» Read the Tamil version of this story

Author: Kirishanth Kularajah
Storyteller: Kirishanth Kularajah
Community Language School: Homebush Tamil Study Centre
Main School: Fort Street HighSchool

How our impressions of Australia have changed.

On the 7th of February 1996, my family and I migrated to Australia. I was 8 years of age when I migrated. I am now 14. We lived on the northern part of Sri Lanka known as Jafna. My mother tongue is Tamil. I have an older brother who is 17 and a younger sister of 7 years. My father was a directing manager of a company in Sri Lanka and my mother was a teacher. We were quite well off.

I interviewed my mother about the experiences she faced when she migrated to Australia. I asked her why she’d decided to come to Australia and the difficulties and problems she faced while migrating. I gathered this much information:

Why we migrated to Australia
We immigrated to Australia because our uncle who lived in Australia sponsored us. We received a “215 migration form”. Sri Lanka had suffered many years of civil war in the northern part of Sri Lanka. This war was between the Government army and the LTTE tigers (‘Freedom fighters’). Due to this fact our uncle was concerned with our well being and decided to sponsor us. At that time we were very happy to live in Sri Lanka and hadn’t suffered from the war. Despite this the threat remained high. We had many friends and family living with us in Sri Lanka and we didn’t want to leave them.

But a couple of months after receiving the sponsorship, the intensity of the fighting increased and we began to fear for our lives. More and more homeless and displaced victims of the war began to turn up in our doorstep, asking for food and shelter. Schools were damaged by aerial attacks on the surrounding area. This meant that the children received no education. Medical facilities were very scarce and even food was becoming a problem.

We had no electricity and the main mode of transport was by bicycle. Despite this, my mother was reluctant to go anywhere. She was determined to stay in her mother country. My mother refused to leave everything that she’d worked for during her whole life. Because we had no overseas experience, we were afraid that we would never get work because of our inability to speak English. We were afraid that we might not receive education due to our lack of language knowledge.

Even the new customs and cultures scared us. My brother and I were studying at a high Tamil medium. We were concerned that we may never pick up the English medium. Due to all this we were very reluctant to respond to the sponsorship form. But the choice was inevitable. The continuing war had just been taken to another level. We feared for our lives. We had to come to Australia. (I managed to get a picture of our house. It was severely damaged by fighting).

The journey
We responded to the form and soon the journey began. It took us approximately 9 months to get to Australia. It was very tough. My mother firstly took my 2-month-old sister down to Colombo and left her with my auntie for safety. She came back and we waited for a reply from the migration department in Colombo. The response came 2 months later and we all packed up.With floods of tears we said goodbye to our loved ones and everything we’d owned. To me, as an 8-year-old and even now, the greatest loss was my precious dog, Tipsi. She was my greatest companion. I grew up with her. I was one when Tipsi was born and we grew up together for seven years. She understood everything I said and I understood anything she said. Even now I can still remember the face of Tipsi.

The journey from Jafna to Colombo was very grueling and tiring. We’d had to take a ferry in very rough and cold conditions and then a cow cart to a major railway station about half way between Jafna and Colombo. From there you have to take a train to Colombo. En route there were always army checkpoints where the army would interrogate you and check your possessions. There was also miles of walking.

My brother’s problems
Unfortunately, my brother was not given a passport to come to Colombo because of his age. He was 11 and the LTTE tigers were recruiting boys of such age for their forces. So my father had to make his way all the way back to Jafna to be with my brother who was residing temporarily at a family friend’s place. When my father got there, he tried to get a passport for my brother but the Tigers refused. They also insisted that our house had to be given to them because we were leaving. This brought heartbreak to my father as he had built the house himself. It was a very beautiful and spacious house. My father and the rest of the family, especially my mother, wondered if the plan for a new life was worth all of the pain and suffering. But we pushed on.

After 4 months of desperate pleading my brother was finally given permission to go to Colombo. We resided at an uncle’s place in Colombo. Finally eight and a half months after deciding to leave Jafna, we finally arrived in Sydney. We were filled with anxiousness and we were heartbroken. We had a sense of great loss in our hearts. In the first days in Australia, my mother would constantly weep about everything she’d lost. She was also afraid about how or if we’d cope with the new society. She even wanted to go back.

Our new life in Australia
In the first couple of weeks, we found it very difficult to cope with the new environment. Because we came from such a tropical country, we found it cold even though it was February. People wore jumpers, something we rarely saw in Sri Lanka. They wore shoes and were talking in a language that seemed to be alien to us.

But my father was determined to push on and start a new life. He’d lost everything back in Sri Lanka and was determined to make it all worthwhile. We received social security. We were also financially supported by our uncle. It was a relief to see that at least finance wasn’t a problem.

I was too little to remember these experiences. But now because of this project, I now know of all the experiences my family and I went through in migrating to Australia.

Adapting to a new life
What I can remember is that because of our lack of language knowledge, beginning school was a huge problem. I was also picked on because I wasn’t like the Aussies. I didn’t take vegemite sandwiches to school. Instead I took rice and curry. But soon, my family and I learnt the language, practiced some of the Australian customs like having cereal for breakfast and watching T.V (which was a great pleasure). My father found a job and we slowly began to settle and begin a new life.

Life today
Currently, my brother is studying at Homebush Boys High in year 12 and I passed the selective schools exam and am currently studying at Fort Street High School in year 9. My sister is studying at Homebush Public School in year 2. We have now bought a property in Homebush. Our impressions of Australia are quite the contrary to what it was 6 years ago. We are now grateful that we managed to get to Australia.

I am now proud to be a Sri Lankan Tamil and I practice my language at home and at my community languages school. I received a highly commended award for community languages in the last Minister’s Awards Ceremonies. My brother sat for the HSC in Tamil and I intend to do the same. My mother teaches at the school and my sister and I study there so we have a lot of contact with our community language and our Tamil community. I am always striving to improve my Tamil.

One day I would like to go back to Sri Lanka and check out the remains of our property back in Jafna. But for now I must thank God for blessing my family and I with a beautiful country like Australia.