Immigration History in the Immigration Museum of Melbourne - Essay Example

Representation of the Immigration History in the Immigration Museum, Melbourne Australia Name Course Instructor’s name Date Introduction Immigration museum of Australia in victoria is a site of presentation collection of historical evidences of Australia’s journey towards the cosmopolitan state it is today. The immigration museum attempts to create an understanding of the diverse background of migrants. This is done through a range of exhibitions, interactive programs and festivals. The overall effect is an appreciation of the experience of migrants’ journey into Australia. Personally the experience of being in the immigration museum of Australia left me in astonishment. The first glimpse of the ground floor welcomed me to the tribute garden. The garden represents a tribute to the thousands of people who migrate to Australia and victoria in particular. The names of the immigrants and their countries of origin are displayed on the outside wall. I found the most unique display to be the long room with its architectural design displaying distinct renaissance. The model ship in the middle of the room represents the main mode of transportation for immigrants in the 19th century. This represents the economic development that victoria has undergone because of the cultural diversity. The various mediums through which the immigration journey is portrayed touched my heart in a manner nothing else ever did before. The story of the stolen childhoods is indeed saddening considering the separation of children from their parents. These children were sent overseas because of the inability of their families to provide essential needs to them. The overall effect of the presentations to me was an evocation of the question of my cultural identity and how it is integrated and accepted in Victoria. The museum also helped me understand the tradition and history of Australian culture; the struggle of cultural identity and race issues in Australia to the point where the country accepts a multi-ethnic society. The main cause of prosperity of Australia is in its accommodation of diversity and multiculturalism (McDonald and Withers, 2008). Currently the museum is exhibiting a fashion oriented display of Islamic dress style titled faith fashion fusion. This exhibition is aimed at expressing the fashion that has for long been an identity for muslin women. Through this exhibition, the organisers hope to achieve a sense independent for all Islamic Australian women who have succeeded in fusing faith and fashion in their mode of dressing. These women have actively engaged in fashion trends and still maintain the limits of the Islamic faith as pertaining to women dressing. The exhibition will run until the 9th of June 2014 between the hours of 10.00 am and 05.00pm. (The Museum Victoria, 2014) Since its opening in 1998, the immigration museum of Australia has strived to endorse the dimension that Australia is one of the most socio-culturally diverse countries in the world. This is attested to by the fact that more than a quarter of the population of Australia is of foreigners. 43.5% of the population that is not of foreign origin have one parent who is of foreign origin. The general population of Australia comes from over 200 countries with a range of varying languages (Howard, 1986). Australia is therefore shown as a multi-ethnic community with a very complex migration history. The migration policy in place in Australia has been active since 1972. It was put in place to repeal the racial unjust policies (DIAC, 2008). The creation of the immigration museum has effectively promoted the implementation of the government’s policies on immigration. It has highlighted immigration issues for discussion. Through the museum, the implementation of multiculturalism policies has been done successfully (Hugo 2004). The International Organization for Migration (IOM) says that the issues multiculturalism affects not only the immigrants but also the Australians themselves. The permanent exhibitions represent the history of immigration since the aboriginal people. There are waves of immigrants and how they were integrated into the Australian society. Establishment of the immigration museum is a government tool to firmly enforce their acceptance of cultural diversity in its society. It is a way of encouraging the development of minorities by creating an atmosphere of mutual cultural tolerance. This way a unification of the diversity of cultures is done to achieve homogeneity. The exhibits show an acceptance of both collective and political histories through which Australian immigration has evolved overtime (Walsh, 2001). The curators’ process has remained unchanged since the opening of the museum mainly because of financial constraints. The museum also has an insufficiency of staff that is needed to change the curators’ process. Another reason is the complexity in which the Australian migratory laws have undergone. Australia is now an ethno –cultural society with diverse immigration policies designed to accommodate a global culture. Modification of the museum exhibition may in effect alter the representation of diversity gathered throughout the years of immigration. The museum faces challenges in representation of the current complexity of immigration. Jupp, (2001) notes that it is designed to expose the modern concepts of identity, culture and race. Exhibition such as these promote interaction between visitors and the museum to fully represent immigration. The exhibition as is curated is aimed to give visitors an immense experience of the contradictions of immigration experiences. In a research by, Ilham (2011), it was determined that most of the museum visitors are immigrants or related to immigrants. This group of people have successfully integrated into the society and openly identify themselves as migrants. They come to confirm the pieces of history the museum holds and how these pieces relate to their stories. Most responses to the reason they visit is usually family history. In this way the museum achieves a major goal; to connect the diverse cultures in Australia to their past and create a sense of acceptance. Some visitors to the museum