Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow: Meeting the Challenge of Our Multicultural America & Beyond The Folks Down Under (from pages 232-234)

One of the world's seven continents and the South Pacific's largest land mass, Australia tends to be the best known of the "down under" nation. A different array of animals, including kangaroos and koala bears, make their home exclusively in Australia. Most of the Australian people tend to congregate in the urban Pacific coastal areas. During World War II, American General Douglas MacArthur traveled to Australia from the Philippines and later led the liberation of much of the area including the Philippines, resulting in the defeat of Imperial Japan. But Australian troops played a key role in both world wars and in the Korean, Vietnam, and Persian Gulf Wars.

Most Polynesian islanders didn't venture to Australia before the Dutch and British reached its shores. But historical reports about Europeans' first sightings and the first Dutch landing on the continent vary. One book notes Australia's partial discovery in 1623. Another says the Dutch visited Australia in the I8th Century. Yet the land and the aborigines--indigenous people whose ancestors may have arrived from Southeast Asia thousands of years ago--were generally left undisturbed until Captain James Cook claimed the eastern coast for England in 1770. Australia's exploration, however, led to displacement and total annihilation of aborigine settlers in certain areas. Few minorities retained ownership of their original lands.

Many Europeans--often prisoners or members of the English army--settled in the British colonies that eventually developed into the cities of Sydney, Brisbane, and Hobart. But by 1851, the discovery of gold on the continent created a rapid increase in immigration. Europe's practice of shipping convicts to Australia finally ended in 1868.

In 1901, six colonies formed the federation called the Commonwealth of Australia. Today, the British culture predominates in daily life, but the Australian people vary as people do on the other world continents. Thanks to Crocodile Dundee, people all over the world are developing a new interest in the continent and its vast and varied terrains, including the great expanse of the outback.

The well-educated Australian people live in fairly upscale surroundings. For a while, Australia was the richest nation in the world. But like so many places where economic disparity exists, a great majority of the 150,000 Aboriginal Australians live in abject poverty and have become detribalized.

Australia's High Court, however, has passed laws to protect the nation's indigenous peoples from racial discrimination (1975) which led to The Native Title Act 1993, safeguarding traditional land rights of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and rejecting earlier claims "that Australia was terra nullius (a land belonging to no-one at the time of European settlement)." According to a July 1994 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade fact sheet, "Australian law should not, as one judge said, be 'frozen in an era of racial discrimination. 'Its decision in the Mabo case ended the pernicious legal deceit of terra nullius for all of Australia--and for all time."

Torres Strait Islander Eddie Mabo, a member of the Murray Island Meriam people, and four other islanders sought "court action against the Queensland State Government seeking confirmation of their traditional landrights." The Mabo court decision led to Australia's efforts to right the wrongs against the indigenous peoples, politically and symbolically affecting the entire nation. "The 1992 High Court decision ... and ... The Native Title Act 1993 have had a major effect on indigenous land rights and the way Australians think about their nationhood in the context of 'native title."'

In the years prior to 1973, extremely restrictive immigration to Australia left few doors open for people whose cultures may have varied from the people already present there. When these practices ceased, new waves of immigrants, especially from Asia, encouraged the development of a more global economy.

This book is available through several bookstores online, including Amazon.com as well as through the publisher Caddo Gap Press.