Welcome to Community Voices, a new column celebrating Greater Dandenong’s diverse and vibrant people and lifestyles. Each month a guest columnist will share their view of life in Dandenong and the issues affecting our many cultures and communities. This month, Springvale comedian and community worker DIANA NGUYEN embraces her Vietnamese heritage.
WHENI was little, I never drew pictures of me with yellow-coloured skin. It was always a big face and small body with pink skin.
I only realised I was yellow when Pauline Hanson came to Dandenong in 1997 and people threw eggs at her. In my shattered young world it was now white versus yellow. And gradually from being a naive little girl, I became a banana.
Being a banana is easy. I couldn’t change my physical features but I could change my internal self. I started to peel off the layers and be white all over.
I remember a holiday in Vietnam — I cried because my skin was getting darker and so I heavily slip-slop-slapped on the sunscreen.
I adopted the Hawks and the Australian cricket team, because it is an Aussie thing to do, and also my only opportunity to hang out with boys around the TV.
I remember yelling at an AFL game on TV, and mum came stomping in thinking something terrible had happened because Vietnamese girls don’t do that.
I spoke with an Aussie accent and limited Vietnamese. Imagine: a teenager sitting in a Vietnamese Level 1 classroom with six-year-olds.
I peeled that layer off. I peeled off the academic layer, and became an actor. All I wanted was to belong, and I identified myself as being Australian, not Vietnamese.
Today this banana has ripened. Very much yellow on the outside, and not too tough on the inside.
Not long ago I spoke to Wellington Secondary College students about identity and told them how I regret peeling off my mother’s language. I wish I had seen through my stubbornness and embraced my language.
I enjoy my Aussie sunshine tan, because hey, I’m in my mid-20s and a tan looks good with beautiful long, black hair. I’m still an actor, but I also work with newly arrived refugees and young migrants in the south-eastern suburbs.
I empathise with the new kids on the block, how it must feel to adapt to a new world. Imagine sitting in an English classroom for the first time at the age of 16.
Imagine no one understands you, and your community is represented by colour and not the stories you have to share.
Maybe peeling off the skin has led me to where I am today. I can now share my own stories, but also the stories in our community.
Today I am Vietnamese Australian and maybe tomorrow Australian Vietnamese.
What do you think? Post a comment below.
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