Understanding Ethnic Residential Cluster Formation: new perspectives from South Australia’s migrant hostels

ABSTRACT

Throughout Australia’s history, successive governments have lamented the clustering of non-English-speaking migrants in ‘ethnic enclaves’ or ‘ghettos’. From the early Chinatowns of the 1800s till today, urban concentrations of ethnic groups have raised concerns and fears in local populations and authorities alike, despite decades of international research which suggests that ethnic residential clusters actually aid long-term assimilation and adjustment. Many of the ethnic residential clusters in contemporary Australia have been claimed to be a direct consequence of the migrant hostels and reception centres which operated between 1948 and the 1990s. This paper traces migrant settlement patterns in South Australia in rich detail, revealing the complexities of lived experiences that shape migrant settlement decisions. Against the background of public and scholarly debates over ‘ethnic enclaves’, and drawing on quantitative and qualitative historical research on the lived experiences of former hostel migrants, it analyses how migrant hostels and reception centres contributed to the settlement experiences of diverse migrants. We conclude that migrant hostels were just one among various factors that led to the growth and maintenance of ethnic residential clusters.

KEYWORDS:

• Ghettos
• ethnic enclaves
• migrant hostels
• Australian immigration
• migration policy
• South Australia
• community formation

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to our collaborators on the project for their input and contributions to this paper, and to the anonymous reviewers on the original version of this paper. We wish to dedicate this paper to the memory of our colleague Graeme Hugo, who served on the Advisory Board for the Hostel Stories project and was an enthusiastic supporter of it.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCiD

Rachel A. Ankeny http://orcid.org/0000-0002-1547-6031

Notes

1. In addition to clusters discussed in the body of the paper, classic examples include Italian ethnic clusters in Leichhardt (NSW) and Carlton (VIC); see Reynolds (2000) and Jones (1964) respectively.

2. For example, the scholars of the Chicago School in the 1920s and 1930s such as Wirth (1928). For more recent studies, see, for instance, the various papers on ethnic settlements in cities such as London, Cologne, Berlin, Vienna, and Brussels contained in the special issue of Urban Studies 35 (10) (1998).

3. See, for example, Harney’s work on Italians in Canada (Harney 1985) and Burnley’s work (Burnley 1989) on the Vietnamese in Sydney.

4. For a good outline of the relevant international history, see Jupp, McRobbie, and York (1990).

5. However, some scholars have described these locales as ‘ghettos’ (e.g. Peel 2012, 96).

6. The term ‘New Australian’ was coined by Minister for Immigration Arthur Calwell in the late 1940s in an attempt to deter the use of the pejorative titles ‘Balts’ and ‘Reffos’ (short for refugees) which were being applied to new arrivals. It also fit with the wider rhetoric of the assimilationist policy of the day. The term ‘New Australian’ soon took on its own derogatory connotations.

7. Pauline Hanson was the co-founder (1997) and leader of One Nation, a populist political party with a highly conservative and anti-multiculturalism platform. She was expelled from One Nation in 2002, and rejoined the party in 2013, becoming its leader again in 2014. In 2016, she was elected to the Federal Senate representing Queensland.

8. The Cronulla riots (mid-December 2005) involved a series of race riots and outbreaks of mob violence, assault, and property damage in Cronulla, a beachside suburb of Sydney, and spread to surrounding communities. The riots stemmed from tensions between young people of Lebanese and Anglo-Celtic backgrounds.

9. Although the Australian Bureau of Statistics census website in numerous places stresses the need for continuity in the questions asked so that social changes can be measured over time, they make ‘new inclusions to meet emerging information needs’. So, for instance, ancestry data were included in the 1986 census but the results were inconsistent, especially for third- or fourth-generation immigrants who could not report their backgrounds accurately. Ancestry questions were removed in 1991 and 1996, and reinstated in 2001 with more specific instructions, but were coded using a standard classification system; see the ABS Fact Sheet at: http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/[email protected]/ProductsbyReleaseDate/A7A0E94399353F1DCA257148008018DC?OpenDocument. Because of these factors, the overall numbers and the picture provided vary significantly between census years.

10. At hostels such as Finsbury/Pennington, Glenelg, and Gawler (all SA), these records take the form of large, oversized register books that record all arrivals in black/blue and all departures, including first address, in red. Woodside Hostel (SA) used a system of individual registration cards noting names and dates of arrival as well as the departure dates and destination addresses. These records are available at the National Archives of Australia (NAA) office, Adelaide.

11. During and following both world wars, the Australian government required all ‘aliens’, that is foreign nationals or non-British subjects, living in Australia to register with local authorities. These forms include information on arrival, birthplace, occupation, marital status, and sometimes physical descriptions or photographs. As all ‘aliens’ were required to notify change of address, these are useful records of places of abode. Registrations were required between 1916 and 1926, and again between 1939 and 1971, and records are held in the NAA. Information gathered varied over time but typically included name of ship, date of arrival, date and place of birth, occupation, marital status and current address. Later registrations also included physical description and even photographs. What is critical for our purposes is that every change of abode had to be registered, hence providing an excellent data source.

12. See, for example,NAA: J25, 1966/2798, Social Welfare—Migrant Accommodation—Problem Cases in Commonwealth Hostels, Queensland [Wacol and Colmslie Hostels], Brisbane. Length of stay was further limited in 1972 to 12 months.

13. Policy for the establishment of hostels stated that: ‘Sites should be reasonably accessible from places of work; a total of approximately two hours travelling time per day is maximum. Use of established transport facilities is desirable.’ See NAA, D618, IM4 PART 1, [Department of Immigration]—Gawler (SA) NA [New Australians] hostel accommodation, Sydney.

14. Citations to interviews provide an internal reference and the date of the interview from the oral histories which are part of the Hostel Stories project. Interviews will be lodged at the State Library of South Australia on completion of the project where permission from participants was provided.

15. This sample is taken from vol. 4 in NAA, Series D2419, Adelaide.

16. The term ‘Australian way of life’, although never defined, was coined in the 1940s and came into regular usage in the 1950s in official, public and even advertising vernacular. It represented a quintessential and idealised Australian lifestyle (Murphy 2000).

17. For example, the Indo-Chinese Refugee Association worked from an office situated in the Pennington Hostel itself, and social welfare workers no longer travelled between multiple hostels and work camps but also were located in the hostel itself.

18. For example, oral testimony has informed us about the formation of soccer and other sporting clubs in the hostels that later transferred to associated ethnic communities. Similarly, a Chilean migrant couple at Pennington Hostel explained how, seeking ethnic and cultural support, Chilean people met regularly under a particular eucalyptus tree and later went on to form the Chilean Club.

19. These transcriptions will be made publicly available at the conclusion of the Hostel Stories project.

Additional information

Funding

Research for this paper was supported by a Linkage Grant from the Australian Research Council [grant number LP120100553], ‘Hostel Stories: Toward a Richer Narrative of the Lived Experiences of Migrants’ to the University of Adelaide in collaboration with the Migration Museum and in partnership with the cities of Charles Sturt and Port Adelaide Enfield, State Records, and the Vietnamese Community in Australia (South Australian chapter).