Guy Hansen: Here we go. That's my cue. Good evening. Welcome. My name is Guy Hansen. I'm Director of Exhibitions here at the National Library of Australia. Let me begin by acknowledging that we're speaking to you today on Ngunnawal and Ngambri Country. Tonight's talk is a celebration of our exhibition Hopes and Fears: Australian Migration Stories, which closes this weekend. What better way to bring this exhibition to a close than with some reflections about how migrants have helped shape Australia? Our speaker, Sonia Di Mezza, is the proud daughter of Italian migrants, and passionately believes that migration has benefited this country.

Before I introduce Sonia, I'd just like to say a few words about why the National Library of Australia did this exhibition. The most important reason is that most Australians have a migration story. The most recent census tells us that 51.5% of Australians are migrants or the children of migrants. If you go back further in the family tree, you'll find even more migrant stories. The reality is that most Australians have a migration story in their family, maybe buried back a number of generations, but it is still there. The history of migration as such is a very relatable topic for our visitors. It speaks directly to Australia's lived experience.

The second reason for doing this exhibition and the one which explains why this exhibition is here at the National Library of Australia is the amazing collections that this institution holds. As a deposit library, with over 100 years of history, we have strong collections of published material relating to the history of migration. We also have photographs, posters, ephemera, newspapers, costumes, manuscripts and oral histories. In terms of time span, these collections go back to and include the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788 and come right up to the present. Material is being collected even as we speak. It's from these amazing collections that we're able to select the material that are featured in the Hopes and Fears exhibition. Displaying this material helps raise awareness of the Library's wonderful collection, which in turns helps us meet our goal of enabling the Australian community to discover, learn, and create new knowledge. I hope you've had the chance to look at some of these wonderful collections in the exhibition or perhaps later on tonight at the end of the lecture, you might want to visit the gallery because we're going to keep it open for a bit longer.

So now let me introduce Sonja Di Mezza. Sonja is CEO of the Migrant and Refugee Settlement Service, is a solicitor and a human rights lawyer. She spent a large part of her career advocating for and assisting people from around the world, including many people to help settle successfully here in Australia. Sonia's family have also contributed to the National Library of Australia. Her father, Guido Di Mezza, worked on the construction of the Library and you may now be sitting in this beautiful theatre he may have actually participated in actually creating this space. So that's quite a nice strong connection, which I know Sonia feels very strongly with the Library. So I won't say anything more, please welcome Sonia who will be talking about building our nation, how migrants and their children have shaped Australia.

Sonia Di Mezza: Thank you Guy for such a warm welcome. It's a real honour and privilege to be here. So I would also like to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land upon which we meet, the Ngunnawal and the Ngambri people and pay my respects to elders past, present, and emerging, and acknowledge that I wouldn't have the life I had if my parents hadn't migrated to this wonderful spectacular land. I'd also like to acknowledge the builders that went before me. I would like to acknowledge the builders, including my father, Guido Di Mezza, who helped build this Library where we meet today, most of whom have gone before us.

So what will I be speaking about today? Today I want to speak about my dad, the story of migration through his life. I'm so honoured and privileged that all of you have come here and practically filled this stadium. And I also know that there are people listening online, either interstate or overseas, some possibly in Italy. And I want to acknowledge my friends, my family, my colleagues who have participated and also people I don't know. It's just an honour and privilege that you are interested in our story, and this is a great chance of storytelling and to share my story with you and hopefully you can share your story for me one day.

I'd like to talk about the contribution that migrants and their children have made and continue to make to shape and influence Australia. I want to talk about the identity of migrants as Australians because I strongly believe migrants are Australian, and the role that each and every one of us can play to support migrants to settle in Australia. And I feel we have an obligation to do that.

After my talk, we'll have some time for questions and if you'd like to join me to come and visit the exhibition, Hopes and Fears will stay open and you have an opportunity to have a look at that exhibition and to explore it. I've already visited it and I found it fantastic and I really hope you can join me. There'll be people who can explain a little bit about the exhibition from the Library staff there too.

So this is my father Guido Di Mezza. He's a very handsome man. Thank you, I'm glad you agree. I've been told don't move around, Italians move around, so I've got to stay here. How did this lecture came into being? So I was driving along because I live here in Canberra and I saw this poster, the Hopes and Fears exhibition on migrants taking place at the National Library of Australia. And this brought me back to conversations I had with dad. And I remember he told me on a number of occasions "I was one of the builders. I went to Canberra to help build the National Library". And so I kind of thought about it and I thought about the legacy that migrants leave.

And I telephoned Guy and he probably thought it was a bit bizarre and I said, "Excuse me, you're doing this exhibition and did you know my father helped build it?" And he goes, "Okay." And I said, "I would like to speak about that and to give a voice to those little people" who are not little, but when I say little, I mean unknown people "about their stories to bring the exhibition to life with stories and storytelling is so important." So the Library were just fantastic. They were like, "Absolutely, we'd love that. Let's tie it into the ending of the exhibition." And they were so supportive. So I really want to thank the Library staff for everything they've done.

