Wanted: migrant hostel memorabilia

By Shaun Inguanzo
CALLING ALL residents who once stayed at the Enterprise Migrant Hostel in Springvale – your memorabilia and stories could help form part of an historic exhibition of state significance.
A small group of people who once worked with or at the hostel is preparing an Enterprise Hostel exhibition for Melbourne’s Immigration Museum, to be unveiled in 2008.
The hostel was famed for housing up to 1000 new immigrants at one time during Victoria’s wave of immigration in the 1960s, ’70s and early ’80s.
Organiser Merle Mitchell, a former director of the Springvale Community Aid and Advice Bureau, said the exhibition would include memorabilia and video interviews with former residents of the hostel.
“It is interesting to talk to people, including Greater Dandenong mayor Youhorn Chea, who resided for 12 months at Enterprise,” Ms Mitchell said.
“He said it helped him to settle in Australia and that he regrets it is closed.
“That same sort of assistance is not given (nowadays) with the current immigration schemes in place.”
The hostel was located on Westall Road, and was closed in 1992 because of a policy shift towards integrating migrants into residential housing.
Ms Mitchell said the Immigration Museum on Flinders Street, Melbourne, offered community spaces for temporary exhibitions.
She said her group was after memorabilia and peoples’ stories for the project.
“For example, most people thought the food was terrible so they used to buy rice cookers or little fry pans or little stoves,” she said.
“If anyone still had one of those, it would be terrific to add to the exhibit.”
Ms Mitchell said Enterprise had flaws but its benefits outweighed any problems.
“It wasn’t paradise but it was place where people could feel safe and be in one place to get all the health care they needed,” she said.
“Doctors, nurses, and social workers were all there on site and just made such a difference to the settlement process.”
The hostel has now been demolished, and in its place is a retirement village. Ms Mitchell said she had contacted the village for any hostel memorabilia found on site but there was none.
Ms Mitchell is looking for photographs, children’s toys, diaries kept, registration forms, books, menus, health service records and any other materials relating to peoples’ stay at Enterprise.
To contribute to the project, phone Merle Mitchell on 9558 4163.