Preview

Komninos Zervos and Ahn Do’s Experience of Identity in Multicultural Australia

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
646 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Komninos Zervos and Ahn Do’s Experience of Identity in Multicultural Australia
Essay-
Question- What do we learn from Komninos Zervos and Ahn Do’s experience of identity in multi-cultural Australia and how are their ideas effectively expressed?

Both the poem and the interview emphasise the importance of treating people equally whatever their background. To stay positive and treat people with respect no matter what. Slang and personal anecdotes/family anecdotes are being used in Adam Hills interview with Ahn do and in the poem ‘Nobody calls me a wog anymore’ by Komninos Zervos.

‘ Nobody calls me a wog anymore’ by Komninos Zervos explores the importance of being proud of who you are no matter what background is. The poem emphasises the challenges faced moving to Australia with a different background and how to overcome those challenges throughout every day life aswell as Adam Hill’s interview with Ahn Do emphasises the proudness and gratefulness he has for moving being who he is and for having people around him that made his life so much better. This is explored in the quote “Mum and dad use to teach us to be grateful for everything, infact they used the boat trip as an example and told us you could have been dead, now that were alive, make it worth something kids”. Both texts also demonstrate self-belief and confidence in facing those who may be biased or racist and that people from other backgrounds aren’t any different to anyone else , an example of how this is shown in Komninos Zervos’ poem is “I’m an ozzie too, just like you, fair dinkum ridgy didge a dinky die true blue” . This quote has the use of slang to outline the poet’s sense of humour throughout the poem also.

Being proud of who you are is important to both Ahn Do and Komninos Zervos as they express their feelings in personal and family anecdotes. Ahn Do uses a sense of humour in the interview with the clothes that people from Vinnies had given their family as a gift to welcome them into Australia and given them girls clothing to wear and the photograph that was

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    This report will be examining the impact that stereotypical contradictions have on the development of the Australian Identity. In a variety of ways stereotypical contradictions are one of the most significant topics to discuss when talking about the concept of the development of the Australian Identity. The research process of this report focused on newspaper articles written by Australian and non-Australian journalist showing their perspective on Australian identity. Also the works of major Australian pop culture icons such as Steve Irwin, Crocodile Dundee, Men at Work and Priscilla Queen of the Desert have also been analytically focused upon. The findings of the report show that there are definitely stereotypical contradictions prevalent within not only Australia but also the rest of the world who participate. These contradictions are shown to have negative and positive implications on Australia’s development of its identity.…

    • 1603 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Better Essays

    The “Happiest Refugee” is the official autobiography of the Australian comedian Anh Do. The book is based around his life story starting in Vietnam and then becoming a fascinating story about his triumphs and darkest hours. Anh and his family went through many challenges as depicted in his text and these included the struggles Ahn faced at St Aloysius School, thereby depicting his social context. Ahn Do's journey over to Australia was also conveyed through the use of descriptive and emotive language and depicted his social and historical context. Another struggle was how survived by using some strong survival instincts, Ahn conveys this through the use of descriptive, characterisation by the use of thought and dialogue and the use of emotive…

    • 1488 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    There are many different ways of living in our Multicultural Australian Society, but is there a right one? You could be either rich or poor, Catholic or Christian, skinny or fat, popular or unpopular, all of which are different ways of living. The poems which Komninos composes, the article written by Laura Demasi and the television show Big Brother, all explore the aspects of living in an Australian society and the affects they have on people.…

    • 1083 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The migrant experience describes an individual’s change form one social context to another. Such a vast difference of results in a complicated confrontation of values. Hence a sense of belonging lies inherent in the individual’s ability to marry or reconcile identity with their social environment. Raimond Gaita’s semi-autobiographical memoir Romulus, My Father and the Australian’s feature article Alice Pung on New Australians both explore the difficulties faced when immigrating and how a new found sense of belonging occurs through a transformation of identity and values. John Marsden and Shawn Tan’s picture book The Rabbits use the graphical and written to demonstrate the loss of identity due to a loss…

