Ameya Article

ARTICLE

The Place I Inherited, the Belonging I was Denied
On race, belonging, conditional acceptance and always being an outsider the city you've always called home.

AMEYA JUARIGUE | 20 AUGUST 2026

The White Australia Policy sought to keep Australia “British” and “white” by restricting non-European migration. Yet long before 1901, people of colour had already built lives here and contributed to the country’s infrastructure and economy. Afghan Cameleers , Chinese laborers and black birded Pacific Islanders among many others, helped build Australia while facing discrimination, violence and exclusion.

Under White Australia, racial discrimination became embedded in law and everyday life. The dictation test was deliberately used to exclude migrants, many naturalised citizens and people born in Australia who weren't white were forcefully deported, while those who remained faced segregation and denial of and barriers to employment, housing, healthcare and social support. Indigenous people in this era endured the Stolen Generations, forced assimilation and segregation in the name of Australia's pursuit of a white national identity. Although the White Australia Policy was dismantled by 1973 and the Racial Discrimination Act followed in 1975, its legacy did not disappear overnight and many racial minorities and Indigenous individuals still struggle to gain systematic justice against racism.

Race itself is not fixed. Greeks and Italians are a key example; they were once excluded from the idea of who was fully “white” and faced discrimination. Over time, they were increasingly incorporated into whiteness and accepted as unquestionably Australian. Their experience reminds us that race—and ideas about who belongs—are socially constructed and can change.

PICTURED: Devi and Devji Varsani standing in the streets of Indooroopilly in 1976
IMAGE COURTESY OF D & D VARSANI

My own family sits within this history, and I am often forced to confront it.

My nani and nana, Devji and Devee Varsani, are Gujarati (Kutchi) from a village in India called Madhapar in Bhuj. They grew up when the village wasn’t developed as it is now, and when many people worked as farmers or manual labourers. Neither completed secondary school; both experienced poverty, and both carried family responsibilities from a young age. Their lives were also shaped by the legacies of colonialism, including consequences of partition and conflict between India and Pakistan. During the 1971 Indo-Pakistani War, Bhuj was heavily bombed; they remember the hardship that followed, including helping rebuild the local airstrip.

Migration was already part of our family and community’s history. My great-grandfather worked as a carpenter for Buckingham Palace before eventually joining my nani and nana in Australia. Many Gujaratis travelled and worked throughout the British Empire- some by force and exploitation, some as indentured labourers, and some by choice. In 1972, Dictator Idi Amin's sudden violent forced expulsion of an estimated 60,000–80,000 South Asians from Uganda displaced much of the Gujarati community and left many stateless.

Watching this unfold, and dreaming of a better life, my nani and nana eventually settled in Brisbane in April 1976- the first in their community to move to Australia. They worked blue-collar jobs, built a life here and raised their family.

My lolo and lola, Benjamin and Lina Jaurigue, came from the Philippines. Both were highly educated; my lola was a teacher and my lolo worked in public service. Their lives were also shaped by history of colonial legacy and struggle, war and political upheaval. My lolo especially experienced poverty and adversity, and both my lolo and lola grew up with the harsh, fresh legacy of World War II. The Philippines, just two decades after independence from the United States, also experienced the presidency and martial law of Ferdinand Marcos and the theft of billions of dollars in public funds before his ousting and exile in Hawaii in 1986. They moved to Brisbane with their children with help and sponsorship from my lolo’s sister, shortly after this period, seeking greater stability, quality of life and opportunity.

With support from the Canossian Sisters, my lola became university educated and qualified as a registered nurse, while my lolo worked as a carer. Together, they spent decades working at Canossa Hospital in Oxley and established their family and life here.

PICTURED: Devji and Devi Varsani in the 1980s
IMAGE COURTESY OF D & D VARSANI

Pictured: Rosalina Jaurigue, fondly known as Lola Lina to her grandchildren and family, graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Secondary Teaching from the University of Santo Tomas, Manila, in 1965.

She studied nursing from 1960 to 1962 before pursuing a career in education. She later undertook a Master’s degree in Education but was unable to complete her thesis following her migration to Australia with her family.
IMAGE COURTESY OF BENJAMIN AND ROSALINA JUARIGUE AND THE JUARIGUE FAMILY 1965

Pictured: Benjamin Jaurigue, a 1960 graduate of the University of Santo Tomas, Manila, with a Bachelor’s degree in Secondary Teaching.
IMAGE COURTESY OF BENJAMIN AND ROSALINA JUARIGUE AND THE JUARIGUE FAMILY 1960

When my nani and nana arrived in Brisbane, they found solidarity with Greek and Italian Australians who had experienced discrimination themselves. Yet they have watched over the decades as many of those communities and diasporas became accepted as unquestionably Australian (and unfortunately began to perpetuate racism despite a history of being discriminated against), while they continued to be treated as outsiders because of the colour of their skin.