Who am I? Guy mentioned it. My name is Sonia Di Mezza, I was born in Sydney, Australia in 1972, so I'm turning 53 this year. I'm the proud CEO of the Migrant and Refugee Settlement Services, also known as MARSS. My staff say "Welcome to planet MARSS", so that's a little inside joke. What we do is we provide services and supports to help people from refugee and migrant backgrounds settle successfully in the Canberra region and to enjoy and exercise their human rights. I am a human rights lawyer and solicitor. I've set up some human rights projects in countries like Pakistan, north Sudan, worked for UNHCR in Lebanon and in India I worked for a local child rights NGO. And I've spent some time in Australia as a refugee lawyer working in immigration detention centres.

This is my dad, another handsome photo of him. His name is Guido Di Mezza. Guy and I were having an interesting talk about whether Guy actually translates to the word Guido. So that's nine degrees of separation link just there. He was born in 1932 and he came to Australia on the assisted passenger scheme and the cruise liner that he came on was called La Flaminia. Now the assisted passenger scheme, it worked like this. It was a time where Australia wanted more migrants to come. Australia was kind of booming. The manufacturing industry, they needed more workers. And the deal was this. You would come to Australia, your passage would be paid for by the Australian government. No, you'd pay 10 pounds, the equivalent of 10 pounds in Italy or whatever country you came from. And you would have to stay for two years. And after two years, if you went back you had to pay the 10 pounds or whatever it was back.

Needless to say, I've never met anyone who went back, okay? Because it was pretty terrible in Europe at that time. So he had one pound in his pocket and at Melbourne the passengers were asked, do you want to get off here or he said, "No, I'll get off in Sydney because I've got some relatives there." He had one pound in his pocket and he went out and bought an Italian newspaper with all the money he had as soon as he got here.

So he came from a region called Campania in Italy. His region is called Benevento. He was a carpenter when he came here, but he got involved in the building industry and then he became a plasterer. So his specialisation, which he really enjoyed was putting up ceilings. And so when I look around the Library, I kind of wonder which part did dad work on, but he didn't tell me much about it, just that he had worked on the Library and he was one of the builders of the National Library of Australia.

I put this picture because in my '80s my friends and I used to drink a lot of Sambuca. My daughters are in the audience, I should be careful. But this Galeano Sambuca is from my father's region, Benevento.

This is my mum. Thank you. I think she's very beautiful. She arrived in 1955. She was 21 when she arrived. The cruise liner she arrived on was the Orense, that's its name. There were two separate trips for her family. She came with her dad, I believe. My mum and her sisters were talented seamstresses. They were very good at doing sewing and tailoring. They made all their clothes and I loved that she made these clothes. And I remember at a time when remote working wasn't a thing, my mum would work from home sewing cushion covers together for a factory. And I can remember as a three-year-old playing at her feet while my brother and sister were at school.

And that dress that she wears really reminds me of a saying by Randy Polch, "It's not about the cards you are dealt with but how you play the hand." And their cards were not good. Italy was on the losing side of the war and was economically depressed and they were really suffering from poverty. So she was a very small woman even though her family were quite tall. And I'm pretty sure that that related to the malnutrition and the lack of food that she had, and I'm quite small. I learnt that you can actually inherit short stature as a result of malnutrition. So she was a very small woman about this tall on me, but very strong in character. Like me, a practising Catholic and had lots of values and was very kind and empathetic.

I think it's important that we understand where migrants come from because sometimes we think we know Australia is such a beautiful place, but many of them leave places that are very beautiful. I believe this is Italy's best kept secret. The town of Formicola where my mum came from is nestled in a valley. It used to be a population of 2,500. Now it's sadly about 1,500 because there are not enough jobs in the south of Italy, particularly in the Campania region, and a lot of the young people have gone to the north of England and other places in Europe. So this is where she came from. This town dates back to the 12th century and was ruled by a prince. It's a very beautiful place. Just to show you, the streets are so small, they were built just for a horse and cart, not for cars.

And there are three churches. We are Catholic, but they have got to have a lot of churches in such a small place. And I love this photo that I took. This photo shows a bridge that was bombed by the Germans during the war. And my non-non, my grandfather Umberto, he helped rebuild that particular bridge. It's a very beautiful town. So both my parents came from the Campania region, the capital of which is Naples, also known in Italian as Napoli. Our ancestors invented the pizza. I'm not joking. There are Neapolitans who will not eat pizza anywhere outside of Naples. It is that good. We are also very proud creators of the buffalo mozzarella, which is creamy and beautiful. Our coffee is very famous. And in our region we have the Amalfi Coast, the Island of Capri and Mount Vesuvius, the volcano who's always there. She's our symbol of never to take any day for granted. You'll know what happened, Pompeii in AD 79, the volcano blew up and sadly many of our ancestors were killed in that terrible incident.

I encourage you to go see at the National Museum of Australia until the 4th of May, the Pompeii exhibition. It is moving and powerful and I absolutely loved it. And there's an Italia Festival on the 12th of April. The poor director of the National Museum. He's got a coffee appointment with me on Monday because going to work out how to focus on the Campania region, which is where it was from. Now I've got a question, how many... This is the thing. Every time someone comes up to me and they say, "I love Italy." And I go, "Really?" And they say, "Yeah, I've been to Italy." And I ask, "Where?" And they go, "Milan, Florence, Siena, Rome. And then I took a plane back home." No, you have to go to the south and you have to go to our region.