confessed that the stories they had had heard in the museum did not give a good feeling and therefore their overall experience of the museum was not good. Others, particularly of Chinese origin complained that their culture was not represented in a good way. When asked what motivated the visitors to come to the museum, 89% of them answered that their family history was the main motivation. This shows that the museum serves as a good and attractive source of information about migration for most migrants. This can be taken as a measure of the quality of the coherence of the museums exhibits with the reality of immigration. A large percentage of the visitors said they believed in a multicultural society and that Australia was indeed accommodative of the cultural diversity that resulted from immigration. Ethno-cultural diversity is constitutive of the current society in Australia. The museum has effectively portrayed Australia as a multicultural society wherein the diversity of ethnicity and religious background exist in coherence. The results of the study by Ilham (2011) show the different expectations that visitors to the museum have. Most hoping to find their immigration story being portrayed in positive light. They have a general assumption that the museum is a cultural and political actor in the society. The museum in itself already has an image it wants to portray and most visitors succumb to their own expectations. Visitors show ambivalence in expectation and exhibitions through the different logics of representation. Being founded by the government, the museum was intended to have a civic role in the society. This role is to portray Australian acceptance to immigration. It is aimed at pacification of immigration issues and provision of a neutral ground for solving these issues (Healey, 2002). The museum has had very little interference from the central government but still has to follow the policies put in place. Despite the independence given to the museum, the government still has the authority to determine Australian identity. The museum therefore provides the allocation for dialogue of the differences that exist in Australian identity and non-Australian identity (Stokes 1997). According to the History Trust of South Australia, full commitment from the museum is necessary to achieve the image that it wants to portray. The museum has to develop cooperation in the presentation of its exhibitions with the community. It not only presents the history of already existing immigrants but also provide an avenue for the emergence of new communities of immigrants. Researches into finding the aspects of the new communities that can be represented in the museum are an integral part of the pre-exhibition. These researches depend on the complexity of interaction between the museum authorities with the community. The success of representation is a manifestation of the existing partnership between the museum and the communities of immigrants. In conclusion, my experience at the immigration museum was one that brought personal understanding of the society that has undergone years of social cohesion and managed its contradictions. The outlay of the exhibition helps to tell the story of immigration. The architectural design and curators works is in full understanding of the different immigration experiences. This is effectively relayed to the visitors who leave the museum with an experience of the history of immigration and the tragedy these people went through. The museum also functions as a symbol of the federal governments’ accommodation to diversity. It provides a bold statement that Australia accepts the differences in every ethnic group that it is made up of and owes its successes to the coherence of these ethnic groups The mission of the museum has been to present immigration history in a manner that promotes and celebrates social diversity. The dynamism of immigration in Australia is presented in a multiplicity of schemes of identities of immigrants. The museum represents the stories of immigrants by cohering the variant ethnic backgrounds, generations and motivation to immigrate. The ultimate result is the perception that immigration is an aspect of globalisation of economic and cultural activities. It leads to the formation of a single identity which is Australian. The museum handles migratory issues in a manner that aids the transmission of culture from one generation to another. It also helps in unifying the encounters of the migrants to the host culture through exhibitions which tell the story of the migrants. Visitors can conduct their own genealogical research to find out the journey their ancestors made to Australia and how that has shaped who they now are. References DIAC (2008), Population flows: immigration aspects, 2006–07, Canberra, p. 4. Healey, J, (2002), Australia’s Immigration Debate, Spinney Press, Rozelle. History Trust of South Australia at http://www.history.sa.gov.au/\ Howard, J (1986) Multicultural Australia: United in Diversity. Updating the 1999 New Agenda for Multicultural al Australia: Strategic directions for 2003-2006, Available at http://www.dcita.gov.au/cca. Hugo G.(2004) A new paradigm of international migration: implications for migration policy and planning for Australia,Research paper no. 10, Parliamentary Library 2003–04, p. 19. Ilham B (2011) "Immigrant Communities, Cultural Institutions and Political Space: The Success of the Immigration Museum in Melbourne, Australia," Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge: Vol. 9: Iss. 4, Article 7. Jupp, J (2001) The Australian People: An Encyclopaedia of the Nation, Its People and Their Origins, Cambridge University Press. McDonald P. and Withers G. (2008), Population and Australia’s future labour force, , p. 11, Stokes G. (1997). The Politics of Identity in Australia, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 132-144 The International Organization for Migration (IOM), dedicated to the humane and orderly movement of people around the world at http://www.iom.int/ The Museum victoria accessed 27/01/2014 http://museumvictoria.com.au/immigrationmuseum/about-us/ Walsh, K (2001). The Changing Face of Australia: A Century of Immigration 1901- 2000, Allen and Unwin Read More