The longstanding attempt to legislate Indigenous-Asian relations out of existence continues to cast its shadow today.

The longstanding attempt to legislate Indigenous-Asian relations out of existence continues to cast its shadow today. Cathy Freeman is identified as Australia’s most famous Indigenous sportswoman, but she is also of Chinese descent. In the late 19th century, her great-great grandfather moved from China to northern Queensland, where he worked on sugarcane farms. In 2001 Freeman supported Beijing’s bid for the 2008 Olympic Games because of her Chinese heritage, but the English-language Australian media has entirely overlooked it. By contrast, in Chinese-language media inside and outside Australia, Freeman’s multicultural heritage is celebrated; many Chinese-Australians even hoped Freeman would win gold in the Sydney Olympics because of her Chinese descent. Is the suppression of Freeman’s heritage a sign that white Australia still wants to keep Asians and Aborigines apart?

Peta Stephenson, The Outsiders Within: Telling Australia’s Indigenous-Asian Story, (Sydney: University of New South Wales Press, 2007), 2.

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