Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- 1 Introduction: Transcultural Studies in Australian Identity
- 2 Remembering Aboriginal Sydney
- 3 Files and Aboriginal Lives: Biographies from an Archive
- 4 Writing, Femininity and Colonialism: Judith Wright, Hélène Cixous and Marie Cardinal
- 5 The Staging of Social Policy: The Photographing of Post-War British Child Migrants
- 6 Writing Home from China: Charles Allen's Transnational Childhood
- 7 Australian? Autobiography? Citizenship, Postnational Self-Identity and the Politics of Belonging
- 8 A Nikkei Australian Story: Legacy of the Pacific War
- 9 Displaced Persons (1947–52) in Australia: Memory in Autobiography
- 10 Between Utopia and Autobiography: Migrant Narratives in Australia
- 11 Vietnamese–Australian Life Writing and Integration: The Magazine for Multicultural and Vietnamese Issues
- 12 Heroes, Legends and Divas: Framing Famous Lives in Australia
- List of Contributors
- Index
11 - Vietnamese–Australian Life Writing and Integration: The Magazine for Multicultural and Vietnamese Issues
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 May 2018
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Figures
- 1 Introduction: Transcultural Studies in Australian Identity
- 2 Remembering Aboriginal Sydney
- 3 Files and Aboriginal Lives: Biographies from an Archive
- 4 Writing, Femininity and Colonialism: Judith Wright, Hélène Cixous and Marie Cardinal
- 5 The Staging of Social Policy: The Photographing of Post-War British Child Migrants
- 6 Writing Home from China: Charles Allen's Transnational Childhood
- 7 Australian? Autobiography? Citizenship, Postnational Self-Identity and the Politics of Belonging
- 8 A Nikkei Australian Story: Legacy of the Pacific War
- 9 Displaced Persons (1947–52) in Australia: Memory in Autobiography
- 10 Between Utopia and Autobiography: Migrant Narratives in Australia
- 11 Vietnamese–Australian Life Writing and Integration: The Magazine for Multicultural and Vietnamese Issues
- 12 Heroes, Legends and Divas: Framing Famous Lives in Australia
- List of Contributors
- Index
Summary
Vietnamese– Australian stories have attracted significant public interest in the last few years, particularly with the success of Anh Do's The Happiest Refugee (2010). When this book won a raft of Australian literary awards in 2011, it quickly became a bestseller and was selected for book-group discussions across the country. By the end of 2011 Do had been engaged by the Australian government's Department of Immigration to deliver a motivational speech to selected detention centre staff – with the view that his family's story of escape from Vietnam, their subsequent adaptation to migrant life and their eventual making good in Australia would provide department employees with ‘valuable insight on refugee issues and how people are accepted into the Australian community’ (Benson 2011). Also in 2011, Anh Do and his wife, Suzanne Do, co-authored a children's picture book, The Little Refugee (2012), which was distributed to schools throughout southwestern Sydney during Refugee Week in 2012, along with an activity kit for classroom use (Roads-to-Refuge 2012). Do, who was already well known through his numerous television appearances before publication of his book, had enormous success in 2012 with a two-episode television program, Anh Does Vietnam, its broadcast providing a sizable ratings boost for Channel 7 (Enker 2012; Vickery 2013). In the same year Do began touring a theatre adaptation of the stories from his book, titled The Happiest Refugee: Live (Hook 2012), which in 2014 made a second national tour. Since publication, The Happiest Refugee has sold over 150,000 copies, and there are now plans for a feature film based on the book, with Russell Crowe having secured the film rights (Steger 2011). This apparent enthusiasm by the Australian public for the narratives of a refugee family from Vietnam is in no small part because of Do's status and reputation as a comedian familiar to many Australians through television and film. While Do's popularity has made him a very successful media personality, even a celebrity, he is but one of many Vietnamese– Australians who have made their mark on Australian life.
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- Information
- Migrant NationAustralian Culture, Society and Identity, pp. 201 - 212Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2017