Written by Emma, Tiana and Miss Andrews

On Monday, 2nd March, we went to the Migration Museum to learn more about Australia’s migration history.

We began our guided tour outside of the museum where we looked at the pavers, which had names of migrants recorded on them. There were also a number of plaques dedicated to different communities that had either migrated to South Australia or died as a result of wars. 

  

  

The first room we visited was called “Interned: Torrens Island 1914 – 1915”. We saw photographs of the internment camp that was on Torrens Island. It opened soon after World War I started. We learned about how foreign nationals were interned there, and saw a replica tent that they would have slept in.

Our next stop was to the Al-Ahwaz display. There are about 500 Ahwazi refugees living in Adelaide due to being persecuted by the Iranian government.

 

 

We discussed the White Australia Policy that was in place between 1901 and 1958. We found out that Australia only wanted a specific kind of person migrating during these years: Caucasians, who were from the Church of England religion. To stop people that they did not want from migrating, they would give them a dictation test in English (or in a different European language if the person was fluent in English). However, people with money were sometimes allowed to migrate to Australia.

   

 

Lastly, we spent some time looking through the 20th and 21st Century Immigration galleries. 

  

 

 

 

We had a great time and learned so much at the museum!