Energetic, innovative and contributing enormously to the cultural growth of this nation was how then-prime minister Malcolm Fraser described Australia’s Vietnamese community.
Forty years since the Vietnamese sought asylum in Australia, people of Vietnamese ancestry make up almost 13 per cent of the population of Brimbank, making it the city’s second-largest cultural group. To celebrate its contributions to Brimbank, the Vietnamese Community in Australia (VCA) held an art and photographic exhibition at
St Albans Secondary College earlier this month.
The exhibition highlighted the successes of Vietnamese refugees who have made their home in this area and their strength in overcoming hardship. “When you are in one of the worst situations imaginable and somebody reaches out their hand to you, you want to say thank you,” said VCA vice-president Viv Nguyen.
Another aim of the exhibition, held in the lead-up to Refugee Week, was to boost awareness of what it means to be a refugee today. “We wanted to do this partly because we think the environment we were welcomed to in Australia is completely different to the attitude towards refugees now,” Ms Nguyen said.
“We believe that whatever community, if it’s given the opportunities that we were, it will thrive as well.”
