me about participating in the podcast she told me she met her husband after buying a used car from him in Tasmania almost 20 years ago, and I was instantly intrigued. In fact the full story could easily come out of a romance novel - Girl from a village in the Swiss Alps with minimal English language meets New Zealand single father after buying used car from him on Bruny Island and they end up getting married.
Claudia grew up in an area of Switzerland often refered to as "Heidi land", after the well know childrens books, in a small village full of traditions and rituals and a strong sense of community, something she also found in Tasmania. Like many migrants, setting up life in Tasmania meant in many ways starting afresh, with her teachers qualifications not recognised in Tassie at the time.
When Kalana came to Tasmania in October 2019, he was 110kg and feeling a bit lost after four not-entirely-happy years studying and working in Melbourne. But in his short time in Hobart he has experienced some dramatic improvements in his physical and mental well-being, mainly through small things that many of us locals would take for granted, such as free music events and many places to relax.
Kalana grew up in Colombo with his mother and two sisters and the family struggled in his young years, moving house many times. But everyone around them struggled too, so he did not feel it so much. When he moved to study in Melbourne it was the first time he'd lived a way from his familt, a bit step for a young man. In Melbourne he got a job at a motel and eventually he realised that he preferred hospitality to accountancy...a choice that was costly in the short term but contributed to his choice of Tasmania as a destination.
The story of Teodor Flonta's life could easily make an intriguing film script, beginning in a small Transylvanian peasant village surrounded by extended family and old men with moustaches who would fascinate him with their ghost stories. When he was young his father declared an "enemy of the people" by the communist regime and throughout the 50s was arrested, imprisoned and tormented. With an aptitude for languages, it seemed Teodor was destined to leave Romania and eventually did after meeting his future Italian wife, Ariella. After 7 years in Italy they moved to Australia to teach Italian in Adelaide. Teodor arrived in 1978 with no English but by the 80s was running the Italian department at the University of Tasmania.
As Teodor has had a long and eventful life, this episode is longer and divided into three chapters. Part 1 will give you a real feel of peasant life in the Romanian village, but also understand the personal impact of the communist dictatorship that ruled Romania on peoples' lives. Part 2 focuses on how his interest and aptitude for languages was the first step in a journey out of Romania, meeting his Italian wife Ariella. The third part is how he came to Australia and then settle down in Tasmania as a lecturer in Italian.
In many ways it's a personal story of particular place and time, but it also touches on universal themes that continue to effect new arrivals to our shores fleeing repressive regimes and political or personal persecution.
Teodor also reads several passages from his book, "A Luminous Future" , which focuses on the experiences of his father in Communist Romania.
https://www.amazon.com.au/Luminous-Future-Teodor-Flonta-ebook/dp/B007DCBN7W
Prakash arrived in Hobart in 2009 with his wife with the intention to study Accounting, however, after only 6 months he switched to studying Commercial Cookery, though he had no prior experience. It proved a fortuitous joint as it lead to him eventually getting a position at a popular local seafood restaurant where he has now worked for 10 years , in the meantime being initiated into the mysteries of Aussie slang and occasional pranking by workmates.
Prakash is a proud member of the growing Nepali community, now one of the largest and fastest-growing in the state and has been heavily involved in the Nepali-community based cricket team the Gurkha Legends, for which he has big dreams.
A common response when I've mentioned Eritrea is "Where is that?" or "I've never heard of that country". Eritrea is a country on the Horn of Africa, bordering Ethiopia, Sudan and Djibouti, which gained independence from Ethiopia in 1993. Since then it has been a one-party state with, according to Human Rights Watch, one of the worst human right records in the world. As a result, many Eritreans have fled the country to escape persecution or the country's compulsory and indefinite military service. In recent years, more and more Eritreans have settled in Tasmania, with the community now estimated in the hundreds.
Ruth ( not her real name ) agreed to talk with me about her story of escaping Eritrea to an refugee camp in Ethiopia and sharing some of her experiences of settling down in Tasmania in the last 3 years. I hope that Ruth's story will help others appreciate the difficult realities many refugees face once they have fled their country and appreciate better what to us are unthinkable conditions that drive people to flee their home.
The Pakistani community in Tasmania is one of several South Asian groups that has grown quite noticeably in recent years, partly driven by the Australian Government's Regional visa program. Many Tasmanians would be unaware of this.... unless they are involved with local cricket, which is where I met Tabish, a big hittting batsman from Islamabad. Tabish spent 9 years in Sydney before moving to Hobart with his wife and two girls. a year and a half ago and now says he is in love with Tasmania, with many aspects of life here reminding him of Pakistan.
Thanatcha aka Oil arrived in Launceston just under two years ago after meeting her Australian husband at an international school where she was working in her hometown of Pattaya. She starting teaching piano when she was only 15 and now teaches it from her home in Launceston. Thanatcha talks about the challenges of settling down in Launceston, a town vastly different from where she came from, how she''s learnt to adapt to local culture and the value to migrants of understanding "footy" for getting to know locals.
Bulgarians are probably the least represented of the Balkan peoples in Tasmania and Australia. For many in Australia, Bulgaria is a land of dark mystery more commonly associated with burly Olympic weightlifters than classical concert pianists. . In this episode, find out about how a Bulgarian ends up studying at "the end of the world" and how she sees life in Tasmania and hear about a unique and rather surprising Bulgarian custom.
Music extracts played by Gergana Yildiz from "Spring Caprices" by Lubomir Pipkov.
After living the first 32 years of his life on the island of Zanzibar in Tanzania, Eddie Mohammed married a Tasmanian lady and made the decision to leave his old life behind and start anew on the vastly different island of Tasmania. Settling in was hard, with the challenges including the weather, finding employment ,adjusting to unfamiliar social customs and no African population to speak of all facing him. A chance meeting led Eddie to joining a local soccer club and sport proved to be his pathway to feeling more at home - he got work and a social network. Eddie now coaches youth soccer and has coached and mentored young African migrants, and his influence has often extended beyond the soccer pitch.
Aidan Tkay was born in Uganda to parents of Rwandan heritage. He grew up in the crowded city of Kampala at a school with many different African nationalities whose families had sought safe haven in Uganda, In his teens he became passionate about music and performance and he has brought this passion to Tasmania and has performed his Afrobeats-influenced music at numerous local events. A trained social worker, he went from working for NGOs in refugee camps in central Africa to now working in disability services in Hobart.
You can hear some of his music here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cot9kE6iUQM
Kadir was born in a small city between Ankara and Cappadocia in Turkey. He arrived in Hobart 19 years ago, the hometown of his wife at the time., who he had met while they were both volunteering in England. Kadir was a qualified physiotherapist, but faced a hard struggle to get his qualifications recognised and like many new migrants, he had to start life all over again. After years of study and then jobs in restaurants and a bakery, Kadir got a position as an interpreter at Centrelink, where he still works.
I talked to Kadir about his experiences as a migrant from Turkey to Tasmania, the challenges and the cultural contrasts that he has observed.