Colouring In

I like Bernita's blog, she has thoughtful and thought provoking posts on writing, in particular charsters. She gets lots of comments though and I tend to be behind in reading so I don't add my own comments.

This morning I read her entry Color My World.

Now, I can't remember when I first saw someone who was "non-white". Possibly on TV. Traditionally, Tasmania got significantly less immigrants than the rest of the country and they were mostly Poms, Kiwis, Dutch, Italians, Greeks. The native blacks are usually pale-skinned, sometimes even blonde haired & blue eyed. An occasional person from Indonesia, or neighbouring countries. Or Maori. African, African-American, West Indies, people from these places were rare, and usually visiting. When we lived at St Leonards, there was a missionary training college around the corner, just down from the church Mother went to, which attracted a lot of foreigners. At Uni, there were a number of internatinal students, although mostly from eastern Asia.

A monochrome world.

Hobart is a bit more multi-cultural, especially North Hobart, with its restaurants and takeaways and delicatessans (you know, the stereotype of the immigrant family who comes to Australia, opens a corner store/deli which they run with the help of their family, lots of them), and the Greek & Italian clubs the next street over. Still mostly European.

Then somewhere between then and now, about the turn of the century, there was an influx of refugees from Sudan & Eritrea, maybe a third place I can't remember. They were usually very tall, very thin, very dark, sometimes black. Not a small number either. Enough that shops opened selling African good or offering hair styling, the pub I walked past twice a day advertised African food every Thursday night, food like okra started appearing in the supermarket. Enough people to have an impact, in both Hobart and Launceston. I assume it was a deliberate attempt at some level of government to increase the number of young families in Tasmania.

What was once unusual is now commonplace. Not just the Sudanese either. There are a lot of what I assume are Indian families; some Afghans; shorter browner Africans. If I go down the street, into the city, on the bus I expect to see plenty of black or brown faces. It would be strange not too.

Now it's a polychrome world, and so very quickly.