Discrimination remains a problem for migrants, despite growing support for multiculturalism

[ad_1]

After hearing horror stories, Drishti was always aware that she might face racism if she moved to Australia, but she left her home in India and tried her luck anyway.

“A lot of people warned me and said, ‘Australia is not a place we recommend you go to,'” she told the ABC.

“I was like, ‘No, blatant racism doesn’t exist anymore. I’m pretty sure it’ll be fine’.”

As a bright-eyed international student with hopes of starting a career in the media industry, Drishti, who only wants to be known by her first name for fear of repercussions, said she had to take a job to which she was “well overqualified” to help support herself.

She said she believed she faced discrimination and isolation because she was the only woman of color in her workplace.

“I realized that my experiences or what I bring to the table weren’t valued, just because of where I’m from,” she said.

She also had to deal with “toxic managers” who she said made her feel inadequate and different from her other “white” colleagues.

Drishti said an official “harassed” her and logged into her email account without her knowledge.

“He kept calling me and he was like, ‘You have so many emails that are still unread,'” she said.

Drishti’s experience is not uncommon among many migrants living in Australia.

Mapping social cohesion and prejudice towards groups from different immigrant backgrounds remains a challenge, according to a new study from the Scanlon Foundation Research Institute in Melbourne.

Its research found that around one in six people reported experiences of discrimination, based on their skin colour, ethnicity or religion, with results similar to last year’s surveys and 2019.

Almost one in four foreign-born people and more than one in three people who speak a language other than English also reported discrimination in 2022.

Drishti is now taking a strong stance against racism.

“It’s not enough not to be racist. You have to be actively anti-racist,” she said.

She added that it was the responsibility of employers to organize cultural sensitivity training to ensure that international students and migrants could feel like they belonged.

‘Normalized’ microaggressions in the workplaceResearcher James O’Donnell says support for diversity and multiculturalism is growing. (Supplied: James O’Donnell)

Australian National University (ANU) demographer James O’Donnell, who was the project’s lead researcher, said it was not entirely clear why discrimination remained a problem.

“Our evidence suggests that prejudice is decreasing as support for diversity and multiculturalism increases,” Dr O’Donnell said.

“People are more likely to think that multiculturalism has been good for Australia and that immigrants benefit Australian society and economy.”

The chief executive of anti-racism group All Together Now, Stijn Denayer, said he was not surprised by the research results.

“A lot of people don’t want to hear this, but racism runs deep in Australian society,” Mr Denayer said.

He said microaggressions and occasional forms of racism are often normalized in the workplace.

“There needs to be a greater awareness that racism is primarily systemic and not just direct racism and bias between individuals,” he said.

“Why is your rice yellow? Yatha Jain says she first experienced racism in kindergarten.

Yatha Jain’s family emigrated from the Netherlands to Australia when she was six months old.

They had hoped to find a sense of belonging while retaining their Indian culture but, Ms Jains said, they were quickly disappointed.

Although some of the experiences were great, she said, the discrimination they felt for being different stayed with them.

“It only took kindergarten for me to experience racism and realize that maybe Australia isn’t the cohesive multicultural community my parents heard about,” he said. she declared.

Ms Jain said she remembered many experiences of racism at a young age, ranging from comments about what kind of food she would bring for lunch to her friend’s parents making racist jokes.

“People were always like, ‘Oh, what is it? Why does it smell so weird? Why is your rice yellow?’

“Even adults would say things like, ‘Where’s your red dot? Does your mother have a red dot?’

“I remember there was this particular joke, which was actually from the father of a friend of mine. The joke was: how do you blow up an Indian woman? And the answer is press the red button. “

Yatha Jain is now president of Prosper, a non-profit organization that helps children and families from marginalized backgrounds. (Provided)

It wasn’t until Ms Jains stood up for herself at school and spoke out against racism that she felt she had seen a change.

She is now president of Prosper, a non-profit organization that helps children and families from marginalized backgrounds.

“I realized that if I took control and started to define my own narratives and shape what it means to be a person of color or what it means to be a young Indian woman, people would respond and support me,” said she declared.

Having open conversations about racism was what was needed to fight discrimination, she said.

“A lot of the time when you bring up racism, people get really uncomfortable and defensive, because nobody wants to be called a racist,” she said.

“We’re not going to change anything until we start talking about it openly.”

Discrimination reduces sense of belonging Zara was mistaken for an international student, despite being born in Australia. (Provided)

ZaraLibao, who asked to be referred by analias, worked for a public relations firm but said she decided to quit because of the treatment she faced.

She said the racism and microaggressions she experienced in her workplace were never addressed, although they were escalated to her manager.

On one occasion, at a large business event, she said she saw her co-workers making fun of one of the servers who was serving them food.

“While being served by East Asian servers, [they] pulled the corners of their eyes back and spoke in a racist Asian accent, similar to the character IY Yunioshi from the movie Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” she said.

If you or someone you know needs help:

She also faced racism from customers.

“Clients I meet for the first time, commenting on my Australian ‘belonging’ status saying things like, ‘It must be hard to be an international student’ and brushing it off when I correct their assumption explaining that I was born and raised here,” she says.

“Ultimately, it was a culture where I knew that even if I had been hired through a diversity program that they had paid for, I would never really fit in.”

Dr O’Donnell said research on social cohesion has found that a sense of belonging is also significantly lower among people who experience discrimination.

He said tackling social and economic inequality was an important part of creating a better sense of belonging.

“Other priorities include better public messaging that tackles rather than exacerbates stereotypes and harmful attitudes towards different groups and supports social and community events,” he said.

[ad_2]