Now, how many people have been to the Campania region? Put up your hand. When I'm at Amalfi Coast, Pompeii, Lila, wow, great. Everyone else, if you go to Italy, state to your travel agent, I must go to the South, including Sicily, Calabria, I must go to Campania. It's really a very magical place, in my opinion. So they're both from this region. Just to give you a little perspective, this is the region. Mum was from Caserta and dad was from Benevento. So their towns were about one hour from each other. And this is quite lovely and romantic because a lot of Italians, they came here and they might marry someone from a different region or they might marry Aussies or they might marry other people. But my parents met in Sydney and their towns are one hour from each other.

Now, I don't know if you know this, but in Italy, every region has a different language because each region used to be a different country. So they spoke the same language, the beautiful Neapolitan dialect. So that was great to find someone who could speak your language, and they met in Sydney. So these are the five regions of Campania. This is the boat that my mum came on, the Orense. So they're on this boat and the food comes out and when the waiter turned around, they took the bread rolls, they took everything they could and they stuffed it in their pockets. They had never seen so much food in their lives. And they went back to the bedroom and they're just eating it. And then next day, voila, even more food. And they knew at that point that wherever they were heading, this famine that they were going through, this malnutrition was going to stop. So that was really exciting.

My mum came in 1955, five years later, a little baby boy would come on the Orense with his parents. He was three years old and he would migrate to Australia with them. And you would call that the category of people, the 10 pound poms. My question, he would grow up and become the prime minister of Australia on that same boat as my mum, you have to put up your hand and there's a prize. A hand went up there. What was the name of the prime minister who came to Australia on the same boat as my mum?

Audience member 1: Tony Abbott?

Sonia Di Mezza: Yes. Okay. Your prize is chocolate, that is flavoured with Galliano from my father's region. Well done. And here's the interesting thing. He held the seat of McKellen in the northern Beaches where we would end up growing up. So that's interesting. But he's not the only prime minister affected by migration. We have Julia Gillard, she came under the category of... Albanese Prime Minister. I believe he was born here, but his father was Italian and his mother was English. So there's migration there. And what I love about this is there are countries in the world, you could not even become a prime minister or president unless you are of that lineage, royal blood. But in this country, even a lowly migrant like my mum can make it as a prime minister. And I love that. I really love that.

So this is a picture of my parents when they got married. Once again, the sisters made the wedding dress. And this is a picture of my parents at the wedding reception, which was very beautiful. There used to be a very famous Italian restaurant in Randwick near Peters of Kensington, and I think it had a lot of shells on the wall. Anyway, that's where they had the reception. So that happened in Sydney and they used to like going to parties and dancing. That's where they met at a party.

So then we came into being. So the little baby is myself, I was the youngest. And there's my brother Joe who's in the audience. Hi Joe. And my sister who's probably listening at home in the Blue Mountains, and my parents. We were a very happy family, I believe, weren't we, Joe? Yeah.

Do you know what side of the Harbour Bridge this is on? Yeah, the Luna Park side, I think. That's me as a little baby. The curly mop. Nothing's changed. My mum must've been taking that photo. And we grew up in a place called Annandale inner city of Sydney. These are photos of us at Annandale. It was a townhouse on Trafalgar Street. And we had an outhouse, like a toilet out the back and a big room where the whole family slept. My brother and sister on a bunk bed. I slept in a cot till I was seven. And we had fruit trees out the back, didn't we Joe? And it was really, it's why you bring your brother along, he agrees on what you say. And it was a really happy place to grow up. We had a really great childhood.

Annandale at the time was full of Italian families and migrants. That's what we were working-class, blue-collar immigrant stock. Doesn't matter how many CO titles I have or law degrees, that is what I will always be, and I will never forget it. I'm proud of it. That's what Annandale was like. And I remember some years ago I said to dad, "Hey dad, you know that property, Annandale, you sold for $15,000?" I said, "Guess how much it's worth now? 2.5." He almost had a heart attack. And he goes, "No, it's not." And I said, "Yes it is." It's probably worth way more now, but it is very different now. But it was a very special place, Annandale. There's a picture of me with my dad once again, the curly mop. I was very much Daddy's girl. Wasn't I, Joe? Yeah. And there's my sister Anna.

So my dad, he used to work all over Sydney and Canberra. He worked seven days a week. Mum would get up at five o'clock in the morning. She'd take the pasta from the night before, put it in a thermos for his lunch. He knew Sydney like the arterial roads, like the veins on the back of his hand with his street directory. No sat navi, he'd drive everywhere in his Toyota. He'd put the chip rock, the plaster sheets on top of the car. I don't know if you can do that anymore, but he drove everywhere. He worked really, really hard. He was happy. And he would pump out asbestos all over the place. I mean they were raining in asbestos. They used to call it those ceilings, apple crumble ceilings, Verniculite, a lot of that is asbestos. He pumped it out. And that's the thing about asbestos. It's most amazing building material. And you never know if your day would come early because of it or if you'd live a long life. For some reason he survived it. But he worked hard, he wasn't absent. He was always in our life and he always played with us kids.

And so just a few photos of the National Library, which I dug up and a couple of things that they've said about the National Library, I'll just find it. 'In 1963, Prime Minister Robert Menzies announced the near completion of working plans for a new National Library building. The present library building was opened on 15th of August, 1968 by Prime Minister John Gorton. The building situated in Perks was designed by the architectural firm of Bunningham Madden in the late 20th century stripped classical style.'

