Encyclopedia of Australia
Date Published
: discrimination / racism, White Australia policy (WAP)
: Sydney
: Sydney
: 1925
An example of the capacity of white Australians to imagine their history and heritage as white, regardless of their actual history and heritage.
Encyclopaedia of Australia
The Australian Encyclopaedia, published by Angus and Robertson in 1925 is remarkable for its entry under Chinese. This entry merely says: See Immigration Restriction. Under that heading is an essay by Myra White detailing the history of the Immigration Restriction Act and its links to the White Australia Policy. In other words, as far as the writers of this encyclopedia were concerned, the many thousands of Chinese who came to Australia, including the many who stayed and married often white women were of no account except as participants in the efforts of white Australians to keep them out. This attitude of more or less systematic, if unconscious whitewashing, was as essential to the White Australia Policy as its legislative elements.
Encyclopaedia of Australia