It is the hypocrisy and conditionality of acceptance that has continued to stick with me, along with many racists’ lack of acceptance of the fact that they too are descended from immigrants unless Indigenous.

My lolo and lola experienced similar racism. As some of the few Filipinos in Brisbane and Queensland at the time, they sometimes felt isolated and burdened by the expectation that they represented an entire community. They worked in healthcare during a period when fears of Australia being “swamped by Asians” were widespread and the community was actively scapegoated.

PICTURED: Fidgel G. Pascual (1919–1946), father of Rosalina Jaurigue.

Following the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898, the Philippines came under American rule. During the Second World War, many Filipinos, including Fidgel G. Pascual, served alongside the United States military. From 1942 to 1945, the Philippines was brutally invaded and occupied by Imperial Japan, during which widespread atrocities and war crimes were committed against the Filipino population.

Many Filipinos continued to serve and fight alongside American forces, driven by the hope of liberating their homeland and by promises of American citizenship, veterans’ welfare, and other benefits that would provide greater security and opportunities for themselves and their families. However, many of these promises were later reduced, delayed, or denied following the war, leaving Filipino veterans to fight for the recognition and benefits they had been promised.
IMAGE COURTESY OF BENJAMIN AND ROSALINA JUARIGUE AND THE JUARIGUE FAMILY 1965

Then, during COVID-19, I experienced that history personally.

Racism was not new to me, I had experienced it all my life. But the pandemic made it impossible to ignore. As a teenager, I remember classmates frequently taunting me. Strangers blamed people who looked like me for the pandemic, spat at us, hurled abuse and assumed our nationality based solely on our appearance. For many Asian Australians, the fear and isolation of that period were deeply personal.

Six years later, the legacy of that racism remains visible. Calls for a return to a White Australia have re-emerged, racial violence and white nationalist movements have become increasingly emboldened, and Indigenous people and Indian Australians continue to be scapegoated at an alarming rate. My family and I, despite being born here and having deep roots in Brisbane, are constantly made to justify our belonging and advocate for ourselves in the face of racial hatred and discrimination. Our nationality and character are frequently assumed on the basis of colour. Our community continues to suffer and fear the consequences of racial hatred and scapegoating.

Despite progress resulting in more multiculturalism, the present echoes the stories my grandparents have carried for decades too closely for comfort.

Yet in the face of fear, heightened adversity and division, I also think about my lolo and lola’s garden, meticulously cared for and filled with tropical fruit and flowers that remind them of home. I think about my nani’s fresh cooking, and the many family customs passed on to me. Despite not being considered the ‘norm’ , my family is part of the Australian story. We have helped shape Brisbane through our work, resilience, culture, and relationships. So have countless families whose histories have too often been overlooked.

I am a third-generation Asian Australian. My experiences have shaped how I understand race, identity and belonging, but they have also taught me something simple: we should not have to prove that we belong to the country we have helped build. Our stories and perspectives should not be forgotten or overlooked. And as a society, we have no right to distinguish between who is and isn’t a ‘ real’ Australian, especially when so many fail to recognise and respect the original Indigenous history of this place and admit their own immigrant histories and ancestry.

No matter how loudly we are questioned, we belong here. And we deserve to be treated as equals.

As a wider society, we owe it to each other to rethink and question what a ' real' local is, educate ourselves and to call out racism and prejudice when we see it. We owe it to eachother to have uncomfortable conversations acknowledging our history , and to recognise and understand how our past shapes our present. We owe it to eachother to advocate for eachother and strive for better. Most importantly, we owe it to eachother to not become victims of historical amnesia in the name of comfort, allowing for cycles to repeat.

PICTURED: The garden of Lina and Benjamin Jaurigue, so loved and cared for and full of fresh produce like calamansi, mangoes, banana, green beans and more.
IMAGE CREDIT AMEYA JUARIGUE 2026

Brisbane. Meanjin. Magandjin. A place with thousands of years of Indigenous culture and history, and just over two centuries of colonial settlement. Once a small country town, now a growing city, constantly reshaped by the people who call it home. A city of contradictions—where gleaming skyscrapers rise beside tent cities, where the urban sprawl and blocks of post war social homes, neglected footpaths and pot hole filled roads coexist with leafy , quiet affluent suburbs with sprawling Queenslanders - all making up enclaves of community. Brisbane is more than a skyline. It is the people who weave together its social fabric—their histories, cultures, memories, and journeys. Some stories are remembered more than others, some people accepted more than others, but every street, every building, every person carries a story. The city continues to change, replacing the old with the new, yet the memories remain. And through every season of change, the river still glistens.

