Carolina Ovando

Story

My mother, father, baby sister and I came to Australia to escape the escalating violence and persecution of the Chilean Pinochet dictatorship. My father had suffered incarceration and my mother feared for his life and for our future. They applied to immigrate to Australia after relatives showed them an immigration brochure that I would later have a chance to see amongst my parents’ belongings. It showed a beautiful tanned lady standing on a sunny beach, her wide smile and blond suntanned face were very attractive. But I think at the time my parents only thought to escape and hadn’t really thought too much about the country they were escaping to.

We arrived by plane, the first we had ever taken, and it was daunting for my mother who had me, who was nearly four years old and my sister who was only two and half, to deal with. My parents later told us that Claudia, my sister had been very ill on the plane. The other passengers (all Chilean immigrants) were very supportive and those that could speak English managed to calm my mother by speaking to the cabin crew and eliciting their help. The worry over my sister served to take people’s minds off the trip and band together in mutual support. My parents still keep the friendships made on that journey. My sister had convulsions but a doctor arrived to tend to her, on arrival to Sydney airport.

At the airport something happened that was totally unexpected. A decision was made to send us on to Melbourne. I’m not sure how this happened, perhaps it was a misunderstanding, but the upshot of it was that my parents arrived at Tullamarine airport with a bag full of maps of Sydney and Sydney contacts. They arrived in a city totally foreign to them. Luckily they had their fellow passengers and luckily in those times immigrants were taken to hostels where they received accommodation, childcare for those who wanted it and the chance to take English courses. We ended up in a hostel in Springvale. One of my first memories includes the brightly coloured fishtank in the communal cafeteria of the hostel. Judging from the photos and stories my parents told it was a refuge for them until they were ready to venture out to find work and live out in the community. In time that is exactly what we did.

My family never intended to stay for more than 2 years in this land. But over time as we built a good life here, my parents chose to stay longer. We learned about the culture, sometimes to our embarrassment we found our ways to be very different from our Australian neighbours, but we always found understanding and acceptance from everyone we met. The first time we attended an aussie BBQ we neglected to bring our own snags and meat. Much to my parents mortification, the other guests made sure we were fed and good naturedly teased us about it. We found Australians to be full of openhearted generosity.

My mother eventually became a nurse, and my father found a good secure job at a textile plant, where his mechanical skills were much prized. Our family back in Chile seemed not to be faring as well and soon we had relatives visit and marvel at the ease and opportunity of our adopted country.

More than 20 years later I am proud to call myself Australian and intend to call this place home forever.

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