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Showing posts from August, 2016

Bigotry is Ugly

  I am the daughter of migrants. My parents migrated from Poland to Australia in the 80’s during a big movement of Europeans migrating to Australia. They arrived in Melbourne, after claiming asylum in Austria under social and economic distress. Their story, which I only heard in full a few years ago, still blows my mind away. My parents left Poland during a time where there was much unrest in their country. Communist rule governed the nation. There were national curfews in place, food and housing restriction and control. You could get stopped on the street at any time by the police and they could arrest you and didn't need to let your family know where you were. If you were out in public after 10pm, you had better had a good reason; otherwise there was the possibility of being arrested and detained. Waiting in line for food for hours upon hours was the norm. Not being allowed to own a business for longer than 7 years and then handing back your livelihood to the government was st