The Rabbits, New Australians, and Romulus, My Father: Experiences of Immigrants

People experience a sense of belonging in varied and complex ways. How is this explored in the texts you have studied? In your response, refer closely to your prescribed text and to at least TWO other related texts of your own choosing. The migrant experience describes an individual’s change form one social context to another. Such a vast difference of results in a complicated confrontation of values. Hence a sense of belonging lies inherent in the individual’s ability to marry or reconcile identity with their social environment. Raimond Gaita’s semi-autobiographical memoir Romulus, My Father and the Australian’s feature article Alice Pung on New Australians both explore the difficulties faced when immigrating and how a new found sense of belonging occurs through a transformation of identity and values. John Marsden and Shawn Tan’s picture book The Rabbits use the graphical and written to demonstrate the loss of identity due to a loss of belonging that occurred in the white settlement of Australia. It is inherent in human nature to have a desire for belonging. This is evident in Romulus’ seeking out those of a similar history to him, namely Mitru and Hora, whose varied experience is more similar, his than Australians. In simple characteristics, such as a common language, they form a bond. â€Å"Having arrived at the camp [Romulus] set out to find those like him†. However having to work amongst and with the people of this new social context requires Romulus to confront the differences of values between him and that of Australia. Romulus has to compromise his ideals to that of Australia in order for Australia to accept him. He builds towards the Australian dream of owning a house and time to provide for Raimond the best. However Romulus also examples tat it is indeed a compromise not an assimilation of values. He finds the Australians to be â€Å"lazy† and â€Å"incompetent†. In embracing his won values of respect, honours and hard work, Romulus influences the Australian community he lives in where they come to affectionately call him Jack. Similarly, Pung’s article on her family’s migration from war torn Vietnam to Australia explorers the transformation of identity to achieve belonging. Her father fully embraces Australia ideals â€Å"to be like them ad survive† reading newpapers, having an opinion on Australian politics and opening a Retrovision franchise. She outlines the line between belonging and not belonging in the understanding of each other. â€Å"At first they stared with their eyes wide opened their mouths firmly shut. Now they laugh with their mouths wide open and their eyes firmly shut. † However, as Mitru and Christine show that an inability to marry both identity and community, Pung’s mother does the same. Never learning English or â€Å"embracing Australian society other than as a supermarket shopper† Pung’s mother becomes depressed and reclusive. The Rabbits describe the same destructive effect of not being able to reconcile identity and belonging together. The picture book reverses the situation to where the migrant rabbits assimilated their identity onto the culture, thus removing the identity of the native bilbies. Than contrasts the two cultures, in the brown and green colour of their land before the sterile white buildings of the rabbits. The bilbies gather throughout the book together, interacting each other compared to the uniformed rabbits, who are numbered and constantly demarcating, enclosing and tracing the land. Each component of the rabbits migration reflect destruction and conflict as represented by the giants machines that â€Å"eat up our grass† and the rams and sheep marked out. The bilbies are unable to reconcile their identity with the rabbits’ new society â€Å"They didn’t live in trees like us† and hence are decimated. â€Å"Who will save us form the rabbits? † An identity describes the context to which an individual belong to. In the migrant experience the individual’s ability to belong relies on the successfulness of their complicated marriages of ideals and values that vary for each individual.