So here's some photos. I like to think dad was somewhere there. I don't have photos of that, but this is the National Library. So what is the big deal that you come to the Library Sonia and you talk about your dad? For me, the library is a symbol of wisdom and education. My parents were highly intelligent people. My dad used to love reading biographical books about politicians, usually shady Italian politicians. Mum won awards in primary school for poetry recitations, but their education was sadly interrupted by the war.

And there were many Italian families at the time. Some of them came from the villages and towns and they had aspirations for their daughters to get married young and have families and children. But my dad wanted more than that. My mum said to me at five, "Dad wants one of you to go to university." And being Daddy's girl, that always stuck in my head. So they would pour money into the best education they could afford. I went to a private Catholic girls college high school called Monte San Angelo in North Sydney. My brother went to Christian Brothers in Manly. They did their very best. They couldn't understand the homework, they couldn't help us with that. But education was a big deal. I have a number of degrees, but I can tell you my law degree, I didn't pay a cent for that. I have no HECS debt because my father covered all of it. Didn't bother with the arts degree. He said, "What is this about?" So I had to pay that myself. But the law degree, he paid for it and they were very practical Italians.So I'm really grateful for that. The love of education, continuous improvement, I got that from my parents.

So as we were growing up in Annandale, there was always the big talk about the beautiful house dad was building with his friends in the northern beaches of Sydney. So in a place called Cromer Heights. So we were excited. Some weekends we'd go to Cromer Heights. This is a picture of mum and dad when dad was working on the site and we were really excited and dad bought the land at Cromer Heights, the northern beaches for $5,000. Yeah. We won't even go into how much it's worth now, but even more maybe, I don't know. It was like his pièce de resistance, his work of art, double brick. It had marble floors. It was a fantastic building. And we were so proud of it. And we had lots of happy times when we moved in '79 to the northern beaches of Sydney.

Whereas Annandale was chock-a-block with Italians, northern Beaches didn't have many. We lived on a cul-de-sac and we were the only Italian family and we had fun in that house. Tomato days, we all get together and prepare the tomato sauce. My wedding, we prepared there from that house, my communion, family dinners, et cetera. It was really wonderful. But all of a sudden we were the odd ones out. So in the past, well, we'd always been a really loud shouty family. So my English husband in the audience, he took him a couple of years to kind of get used to that. And sometimes he still says to me and my girls, "You're all shouty, we need to bring it down." But that's how Italians communicate. If they're angry, they shout. If they're happy, they shout, they shout all the time. It's just emotion. It can be a bit intimidating if you're not used to it.

One day my sister who's listening to this got off the bus down the road and she came home mortified. She said, "I could hear you all screaming from the bus stop. Could you tone it down?" So you can do that in Annandale. But once you start doing that on the northern beaches, you start to stand out. So there were not always good.

This is my brother Joe, my sister Anna and myself. And you can get a feeling we've got velvet wallpaper in the back and we've got the velvet curtains and we loved it. We were so proud of that house. This is a fuzzy photo, but it will give you even more of an idea.Vvelvet wallpaper, the paintings, the replicolor, the kind of furniture. But it was a beautiful house and it had double brick and it had marble floors, two levels, and it was warm in winter and cool in summer. It was a great house. It had a laundry chute, which was just so amazing in the '80s. We used to spend hours playing on it, just jumping through the laundry chute. And we had columns, we did not have a statue of Venus. So there were limits, but we loved it. We loved it is an amazing house.

But then some of the people in the street, you know kids will be kids, things started happening. We started getting called that term, wog. "Hey you wog. Hey you greasy wog". And I was scared as a seven-year-old going down the street. Some of the kids became a bit mean. They'd chuck stones at our house, they'd put firecrackers on the Queen's birthday heading towards our house. They'd play knock and run, all these things. They're just little kids. What can it hurt?

I tell you, the exhibition has a poster about in the '80s, the term wog started getting reclaimed by many of the Italians and migrants and they did a poster at a high school. 'We're proud to be wogs'. And they translate it in different languages. It's in the exhibition. To this day everyone has a bit of a joke, but to me, the term has some trauma to it. I've got to be honest.

I would like you to meet someone who I consider a champion. He sadly passed away. His name is Richard Barton, but I will always know him as Mr Barton. He was a CEO like me and also a practising Catholics, so we had that in common. He lived on the street with his two sons and daughters.

And one day after the stone throwing happened, he went on to every single house in the street where a little boy lived. And he said to the parents, "Can I speak to Johnny for a minute?" And he collected them all up and he said, "Go up the street now and pick up every stone that you threw at that house." Knock and run. That happened all the time. My poor mum. When he found out his son was involved, he sat down. He was so angry, he said, "That is not on. How would you feel if you had to go through that. Go up there to that house and you apologise to the family." And the son did. I will never forget Mr Barton. Become like Mr Barton.

And even my dad, one day he was driving along... I don't know if I've got the microphone happening. He was driving along and he got into an accident, which probably doesn't surprise me because I'm not sure his driving was the best. And so they pulled up to sort it out and this guy gets out of the car and he says, "'You dumb wog. Why don't you go back to your own country?" And my father said, "You see this road here? I built the road. So while I build the roads, I get to stay here." Now he didn't build the road. He wasn't a road guy. It was a metaphor that he contributed to Australia. He had every right to stay, and other people would've just knocked the guy out. But that is just a really good comeback. And migrants should not be subjected to racial abuse because they contribute. They're part of Australia.

Fast forward many years later, I went in 2020 to a place called Bendigo to become the CEO of Loddon Compassity Multicultural Services. My husband and daughter stayed back in Canberra and I would visit them and the people of Bendigo told me about a terrible time in 2014. The local Muslims wanted to build a mosque and there was fighting and conflict on the streets of Bendigo. It went through council, it went all the way to the high court and planning permission was granted. And I understand people were scared. People were saying, "Oh, we don't want ISIS here. We don't want a training ground of ISIS terrorists." Now I have travelled through the Middle East. I speak Arabic, I've been to Afghanistan, I've been to places where Islamic regime is prevalent as the law to North Sudan. I've worked in Lebanon, I've worked in the Middle East. And I know what the Arabs say, no five fingers are the same. Those people from ISIS do not represent to any degree most of the Muslims or Arabs in this world.

I get it, if I'm sitting in a country town or somewhere and I turn on the TV and I see people getting beheaded and going crazy and it's easy if you think that that's your only point of information to conclude that is what people like that are like. I want to say at this point very clearly that the vast majority of people who've participated in those riots were not from Bendigo. A lot of people jumped on this bandwagon and appropriated it. So the people of Bendigo are not a town of racists. But here we go. We used to get called wogs. Why don't they get called terrorists?

I would like to introduce you to my cousin. She's one of my best friends. I've known her since she was three. She's a contributor to Australia. Her name's Anna. She married a man from Lebanon and she reverted to Islam and we are very close. She has four children grown up, wonderful children. They live in Punchbowl in South West Sydney and we are very, very close. She also looks after the bookkeeping business of her family's business. And that's my daughter, Sophia when she was younger. And these are her daughters, the grandchildren of migrants. That is Aisha, and this is Alia. Smashing stereotypes. Who would expect a young Muslim girl wearing hijab, wearing an AC/DC and I didn't ask her to wear it, she was wearing it. I thought it was great. And we took this photo.

We have Muslim and Arab relatives. We can be part of helping and supporting newly arrived migrants. And I have a message, a phenomena happens where migrants start to say, "Well, we've been here for a while and no one calls us wogs anymore and we're in a safe seat. So let's turn around and start talking about that lot." Bunch of terrorists. I've said to people in the Italian community, "don't you have a short memory? Because I don't have a short memory. Don't you become part of the problem? You become part of the solution". And that is something that is very important to me in my work and in my life. Be a champion. I challenge everyone. If you see racism, do something. It's hard when you're sitting on a bus in Sydney and some drunk person starts yelling racist abuse. I've often wondered, what do I do in that situation? Try and get help from someone. Try and make contact with the person suffering from that kind of abuse. Be a champion like Mr Barton was.

And you say to me, "Look, we've got mortgages to pay and bills to pay. Why should we bother?" Financial Review stated, "In the absence of a higher birthrate or productivity growth, which means doing more with existing capacity across the economy, Australia will need an ongoing stream of working age migrants like never before." We need them. We are not producing enough babies to stimulate the economy. We do need migrants. What do I mean? Let me give you some examples. During the pandemic, they created the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility Scheme where they flew in people from the Pacific Islands to help pick the fruit that was rotting on the trees because of the pandemic. No one could get out. Helping in the meat industry. That's just an amazing thing. We owe them. They did such important work. You'll see in the exhibition if you visit it. Talk about the snowy hydro, which is the symbol of a success story of successful integration of migrant workers in Australian society. So most of them were southern and eastern European. One of my uncles worked on that.

A shameless plug for my sister Anna Di Mezza. She is a brilliant accomplished artist. I love that one of people having a picnic. It just reminds me of climate change. The one on the end, I have that in my office. The woman doesn't have a mouth and there's no numbers on the telephone. It's about advocacy for me, for people who are voiceless, who might not speak English. So if you want to find out more about my sister's work, please check out Anna Di Mezza on Facebook and Instagram.

Amazing story I learned when I was living in Victoria Nhil, Western Victoria. Not doing well economically. The Lover Duck factory brought in a couple of families, Korean families from Myanmar or Burma, and those families helped revive the town and more and more came and it's just such an amazing town. Look up Australian Story if you want to find out more about that.

I had to throw this in. Did you know Sir Donald Bradman? His great great grandfather was Italian, okay?
The Sikhs in Australia, many Sikhs in Australia originate from the Punjab region of India and one of their important religious tenants is being able to support humanity and other people. Whenever there's a fire, flood, whatever in Australia, the Sikhs are there. We all know that.

This woman, Stasia Dabrowski, you know her, a local story. This amazing woman came out, had a lot of problems in Poland during the war for decades would help people in Canberra with food. She'd chop all these vegetables. In her 90s, she was doing that and make soup and give food to people who are suffering disadvantage.

