"Every Third Person...'

My mother was Swedish.  She grew up in a very small town in northern Wisconsin where everyone was either Scandinavian or Irish.  No diversity at all.  Now, Mom came from a farm family background and, in those days, each family had scads of children!  After all, they helped with the farm chores and helped, later on, to support the large families.  In fact, 12 to 15 children, at the time, was not unusual.  And Mother's family started branching out.  Yes, the farm was the central gathering place, but her uncles became doctors, dentists, even merchants (although I'm not sure where the "chiefs" went!).  Her father, although he and his brothers worked the farm, also taught school at a one-room school.

But he had great hopes for his only daughter.  So Mother went to River Falls State College and her last two years she transferred to the University of Wisconsin in Madison, although her father had passed on with pneumonia (no antibiotics at that time)!  And the money from the sale of the farm went into Mom's education -- where she met my dad and, well, you know the rest.  THe point of this is to tell you that Mom was well educated and quite intellectual, being an English and Speech teacher.

BUT, my mother was prejudiced. Not about African Americans. Not about Eastern Europeans. Maybe about Norwegians ("they are Swedes with their brains knocked out," said my great uncles!) It was only Asians -- or as she called them,  "third persons".  And regardless of their backgrounds, if they were Asian they were "Chinese". Be patient.  We'll get to Australia soon.  You need the background first.

  When I was old enough to go to college, also at the University of Wisconsin, we were driving around the campus one day in the 1960's, peering out the car window at the teeming humanity from all over the world, and Mom huffed, "It seems every third person is Chinese!" She was probably right, because Wisconsin is so large that it attracts people from all cultures, even more so today.  And I like to excuse a bit of this because of Mom's lack of diversity when she was growing up.  But, for many years after that trip, we would tease her about "third persons".  She didn't mean just Chinese -- it was all Asians and she would turn up her Swedish nose, feeling probably that she was being pushed aside by those "third persons."

What I learned today in Sydney is that probably more than half the population is "3rd persons."  This is such a diverse society, such a mix of cultures, that Mom would have collapsed!  The brightness of the city, its youth, its exciting atmosphere comes in large part from the absorbing all these cultures.

So when I read that, until 1970's, there was a ban on non-European immigrants moving to Australia, it was a bit of a shock.  You see, there was a gold rush in the 1850's and the Aussies saw those industrious Chinese digging up "their gold" and wrote up their law, preventing more Asians from coming here.  Sounds like the US, with the Chinese being banned after building the railroads.  What a mistake we have all made.  What a change has occurred when all cultures mix and share!!
Mom might be huffing less today.  I certainly hope so!! Our countries are so much richer with all the diversity of cultures we share.  Think about foods we have absorbed in our culture: sushi, sashimi, tabboulah, pad thai, haggis, challah, hummus, yakitori, falafel and on and on.  It's all good! And I am beginning to wonder if those "third persons"  in Asian countries have become WE WESTERNERS.  And little Chinese grandmothers are huffing at the influx of us in their countries!!  TUrnabout's fair play, don't you think.