My own relationship with this place continues to evolve. I find myself constantly reflecting on what locality really means—not just what it means to be a local, but what it means to truly belong. For me, locality is deeply intertwined with identity, acceptance, resilience, history, place, and the people who came before me.

My story—my understanding of locality and the way I embody it—begins long before I was born.

It begins with the young, hopeful eyes of my nani and nana, Devji and Devee Varsani, who arrived in Brisbane fifty years ago, having already experienced great levels of adversity in India and the UK and had their community impacted by the forced violent displacement of tens of thousands of Indians from Uganda. They immigrated only months after Australia passed the loosely enforced Racial Discrimination Act, while the legacy of the White Australia Policy still freshly lingered—and in many ways it continues to linger today. They settled in Indooroopilly, then still large plots, cattle farmland and pineapple fields, carrying little more than hope for a better future.

It also begins with my lolo and lola, Benjamin and Lina Jaurigue, who came to Brisbane during a time of political change and instability in the Philippines after the fall of the Marcos regime. Sponsored by my aunty, they arrived with their children in search of stability, opportunity and a future where the generations that followed would not have to endure the hardships they had known.

My nani, nana, lolo and lola planted the seeds. They established the roots from which my connection to this place has grown. They nurtured the tree whose branches I now stand beneath—a tree built from sacrifice, resilience, hope and love, so that future generations, including me, could call this place home and have opportunities they could only dream of.

The beginning of their new chapter here was anything but easy. They reflect on years of hardship and the several hours worked to get by. They speak of racism and prejudice. Of alienation and isolation. They speak of society and the resistance Brisbane had to difference and extreme pressure to assimilate and give up culture and identity. They reflect on decades of change here – from social attitudes and racial dynamics, to the evolving skyline.

And yet, despite how much Brisbane has evolved, some things remain unchanged. I am still asked, "Where are you really from?" I am still aggressively yelled at to "go back to where you came from" more times than I can count. I am still met with the assumption that, because of the colour of my skin, I cannot be a local—a "real" Australian.

In recent years, as anti-Asian and anti-Indian racism has intensified, and as thousands have marched through our streets in the neo-Nazi-linked March for Australia rallies, calling for the return of the White Australia policy, I have found myself questioning how home can sometimes feel as though it does not want me. Especially when, to many, I am seen as Brown and Asian before I am seen as a local—an "other," more vulnerable to racial violence and discrimination, despite being a third-generation Australian whose entire life, community, and upbringing are here in Brisbane, with family roots here stretching back 50 years.

Lola Lina, Ameya Jaurigue, Lolo Ben standing together in their garden. IMAGE COURTESY OF THE JUARIGUE FAMILY

I find myself asking: where exactly am I supposed to go back to?

More importantly, who does society accept as a ‘ real’ local, and why? Why are some people's belonging and roots here questioned more than others? Why must I continue to justify and validate my place in the city and country I have always called home? And ultimately, who gets to decide—and uphold—the standard of who counts as a local?

But when I speak to my grandparents, they remind me that belonging is not something others get to grant or take away. My nani often tells me that the only real Australians are the original Indigenous peoples of this land, and that everyone else is descended from migrants. She reminds me to challenge the assumptions that seek to undermine my place here. My lola's advice is even simpler: "Fight back. You deserve to be here too. You were born here. You belong here just as much as everyone else."

So I do. I find belonging in communities that embrace diversity, particularly Brisbane's creative community. Through my community events and @keeping.brisbane.alive, I create spaces where others can feel seen, safe and connected. I continue to centre the stories Indigenous and racially diverse communities—stories that have too often been forgotten or left untold—because they are the roots that ground my understanding of this place.

To me, locality is not grounded in being accepted by everyone to belong. It is about knowing where your roots lie, honouring those who came before you, and continuing to plant seeds for those who come next.

This is the city that despite historical and present gripes with racism and colonial legacy, allows different cultural communities to interact and thrive together, and create space for people like me- evolving now to have established, diverse, culturally rich places with a variety of diasporas like West End, Darra, Inala and Sunnybank. This is a city where many settle like my grandparents did for a better life and bring their dreams and hopes.

Brisbane is where my story began, where my community continues to grow, and where I will keep choosing to belong.

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