So what is the key? One of the important keys is food. Now you're going to say, we love Italian food. We all eat Italian food. Italian food in Australia is excellent. But did you know in the 1950s the only pasta was canned spaghetti? And what used to happen on the northern beaches of Sydney, the Italian fishermen would be fishing next to the Aussies and they'd notice the Aussies kept throwing things back in the water. And they'd say to the Aussies, "Look, could you not throw that animal back in the sea? Just give it to us." And the Aussies were like, "Oh, these disgusting wogs. Why would you take home an octopus or a squid?" And I challenge you that every single pub menu has calamari and that salt and pepper squid on the menu, we are part of it. And this is the beauty of Australia. Do you know I have cousins in Italy who have never eaten Chinese food? That is unbelievable in Australia, that is the joy of multiculturalism. People with the food kind of go, oh, this is all right. We share the food, we get to know the people better, food is very important. And that's why we need to share the amazing cuisines of the newly arrived migrants.

I'm going to tell you about another best kept secret, the children and grandchildren of migrants. You see what happens when you grow up with parents who are migrants? You have to live two cultures all the time. I was living post-World War II Italy at home and outside living like an Australian. And it is the best cross-cultural competency training lab you can imagine. You also become very linguistic. To varying degrees I can speak seven languages, that's because I listen to the Neapolitan dialect from a baby. And those children are the key to successful integration. They help their families, they help their communities, they help other communities. What am I talking about? My staff.

Business manager, Madhuri from India, CPA qualified, worked for Ernst & Young. She's amazing. Madina, she came out just before the Taliban, retook power of Afghanistan, couldn't speak any English. Went to Dixon College got a high enough mark to get into law school, wants to be, and I think Madina is somewhere here, and is now studying law at the University of Canberra. Josh came to Australia, couldn't speak a word of English. He's studied community development at university and he's also the settlement team leader. And Madina is a settlement officer. They take the skills from living in that context and they help others. One of our best kept secrets. We had a multicultural youth summit and the Governor General met our multicultural youth and that was really wonderful.

So you're going to say to me, Sonia, but we're at risk now. We have 50% of the population born overseas and we have a third of the population, no, a third of the population born overseas over half with at least one parent born overseas. We're just going to become a big mishmash of nothingness. I disagree, I disagree. We are Australian. The migrants become Australian.

When I was spent years being told I was an Australian, go home and I went to Italy, I was 16 and I found my cousins there were completely different from me. When we did a tour with some Italo-Americans, I discovered that my parents spoke that Italian English but with an Aussie accent. And I thought, well, they've lived here longer than they've lived in Italy. They're Aussies. I attended a discussion here about a book that was launched 'Growing up Indian in Australia' and the panel of speakers, they were asked, how Indian do you feel? And some of them said, I feel 10% Indian. And I was a bit surprised. It was a fantastic panel discussion. I feel 100% Italian, but I am 100% Australian. The two are not mutually exclusive. You don't go to another country and stop being Australian and just, that white Australia policy is not necessary. They're Australian. My parents were Australian and we are proud of it.

Here's a picture of my dad at the war memorial. He started spending a bit too much time around the Nazi propaganda stall because Mussolini was on the side of the facets, the losing side. And he remembered Mussolini patted him on the head and I said to him in the war Memorial, "Dad, please move away from that stall because people are going to start looking at us a bit strange." But he's wearing a digger's hat. I was afraid we'd get thrown out.

Be curious. It's so amazing. We don't have to travel anywhere. We can learn things about different cultures. My next door neighbours, were an Iraqi family. I went over there promptly started practising my Arabic with them. They'd send over food, chicken covered in rice. It was beautiful. Great chance to practise languages, great chance to learn more without leaving the country.
So where are my parents now? In 2013, my parents went to Formicola on a trip. Mum seemed to know that she was getting sick and she died suddenly in her town, so we buried her there. And then 2019 dad started getting sick. We went to three specialist doctors and they said to us that he had lung cancer and it was all over his body and he passed away. We took him from Sydney to Canberra and he was supported by my brother and my sister in our house here in Canberra. And it was our way as a family of thanking dad for the times he looked after us. So after the Catholic funeral, I took his ashes and I brought them back to Formicola and put them together in the grave and they came full circle. They started in Italy, they spent most of their life in Australia and they came back to Italy.

This is my cousin Elaine. I have a truckload of cousins in America. They live in Pennsylvania around Philadelphia, where Rocky Balboa, that film was set. There's a lot of Italians around there. And this is me. We met a couple of years ago in Napoli Centrale. I brought her and her husband around to Formicola, introduced everyone because they grew up at a time in America, their parents would not speak Italian because they were afraid of being the racism. So she couldn't speak any Italian. So I was really proud to be able to be the interpreter for her.

So at the end of the day, I want to say this, as Guy was saying, we all come from some kind of migrant stock. And I think dad would agree because I know him and mum are listening to this in heaven, that migrating to Australia has to be the world's best kept secret. Thank you very much. Thank you. If you would like to donate to MARSS, there's a little QR code. We have time for questions, don't we?

Guy Hansen: We have some questions, so hold up your hand. We've got two roving microphones.

Audience member 2: Thanks very much Sonia. Wonderful talk. A very simple question. On the slide about the children of migrants, you had a reference to the glazed overlook. I'm wondering what that was about. I'm very curious.