    • 651 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Gaining a sense of ‘belonging’ is a universal need but an individual quest, which some achieve and some do not”. Discuss this statement in relation to your prescribed text and two other related texts. The texts “Immigrant chronicles” composed by Peter Skrzynecki, the article “Coming Home” By John Van Tiggelan and the 4-framed cartoon “Patriotism” illustrated by Cathy Wilcox, all develop an idea of how belonging is not only a common need but an individual’s mission that may or may not be attained in society. Each text develops understanding for the notions of alienation, nationalistic pride and the concept of ‘home’ through the use of several distinct elements that portray thorough meaning in relation to belonging in Australian society.…

    • 455 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    An integral aspect of Australian identity is undeniably mateship..Honourable justice Michael Kirby described mateship as one of the four “ virtues of the peculiar egalitarian society which grew up (in Australia) in the wake of convict transportation.(Reardon Judith ,2003).…

    • 173 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Cultural diversity and acceptance are freely espoused as the key tenets of the Australian identity, however what ensued at Cronulla in 2005 is a smear upon our egalitarian ideals. It is in this light that the documentary sets out to explicitly highlight how fragile race relations remain in Australia’s multicultural hotpots.…

    • 999 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Her childhood was filled with memories such as "[camping] out often". In page 9 and 10 Ellie compares her life to her friend Fiona's saying; "unlike us rurals, she [lives] in town and spends more time playing piano then drenching sheep or marking lambs". Ellie is a genuine rural. Throughout the book Ellie also exhibits another element of Australian Identity, a fighting spirit. Many times she is pushed to the limits and comes up with brilliant plans and keeps going in desperate and tough times whcih ensure her friends and her own survival, for example the time when Ellie bravely stepped into the light of the car park to see what was going o ndown at the show…

    • 119 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    This material has been reproduced and communicated to you by or on behalf of the…

    • 2942 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    If we were to base Australia’s modern identity off these ideas of the beautiful, romanticised outback, and Chris Hemsworth-like bush rangers, it would be a hugely inaccurate reflection of who we truly are. So what ideas and text would reflect a diverse Australian voice? Henry Lawson and Les Murray are authors whose…

    • 688 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Our identity can be constructed by the experiences and individuals we encounter throughout life. The poems; “The Black Drunkard” by Kevin Gilbert, “African Beggar” by Raymond Tong, and the Image “Homeless” by Daniel Heller all reveal how society can manipulate identity to a point where an individual is no longer themselves but the view of society.…

    • 625 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Although aspects of a distinct Australian identity had been forming, by federation in 1901, it had not yet fully emerged. There were many reasons for this, mainly because of the ‘crimson thread of kinship’ with Britain.…

    • 1239 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Australian Identity

    • 1628 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Australian identity refers to how a country is depicted as a whole whilst encompassing its culture, traditions, language and politics. Australia is the smallest, youngest continent with the lowest population density, which often struggles to define its national identity. As Australia originates from British descent, it lacks originality in culture and heritage. One aspect as portrayed by Tim Winton in his narrative style article Tide of Joy is an Australian identity revolving around summer by the sea with family. Danny Katz emphasises the difference between those considered ‘worthy’ of celebrating Australia Day and those that do not meet the criteria in his editorial Aussie, Aussie, Aussie? No, No, No. These two texts help to define the open-ended question of, ‘How do we define Australian identity?’ However, the texts both represent a narrow range of individuals in Australian society and therefore by reading these two texts alone, it is a rather biased view of the Australian stereotype.…

    • 1628 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    This essay will argue that tolerance has had major influence on our Australian National Identity through aspects such as, multiculturalism, our wide variety of Religious beliefs and practices, the acceptance of sexual identities and a vast range of Political issues. Australia is a country known to have traits such as, fair go, stoicism, larrikinism and most importantly mateship, which reflects our high tolerance on many issues. Tolerance is defined as ‘the capacity for or the practice of recognizing and respecting the beliefs or practices of others’.…

    • 995 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Citizen: An American Lyric by Claudia Rankine is a unique and complex book made of lyric poems that focuses on various topics of racism, identity and prejudice. With the piece of writing being a set of various lyric poems, the content can be hard to unpack but Rankine makes certain that even if the reader misses all the subliminal messages, they will certainly be able to understand the common themes inside the writing. I will analyze this piece by interpreting the themes that I understood from the book. One of the book’s themes is also a great commonality, identity, or as Rankine labels it the “Historical self and the self self” (Rankine 14). The “self self” is something that we experience, change, and form every day, and that can range from…

    • 1240 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics