Beautiful Eurasian children

At the end of World War II, several hundreds of thousands of displaced Europeans refugees immigrated to Australia. In the subsequent two decades, more than two million people from Europe immigrated to Australia.

Immigrants from the United Kingdom and Ireland were the largest group of people during the early postwar years. However, the number of people from other European countries such as Italy, Greece and those fleeing communist regimes in Hungary, the former Czechoslovakia, Russia and Poland became more significant.

In the 1970s, more than 90,000 Indo-Chinese refugees were resettled in Australia as a result of the Vietnam war. During that decade, Australia first began to adopt a policy called "multiculturalism". The increasing influx of Asian immigrants was also due to the abolition of the "White Australia" policy in 1972 under Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.

As a result of a changing world, many migrants have sought refuge in Australia, which has long been seen as "the lucky country" by both Australians and migrants alike. A country with vast open land, stable political system, temperate climate and strong economy due to its rich and plentiful natural resources, Australia has seen migrants settling in all its major capital cities as a result of the following:

• The end of the Vietnam war in 1975 where large numbers of refugees fled to the Western world and being in close proximity, Australia was a natural choice for many.
• Civil war in East Timor in 1975 forced many East Timorese to Australia.
• Political unrest and massacre in Tiananmen Square in 1989 resulted in Prime Minister Bob Hawke granting residency in Australia to a significant number of Chinese students.
• War in the Balkans in early 1990s resulted in many Serbs, Croats and Bosnian muslims resettling in Australia.
• The Asian crisis in 1997 and subsequent riots in Indonesia saw many Indonesians flee Jakarta to major Australian cities.
• The rise of new Asian economies such as China and India in the last 2 decades has seen waves of skilled migrants from both countries.
• The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in the post September 11, 2001 years.
• Recent political unrest in South African countries such as Sudan and Angola.

As a result of strong migrants numbers in recent years from Asia, Australia has seen an increasing number of inter-racial marriages. These happy unions have resulted in increasing number of mixed-parentage or Eurasian children, where one parent is Anglo-Saxon whilst the other is of an Asian heritage. These children often have beautiful facial features, hair and eye colour which is reminiscent of the combined different features of their parents.

Eurasian children growing up in an Anglo-Asian household are exposed to two very different cultural and social values of their parents. Most civilized and modern cultures will embrace honour and respect, education and nurturing as a parental gift as well as strong family values. In general, Asian cultures may have relatively stronger values in terms of respect for elders such as the perceived benefits of personally caring for aged parents as one of many examples. Parents of Eurasian children growing up in Australia sometimes encourage their children to embrace the good values of both cultures as they recognize the importance and certain distinct advantages over children from single heritage families.

Eurasian children are sometimes bi-lingual or even tri-lingual, speaking English as a first language and having a strong verbal and sometimes written command of a second language such as Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, Korean, Thai, Bahasa, Tagalog or Tamil. Some may even speak dialects of various denominations depending on their mother-tongue. This added dimension and exposure opens up new opportunities as these children grow up in a Western country which has more affinity to Asia on a geographical basis. This is especially so with the rise of China, India and other Asian economies as world economic power houses.

The challenge for Eurasian children growing up in a predominantly western society such as Australia will be to balance the elements of Asian culture being taught at home to what is being experienced in the real world outside. They may be confronted by conflicting notions of cultural and social issues and may have to decide for themselves as to what is deemed correct and appropriate from a social and cultural perspective. Certain Asian roots and norms may pose practical challenges to adopt and embrace in Western society and vice versa.

However, the ability of these Eurasian children to moderate and overcome these challenges as a result of having the benefit of being exposed to two different albeit increasingly similar worlds would perhaps be their greatest strength of all.

May God bless these beautiful children of the world.