Sonia Di Mezza: Thank you. The glazed overlook was this, is something I used in my life, my professional life. I growing up with my parents and Aussies would talk to them and they'd talk up here and my parents would be like, yes, yes. And this glazed-over look would come. And when I had refugee clients and people were speaking to my clients like that, I recognised the same look. So when I would speak English, I know how to adapt my level of English so it's simplified, but it does not involve screaming at shouting at people in a loud voice that makes it easier to understand. I know how to speak in a clear way that's understandable. Thank you for bringing that. Actually, I will give you a prize for that question. Now these are Galliano chocolates with Limoncello, which is from the Amalfi coast. Just keeping in with the theme. Oh, there's my girlfriend, Artie. Hi Artie.

Audience member 3: Sonia, what a wonderful talk. Thank you very much. I do have a question. It's a bit of a curly one. As we all know, global politics is lurching to the right and there are some very powerful forces around the world that are right now demonising immigration and immigrants. Are you seeing any signs of that here? Do you anticipate that there'll be any of that in Australia? And what can every person in this room do to ameliorate the impact of that?

Sonia Di Mezza: I think the danger with politics, things that happen overseas is that we tend, once again like happened in Bendigo, we tend to stereotype and think, oh, these people are doing this or this is happening there. And so we kind of internalise it with the person, a group of people here. And the biggest key to overcoming that is to get to know the person in front of you. Understand the politics, understand what is happening, get to know people on a personal and individual basis so that you can rise above the stereotypes and pleasantly surprise yourself. But we need to watch the news. We need to be savvy and understand what's going on. But we need to not punish people for what you're learning on the news because it's not fair and it's not accurate. Thank you for that question, Artie.

Audience member 4: Sonia, I'm not asking a question because I got one of your prizes at your speech last year, always hopeful.

Sonia Di Mezza: It's my friend Alan. Hi Alan.

Audience member 4: Could you tell us a little bit about your work and what you do there?

Sonia Di Mezza: Okay, so at the Migrant and Refugee Settlement Services, we support migrants as well as people from a refugee background to be able to settle in Australia. So when you first come, it's pretty tough. As we saw from my parents, people don't speak the language often. So we have volunteer tutoring courses for people to learn English. We help people to find housing. We have a driving instructor school so people can get their driver's licence. We help people to get jobs. Basically all the things that you need to do or know to be able to settle successfully. And all of this is tied to people's human rights. So that's basically what we do. Thanks Alan. Yes.

Audience member 5: Hi Sonia, good evening. Thank you for the talk.

Sonia Di Mezza: Thank you.

Audience member 5: That was very interesting. As a migrant, myself and the daughter of Italian migrants as well.

Sonia Di Mezza: Oh, okay. Nice to meet you. What's your name?

Audience member 5: Lorena.

Sonia Di Mezza: Lorena. Hi.

Audience member 5: So my question to you would be as the CEO of MARSS, in your experience, what are the main challenges that migrants and refugees face when settling in Australia? Three questions in one, if I'm allowed, do I get a prize?

Sonia Di Mezza: Yeah. It depends what part of Italy you're from. What part of Italy are you from?

Audience member 5: Cecily.

Sonia Di Mezza: Oh, even more South. Love it. Sorry, I run out of prizes, but the first one is the challenge.

Audience member 5: The challenge is how do you see that impacting their mental health.

Sonia Di Mezza: Their mental health?

Audience member 5: Yes. And what can we do as citizens, as a community to help mitigate those challenges and help them navigate this?

Sonia Di Mezza: Really good questions. Thank you, Lorena. Challenges, I think you have touched on mental health. Mental health relates to with people from a refugee background or even a migrant background, the trauma they may have suffered or faced in their countries of origin. The migration journey, how they got to Australia can also create mental health issues. And the process of settling in Australia can be really challenging. So mental health is a big one and that's why we need to make sure that we have culturally appropriate in-language, mental health supports, in terms of psychiatric care or counselling, et cetera.

So how can we help people? The way we can help people, as I said, if you know a migrant or someone from refugee community, reach out, see how you can help them, invite them for a coffee. I went and planted myself next door with the Iraqi family and they were very welcoming, but a lot of people would feel a bit shy. And that's part of being Italian. We're quite extroverted. So I know that could be a challenge for some.

But you can volunteer at organisations like MARSS. We have a lot of volunteering in terms of tutoring for English, helping people with homework in our different programmes. And also one of the things I have a lot of people from Wesley Uniting who are doing something called the CRISP Programme, where you support a family from overseas to be able to come to Australia for the first year, support them to settle, support them with all those settlement issues. That's more in the refugee space. That's another way you can get a community group to be involved in CRISP. You can ask me more about that later or look that up.

But it's about putting yourself out there, finding an opportunity, recognising people in your community who might feel a bit isolated and who might want some support. So that's a really great question. Grazie, Lorena. Sara, used to work with me. Atticus, thank you.

Audience member 6: Okay. I just wanted to say that you're being such an important ingredient for everyone together, there is her kitchen table.

Sonia Di Mezza: Sorry. Do we have a microphone here please? Thank you. No, just so the people at home can hear.

Audience member 6: Thank you. Right. Thank you Sonia. Brilliant talk as always.

Sonia Di Mezza: Thank you.

