Anglo-Chinese Australians

[helen]

Paper trails
Anglo-Chinese Australians and the White Australia Policy

Kate Bagnall
ABSTRACT
This paper discusses the overseas travels of Australians of Anglo-Chinese descent in the early decades of the 20th century. It explores their experience of overseas travel and their negotiation of bureaucratic processes under the White Australia Policy.
In the early 20th century, Anglo-Chinese Australians travelled overseas, primarily to Hong Kong and China, on holidays, for education, business and to visit family. Like other ‘non-white’ Australians, they were subject to the regulations of the Immigration Restriction Act 1901, under which they did not have an automatic right of return to Australia, even though they were Australian-born British subjects.
Australia’s early immigration regulations were designed to keep out unwanted ‘non-white’ arrivals, most famously through use of the Dictation Test, and the legislation was not clear on how officials should deal with those who were both Australian-born and of mixed race. Consequently, over the following decades officials developed a set of administrative practices in which their ideas of community belonging and cultural knowledge, as well as race, determined the outcomes of cases involving Anglo-Chinese Australians. The development of these administrative practices was an iterative process, where officials responded to the actions of Chinese and Anglo-Chinese Australians who, in turn, responded to and negotiated changing legislation and government policies.


chineseaustralia.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Bagnall_Paper-trails_WCILCOS-2012.pdf

[geoff]

"In the early 20th century, Anglo-Chinese Australians travelled overseas, primarily to Hong Kong and China, on holidays, for education, business and to visit family. Like other ‘non-white’ Australians, they were subject to the regulations of the Immigration Restriction Act 1901"

These Certificates of Domicile, Certificates of Emempting from Dictation Test & Register of Births (for those born in oz but travelling overseas) are the greatest sources of information for my research. Both sides of my family had resided in Australia well before 1901. So when they decided to take trips back to China from 1902-1950's their information & photos have been archived waiting for me to access. For example, in 1902 they were issued with number 52 & number 55 certificates.....so closely dated but they didn't even know each other until nearly 50 years later when my parents married. ...or did they? It might have been an inconvenience to provide so much information then but a rich source of information for researchers.


I have found archived Naturalisations dated 1881 for the first to arrive on both sides.....& later their photos. Have even found trips that the family had forgotten about in oral history. Also some relatives who came to work here & later returned to China. These trips were to visit family in China, to bring brides to Australia & for business purposes.

[helen]

Hi Geoff - I think that Australia has more information than NZ. Your are lucky to have found all the information that you have to date. See you Saturday