This session of History Matters (Oral History NSW) explores ways we can value linguistic diversity and develop a fuller and more inclusive understanding of Australia’s multilingual past and present.
All our stories belong to all Australians. All our stories should have equal value. That's why these three plays by South Asian diaspora playwrights Sonal Moore, Kevin Bathman and Roanna Gonsalves are so precious, and resonated with me.
Author Roger Pulvers is a polymath with a formidable list of achievements that after perusing, usually require a lie down with a cold cloth on my forehead. He is the kind of person we might refer to as ‘atama ga agaranai’, a person whose achievements are so humbling that you are compelled to bow down to them.
The most encouraging aspect of the conference was that diversity was a reality and a given, not an ideal or a promise. I was among Asian Australians of many colours and ages sharing ideas about the meaning of diaspora, hybridity, diversity and faith, transnationalism, mobilities, gender, art.
MASAKO FUKUI 