Audience member 6: I just wanted to bring-

Sonia Di Mezza: I used to be her boss.

Audience member 6: ... You told me I'm brilliant too. Thank you. Okay, so I wanted to bring everyone's attention, when we look at what we can do on an individual level, we can support social enterprises like Her Kitchen Table, which got, I believe the people got an Australian of the Year award and they help migrant and refugee women learn skills, bookkeeping, serving, cooking. And it's here in Canberra.

Sonia Di Mezza: Okay, there's one. And also Vanessa, can you put up your hand? Where's Vanessa? Yes. Stepping Stone. They won a. You are going to kill me Vanessa. And who else won the award?

Audience member 7: Hannah.

Sonia Di Mezza: Hannah. Sorry, my apologies. They just recently won an award for this brilliant business they run in Dixon and there's another part of Canberra they run this business, Stepping Stones, where they employ women from migrant refugee backgrounds to develop hospitality and cooking skills and to develop their ability to communicate in Australia. Brilliant work. Look them up. Stepping Stone. The food's really good. They use recipes that are brought to them by their staff, from their cultures. It is amazing. Stepping Stone, look it up and go and have Lorena, and coffee, from one Italian to another, the coffee is good. And yep, thank you for business enterprises like that. There's someone over there who had. Hello?

Audience member 8: I didn't have a question but a statement and it was actually superseded. I was going to remind everyone about Stepping Stones and the award they received. I've taken several groups of people there to enjoy food at Stepping Stones out at Strathnane. And I can't recommend too highly. And it's also an honour when you're out there talking to the women who work there and they're just so generous with their time and their friendliness. They can't do enough for you. So please give them some support. Go out and eat at Strathnane. I highly recommend the-

Sonia Di Mezza: And Dixon.

Audience member 8: ... food and the Dixon. I've not been to Dixon, but I have friends who've been there and it's great as well.

Sonia Di Mezza: Great point. Support businesses like Stepping Stone, her kitchen. Hello, I think we're about to.

Library staff member: Hi Sonia. I have a question from someone watching online, actually they have asked-

Sonia Di Mezza: Hope it's not my cousins.

Library staff member: They have asked, are there any cultural traditions or practises that were not widely accepted in your father and mother's time but have changed as Australia became multicultural?

Sonia Di Mezza: Oh, let me think. Gosh, there's so many. Well, as I said, the shouting was a bit strange. That was a kind of a... And as I said, some of the foods which are now accepted were considered quite disgusting. There were a lot actually. We were quite religious, quite Catholic, quite going to church. It wasn't always kind of normal in Australian society. You're doing weird things like making tomato sauce in your backyard and all those things are wonderful now. But back in the day they were considered really weird. But with time comes acceptance. So I would just say general, a lots of different.

My dad loved, I'm, sorry for the Muslims in this Room, pig's feet boiled with lemons, weird stuff like that. Or they'd go to the beach and they'd collect the seashells and mum would cook them up. They're always cooking these really strange things. And later on you could understand. But I want to say something. In Australia, we used to eat weird things too, didn't we? At a time where you didn't throw away any part of the animal. So there's a lot of commonalities from that particular generation during the war.

Audience member 9: My mother cooked cow's heads

Sonia Di Mezza: Cow's heads, see cows feet, here in Australia.

Audience member 9: If English tripe all the time, once a week. Liver, onions, all.

Guy Hansen: Just one more question.

Audience member 10: Hi Sonia, thank you so much-

Sonia Di Mezza: Hi Ying.

Audience member 10: ... for your wonderful talk. I'm so glad you mentioned about migrants having short memories. My question is on First Nations people and reconciliation. I know a lot of migrants voted no for the voice and probably have internalised some racist understandings of First Nations. And I wonder if you have any thoughts on First Nations and migrants and having a more cohesive Australia?

Sonia Di Mezza: Yeah, I think that's a very good question, Ying. I've had heated debates with people from migrant backgrounds and culturally diverse backgrounds who say, "I don't care what happened 200 years ago." And I'm like, "Yeah, but you get angry about things that happened recently." So we need to have memories. We need to educate ourselves about what indigenous people went through.

It's not just turning away from newly arrived immigrants, but also turning away from indigenous people. We need to understand about storytelling and truth telling and what indigenous people have gone through and support them because there's many commonalities and many differences, but we can connect and empathise.

Guy Hansen: I think that's a very positive note to finish on. And I noted the questions about food to me suggested that some people were feeling that it was dinner time and hence it was most probably time to draw it to a close. I have been told there's more questions online and we promised to the people listening online that we'll pass those questions on to Sonia, but we have reached the.

I think Karen and Nicole, two of the curators will be up in the exhibition space and happy to answer any questions you have. And also both Karen and Nicole will be involved in a online webinar tomorrow at 12:30, the 31st of January, where they'll be discussing the exhibition. You can register for that event online.

And the very last plug before we head off is there's a book to the exhibition, associated with the exhibition and that's available in the bookshop. And I understand the bookshop is still open, I believe, but if it's not, it's worth popping back in to get the book. So look, thank you very much. That was a fantastic talk. Very moving. I think many of us related to those stories and have similar stories in our own families. So thank you very much and thank you Sonia.

Sonia Di Mezza: Thank you, Guy. Thanks a lot. Buy the book. Thank you so much.